Tag: Painting

Pillow Palooza

Published on by Our Humble Abode24 Comments

Up until yesterday, we still had very summery weather.  I’m a little late, but I’ve started decorating for fall.  Usually I don’t go all out on seasonal decorating, but I like to switch up a few things.  I started with new fall colored pillows for the couch.  Thus, pillow palooza was born.

Red doesn’t often make an appearance in our house.  However, I can’t get enough coral lately.  Spurred by a towel I bought for the bathroom, I figured dark coral and gray could replace red nicely.

I happened to have half a yard of light gray duck cloth in my stash, so I cut it to an 18 inch square piece.  Wanting a simple design, I taped off two-inch wide random stripes.  Then I mixed up a batch of dark coral using apple red, orange, and a dose of pale pink.  Painting went quickly, covering in one coat.

Peeling off the tape is such a fun moment.  A few areas of bleed through, but nothing terrible.  Definitely fun color.

For something even more fall-ish, I had the idea to add a leaf design to a pillow.  Preferably, I would have used fabric for the leaves, but I had my heart set on metallic.  Sadly, our little fabric stores don’t carry much in the good-looking metallic department.  Again, I turned to craft paint, this time in a metallic copper finish.    Freehand leaves appear to fall and settle at the bottom.

Later, I went back and added a few metallic gold leaves, too.  Yellow is a great fall color, so I kept the fun Target pillow.

For the other side of the couch, I started dip dyed a piece of natural colored canvas in a tangerine dye bath.  Just a simple dip and wiggling to get an ombre-ish pillow.

To incorporate orange, yellow, and gray to temper the bright colors, I had my heart set on a triangle pattern pillow.  I cut a 7 inch equilateral triangle template from card stock, then traced it to scrap fabric left over from other projects.

Pinning the pieces together to create a line of triangles.

After completing the strips, I sewed them to each other.  Randomly placed colors made a fun mix.

Of course the yellow arrow pillow fit in, so it’s still around.

So that’s our fall-ified couch.  Nothing ground breaking, but I’m happy with a change.  Both the pillows and weather.

What have you been changing up?  New pillows?  A fall mantle?  How do you incorporate fall colors in your home?

Painting on Jersey Shore

Published on by Our Humble Abode7 Comments

Um, not the show Jersey Shore that I refuse to watch for fear I’d have three brain cells left.  Or even the geographic location of the Jersey shore.  I’m talking about a little painting project the boys and I did yesterday that vaguely resembles modern sports jerseys.  Back when we still lived at our first house, I made magazine ad artwork for the boys’ bedroom.

Great colors, fun animals, and free, in a word, love.  But neither of my boys are babies anymore.  Vincent is Rubik’s cube loving, movie quoting, bike riding five-year old.  And Everett’s a jump on/off/to everything, dirt digging, Matchbox car racing two and a half-year old.  The baby-ish artwork didn’t match their personalities anymore.  Five cluttered looking frames weren’t working for me either, so I set out to make free, personalized art involving the kids.

I found two still in the package 16 by 20 inch canvases in the basement, begging to be used.  Then I opened Photoshop and typed 21 and 25, Vincent and Everett’s birth dates and changed the fonts until I found one I liked best.  Museo Slab, if you’re wondering.  To make the art look less like a jersey, I decided to overlap the number slightly for a more artistic look.

I considered tracing the numbers, taping off everything and letting the boys paint, but that seemed like too much work.  Instead, I flipped the numbers to make a mirror image, printed on card stock, and cut them out.

The boys each painted their number using acrylic paints.

Once the paint dried, I flipped the numbers over and stuck plenty of rolled tape on.  In another attempt to make these look less like sports attire, I placed the numbers in the bottom left corner, rather than the center.

V stuck with greens and yellow for his.

Then went color crazy by adding various blues to the mix on E’s number.

I like that these are personal and were as easy as printing, cutting, and painting numbers.  And we can just as easily pull the numbers off and paint something on the canvases if we get bored.

I might use stronger tape though because the thick card stock is kind of warped from the paint.

If not for my free goal, I would have preferred square canvases, perhaps 24 by 24 inches.

Like I said, we can easily change this down the line.  For now, I’m really happy with the white space versus painted design.  And fonts/numbers are always good in my book.

Now I’m curious, what do you have as art over beds?  Whether kids, yours, or a guest bed.  Do you prefer single larger pieces?  Or a grouping of smaller ones?  Perhaps, you’re a font/number geek?  Let’s unite!

P.S.  In response to our recent survey (which you can still fill out here), several commenters suggested bigger, brighter pictures.  For larger pictures, click on the photo.  Are these brighter/bright enough/too bright?

Puttin’ On My Painting Clothes

Published on by Our Humble Abode17 Comments

Welp, over the last four days I did a lot of prep and painting.   Thought it may not look like I did.  You know, the main bathroom is deceptively large and then factor in the trim detail I had to work with.  It took most of my weekend, but we’re one step closer to a finished bathroom.  Last weekend, Ben installed most of the trim.  He finished up on Tuesday, installing the cap and details around the vanity.  I spent a few hours filling nail holes and caulking the seams on Wednesday.  After that, I packed up the boys and we took a trip to the lumber yard to search for the perfect crown molding.  Five samples came home with me, but I had a clear favorite.  That one, at the top of the pile.

Ben agreed, and it was the second cheapest option.  Hooray!  Thursday I sanded everything and started priming.  Then on Friday I put on the first coat of white paint.  After our home-made waffle breakfast, our little family made another trip to the lumber yard to buy our crown molding to finish off the bathroom.  Ben installed it once we got home.  Of course that gave me more nail holes to fill and seams to caulk, but the end was in sight.  While letting the caulk dry, I put a second coat of white on the lower half.  Bright and early on Sunday morning, I sanded the crown and gave it a quick, heavy coat of white.  Luckily, one coat covered the crown completely, so I let that dry and worked on the entertainment center.  (More on that project soon!)  Then I taped off the white trim to give the walls and ceiling a second coat of gray.  And so I did.  Because I worked my butt off to get this all done, I thought it be best to tell you every detail of the process so you feel like you’ve painted with me.  Haha.  I told you all of that to show you this; our (almost) finished bathroom.

While I’m biased, I’m completely in love.  And it’s nice to see the trim one color.  So much whiter and brighter.

We’ve got a few little things to do, like build faux drawers for the vanity, paint the door (which means the rest of the doors in the house will get painted as well-I think I’ve landed on a color), and spray paint the fan cover.

The rest is d.o.n.e.  As I mentioned, Ben and I had a few disagreements about trim placement.  Lucky for me, he agreed to add 1/4 inch detail trim around the side of the linen closet.

The rest of the room has a decorative trim (which also functions to hide the peeled sheet rock).

The same trim wraps around the vanity acting as a back splash.

Details make me happy.  While this trim is simple, I think it works well with the modern meets traditional aesthetic we’re going for.

Simple square door casement with a touch of detail.

And let’s talk about the crown.  We had the option to use traditional crown, similar to what is in the rest of the house, like this for 55 and 75 cents per linear foot.

But it all felt too formal and traditional.  Instead, we landed on a door casement with a slightly detailed, but still clean lined profile.  For us, this works.  We used casement as crown in our first house with great results.  And, this trim is only 45 cents a linear foot.  At that price, for our 8 foot square bathroom, the crown cost only $11.25.

Big impact for little money.  And the casement is easier to work with that true crown.

What do you think of our almost finished bathroom?  Did you work all weekend?  Or did you take some time to relax?  I’m off to work on the entertainment center now.

Ketchup and Mustard

Published on by Our Humble Abode12 Comments

Going on in our living room.

See what I mean?  Of course it won’t stay like this forever.  Painting will happen, probably white for the sides with yellow for the backs.  While we’re liking more modern and industrial element for this house, I wouldn’t call this look industrial.  More like unfinished.  More trim work, framing out the cabinets, and building doors to cover the cabinets still to come.

Let’s not forget the drawers at the bottom for ample storage.

The shelves are stationary, support cleats holding each in place.

 

Ultimately, these cabinets will have a similar look to the kitchen cabinets we built.  Wrapped at the top with crown molding, shaker style trim on the sides, and shaker doors.  Instead of glass inside, we’ll use fabric to help cut down on dusty electronics while allowing heat and sound to escape.  Oh, and to hide the ugly speakers.

Speakers are ugly, but the cords are even uglier.  Fortunately, Ben is a cord ninja.  A one inch space at the back of the shelves makes tucking cords behind easy.

Drilling a hole just above the center shelf runs the cords along the back shelf (out of sight) through a hole, down the wall, to the TV.

Now I’ve got to go paint shelves so we can actually use them and get the bookshelf out of here.  You know, between caulking/filling holes/priming in the bathroom, scraping wallpaper in the kitchen, and taking care of two crazy kids.  No biggie.  Haha.

What do you think?  How do you store your electronics?  Or hide cords?

Leaves Silhouette Giveaway Winner

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It was so much fun to read all of your comments and some even made me laugh out loud!  The day before this giveaway started was just a bad day.  Let’s just say our (me, 3-year-old V and 5 month old Ev) Shopko trip was cut short (like barely in the door) by baby bodily fluids, a change in the bathroom and a nuclear toddler meltdown.  When Ben got home from work, I went alone, to Goodwill, Michael’s and a few other stores.  It was wonderful to slowly and aimlessly walk through the aisles.  So, to get away, I go shopping or out for a walk. 

Enough about me, though.  The lucky winner of this custom leaf silhouette painting is…

EM who likes to curl up with a good book in her sunroom.  Congrats, EM!  For those of you out there, I am offering a 10% discount now through September on all art.