Thursday, February 2, 2012

The state of my living room

If you were to come over right now, you would see a raggedy, chocolate faced toddler, and this...



I've trimmed, caulked, and begun priming the no-longer-an-archway to the den!!!

Well, let me back up, so yo can see the mess whole thing...


DO YOU SEE THIS?!?! There are like.. HALLWAYS! and defined entrances! And... dirty clothes next to the bathroom no more arches!!!

Wait, I know we've all already forgotten what it looked like before...


(the only "before" I could find - man, I really need to use laundry baskets! :-p)

I'll make a better attempt for photos after we paint the walls so the white trim stands out more. Trust me... it's awesome.

Oh, speaking of paint...

Here's another wall in my living room, as we speak..


BLUE!!!

Ok, this isn't as gnarly as my widow-maker wall, but let's talk about this for a few..

The two, big squares on either side of the couch are Benjamin Moore's "Aspen Skies". I saw this picture on west elm's website, and almost DIED over this color.


Only to have it look like a little boy's room in my house... Fail.

So the top squares, going left to right, we've got Valspar's "Celebration Blue", Valspar's "Jekyll Club", and Valspar's "Blue Arrow". The color of the wall now is Valspar's "Stony Path", and the wall on the right is Benjamin Moore's "Revere Pewter" (the color that made me want to dry hump my wall... but i do NOT like it on this wall! It looks beige!)

I've already decided against Blue Arrow. It just looks too serious in my house. Jekyll club is really pretty, but it looked close to navy before the sun came up a little more. Celebration blue is a GORGEOUS color, but it kinda looks like blue jeans. Makes me think that I should get my cowgirl boots on and go line dancing.... Not that I think that's a bad thing (I mean, it wouldn't be if I knew HOW to line dance).

Oh, what about the bright green painter's tape, you ask?

Well... Let's just look for a minute...


Can I stroke that photo lovingly?

What makes this gallery wall so special, to me, is the beautiful lighting dedicated to it. I've been on the hunt for track lighting that's long enough to cover the back of the sofa, that doesn't have a crap-ton of lights, and is under $200.

Needless to say, I'm having no luck.

But my goal is to get some sort of lighting up there to dedicate to the gallery wall I'm planning (I was planning on building all of the frames, but Michael's is having a b1g1 free sale next week on frames, so it might just be cheaper to buy them, since I'd have to buy the glass for the one's I built, anyway... we'll see).

And now that I've wasted an hour writing this post, I guess I should probably get back to my living room. And maybe do some laundry...

Maybe..

What's goin' on in your living room right now?

11 comments:

  1. I love love that gallery wall and the wall color they used is beautiful! I wish I could suggest a blue (all of the blues we have been using are more slate), but instead, I am dying to know what kind of light your living room gets. Revere pewter is one of the final colors for a mushroomy grey paint for our bedroom, but it really does look less grey than I would have thought in the picture. Thanks!!

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    1. If your bedroom gets even a LITTLE natural light, I'm sure that Revere Pewter is going to be GORGEOUS in there! I've used it in my kitchen AND in the den, and I just LOVE LOVE LOVE it! The thing is, my living room gets next to NO undiffused light, and it makes it look grey on that wall. You can see it in use here in the den, and here in the kitchen.

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    2. I mean it looks BEIGE on that wall. Whoops!

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    3. After seeing it on the wall, I think Revere Pewter is the winner! I also picked up the sample of Silver Fox - so pretty, but it is too dark like you said. I am thinking of using it in a bathroom with not much wall space. Thanks! (btw, we have those arches in our house and thought I'd love them even though we like more modern stuff. They are the biggest pain - they are rounded too so you can't transition paint - ugh! Yours look great!

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    4. OOoooohh... I loved Silver Fox. It would look great in a bathroom! And I'm so excited for you that you're doing Revere Pewter. Which may be weird... but I just LOVE this color (as I stare at it behind my computer).

      I got rid of all the bullnose corners when we took the arches down. Just two more to go, and they'll no longer be in my house! Woot Woot! They SUCK for painting! It's like... do you stop painting BEFORE the corner? Try to tape a straight line down the middle of it? Or go all the way around, but then that goes into another room. They're also a P.I.T.A. to trim around. Ok, I'm done. Can we tell I'm not a fan? :-p I can help you out with encouragement if you wanna get rid of 'em!!! LOL!

      Can't wait to see how your walls turn out!

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  2. Girl, you need to build a laundry basket dresser, lol! :)

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    1. Haha! If I thought my family would use it, I TOTALLY would! Mr. Goats and the big kid just take their clothes off in the weirdest spots (like... by the dining room table), and used to just leave them in a pile where they stood. So I've at least trained them to throw their clothes into the hallway (so there weren't random outfits strewn about the house) to get them closer to the laundry room. Maybe after they get this down well, we'll move onto laundry baskets. One step at a time. :-p

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    2. You are more patient than I. My ex once put his clothes on the floor next to the hamper so I didn't wash them. When he was ticked I told he was old enough to place them in the hamper. That was the last time he did that. :) By the way, this was when the marriage was still good, ha! Learned from the best - if we didn't do our chores growing up, we didn't get to go play. Simple and effective.

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    3. Btw - I instantly knew what that green tape meant. Fab!

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  3. I love blues - we actually just painted our living room a very light blue...it looked almost white on the card but now that it's on the walls it's definitely blue. http://29ruehouse.blogspot.com/2012/01/fresh-day.html

    P.S. The new non-arch openings looks great! And I love the color of the wall in the gallery frame picture.

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  4. I love the new openings, but I really love the dog (in the before pic) and the cat (after pic)!

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