Weekend project update

Hardly surprising that my weekend project has turned into a weekend + Monday + Tuesday + …. project. But after teasing you with my inspiration pictures, I figure I at least owe you an update :-)

Kate had the most creative guess as to what I was up to: Your hints made me think you were doing a spot of carpet cleaning using rose scented cleaner after a bird had an accident - am I close ??????????????? Hahah! Nope, not close! But you made me laugh :-)

Here’s clue #1… my blog friend Tareq at Qerat bought this green & red carpet on a trip to Syria a couple of years ago.

I loved the colour combination, and thought I’d incorporate some green into my family room, which has a red accent wall.

Clue #2… The weather this past weekend was rainy and cold – the perfect kind of weather for staying indoors and working on indoor projects.

Image via Kitchen Table

So rather than working on and possibly finishing one of the 1,286,793 in-progress projects that I already have, I decided it was time to do my family room project. Especially because I had just seen this picture a few days earlier, and was newly-inspired to go for some green. Clue #3…

Image via Style At Home

I also found these inspiring red & green rooms…

Image via Design De Doug

 Design and image via Amanda Nisbet Design

 Image via ELLE Decor

 Image via Two Peas in a Bucket

Can you see where I’m going with this? Clue #4 is a bit cryptic…

Image via Naturfoto

Nope, I don’t have a bird and I’m not buying a bird. This handsome dude is a parakeet. This is also Parakeet – Sherwin Williams SW 6711 Parakeet, to be exact.

I headed out on Saturday morning and bought two gallons of Parakeet paint…

…and then proceeded to spend the rest of the day prepping the room and repainting all the trim in BM Cloud White. Not my favourite thing to do – is there anything more boring than painting white over white?! Then it was time for the fun stuff on Sunday.  Two coats of paint, one humungous (and I mean HUMUNGOUS) paint accident, and the family room has been transformed from this (post- trim painting):

To this:

Yep, it’s green! I decided to go big & bold and do a bright green room with red accents instead of the other way around. I’d gotten kind of tired of the red wall, and felt like there was a bit of red overload with the red accents in the kitchen. I can’t tell you how much I love this green. Not only is it a gorgeous colour, but it works so well with the wood flooring and the colours in the kitchen. And it looks fantastic with red.

We haven’t moved the furniture back into the room yet because we’re hoping the flooring guy might be able to squeeze in a quick touch-up of the hardwood, which is a bit scuffed up in the traffic areas. Once the room is back together and the makeover is complete, I’ll post more before & after pictures. In the mean time, here’s the room from a few more angles…

 

The kitchen is my dumping ground at the moment, but I’m including this picture anyway so you can see how well the green works with the colours in the kitchen. And there’s a little sneak peek at another project in there…

Oh, and that humungous paint accident – I’m the only person this could have happened to. I’d just refilled my paint tray, and was finishing up the fireplace wall. I moved the ladder to the right side of the fireplace to do one small section that I missed before the paint refill. Then I brought the ladder back to the left side of the fireplace. And that’s when it happened – my shoelace somehow got caught in this tiny gap between two pieces of metal on the bottom of the ladder. Which caused the ladder to tip over. Which caused the full paint tray on the top of the ladder to go flying. Which caused me to yell (loudly) many, many, many four-letter words (most of them starting with F). Green paint went EVERYWHERE – all over the ladder, the floor, my clothes, some splashed on the just-painted green wall and freshly painted white baseboard… it even ended up on my right nipple. OMFG. Total catastrophe.

Image via Majorly Cool Things

I was dripping paint and too PO’d to take pics, but trust me, it was a mess. I had to take off all my clothes, rinse them out, and put them in the washing machine. And then I had to clean all my painting equipment, which was covered in green paint. And then I had to have a shower to get all the paint off me. Meanwhile, hubby cleaned  the ladder and the floor & baseboard. What seemed like hours later, I was in another painting outfit (i.e., ripped shirt covered in paint and ripped pants covered in paint) and got the rest of the fireplace wall and the last remaining wall painted with no further incident. This is what my shoes look like now:

As for clue #5…

   
Image via Sarah’s House 2

I want to replace the two pot lights above the fireplace with pendant lights like this one that Sarah used in the living room of Sarah’s House 2. I haven’t been able to find them in stores here in Ottawa, but you can buy converters to switch a pot light into a chandelier, ceiling fan, or pendant light. The guy I talked to yesterday at Rona looked at me like I had two heads (or maybe that was one head covered in green paint) when I asked him if they carry these converters. He said he’s an electrician, he’s never heard of them, and they can’t possibly be safe. Well, yes, there’s a company called The Can Converter that DOES make these converters, and they have a dealer in Manitoba, so they must be CSA approved and safe. So pphhhhtttt! to the Rona guy. I’m going to order a couple of converters online, and I think I’ve decided on the pendant light over there on the right – Glacier from Gen-Lite.

So there you go, my weekend project in a nutshell. I know it’s a pretty wild & crazy colour, but that’s just how I roll :-) And now when you walk into my house, you see my three favourite colours – turquoise on the front door, purple in the dining room to the left of the front door, and bright green straight ahead in the family room.

And really, shouldn’t your home be filled with the things (& colours) that you love? :-)

Weekend project inspiration

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You’ll have to wait & see!

Images sources: 1. Qerat | 2. Kitchen Table | 3. Style At Home | 4. Naturfoto | 5. Sarah’s House 2

Puppy Love

I love this picture of Bradley Cooper sitting in front of a huge photo of his dog, Samson.

Image via The Daily Treat

Sure, Bradley Cooper is pretty cute, but the picture of Samson is what really grabs my attention. I wonder what he’s looking at… maybe he spotted a squirrel, or he’s watching another dog walk by, or he sees supper on its way… Bradley rescued Samson from a kill shelter just a few weeks before he was going to be euthanized. After Samson died last year, Bradley had this beautiful portrait hung in his home to honour his four-legged buddy. Lying under the table is Charlotte, a Chow-Retriever mix that Bradley also rescued. Gotta love guy who has a soft sport in his heart for dogs :-)

If you’re a dog lover too, here are some ways you can incorporate some puppy love into your home, starting with dog art. Diane Schuller is one of my favourite photographers, and she has a great collection of dog photos. This is one of my favourites – there’s something about the back of a dog’s head that I find so sweet.

Here’s art that you could do yourself – a dog silhouette. I like how the simple silhouette is dressed up with a bandana.

Design by Georgie Girl Design

Pablo Picasso had a Dachshund named Lump (“lump” means “rascal” in German). I’m guessing he was the inspiration for Picasso’s simple line drawing, Le Chien. I’m certainly no artist, but I’m pretty sure it would be easy enough to create a similar drawing of your own dog.

Image via Stuff I Love

If you’re interested in learning more about Picasso and Lump, check out David Douglas Duncan’s book cleverly titled Picasso & Lump: A Dachshund’s Odyssey ;-)

You can accessorize with dogs, like these white ceramic dogs by Jonathan Adler.

Image via Interior Design Hound

The super-cool silver balloon dog. {Currently out of stock, but available from Anima Causa Boutique}

Image via The Zhush

Of course, accessorizing with the real thing is easy enough!

Image and photograph by William Waldron

ELLE Decor’s web site has a collection of fifteen photos called Dog Decor that feature lots of cute pooches making themselves right at home in their owners’ abodes :-)

Romeo, Yellow Lab
Design by Delphine Krakoff, photograph by Pieter Estersohn

Nigel & Rupert, Whippets
Decorator & owner James Andrew, photograph by Simon Upton

Buda, Hungarian Vizsla
Design by Nicholas Haslam, photograph by William Waldron

Why not add some puppy love to your walls? Wallpaper on lower wall by Emily Bond, framed dog silhouettes cut out from Osborne & Little’s Best in Show.

Image via House to Home

Another take on dog wallpaper from Thibaut, also called Best in Show.

Image via Park Place Mgazine March/April 2011, photograph by Laura Moss

Why limit yourself to dogs on walls – check out this sweet dog fabric by Eric Cohler for Lee Jofa called Unleashed. Love the large-scale houndstooth fabric on the settee as well :-)

 Images via Interior Design Hound and Acanthus & Acorn

I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely feeling the Puppy Love :-)

Colour tips from Mario Buatta

Totally not my style, but I’m really diggin’ this room by designer Mario Buatta. The bright colours, the beautiful arched windows with great architectural detail, the gold accents… plus there are loads of fresh flowers, which really bring life to the room.

There’s a short article in the April 2011 issue of ELLE Decor about Mario Buatta. In it, he shares some great tips for decorating with colour.

1. Every room in your house should be a different colour. Each space should have its own mood.

Designed by Porter House Designs

2. Three perfect colours are lemon yellow, leaf green, and Prussian blue.

His suggestions for some colour combinations are… living room with yellow walls, pale blue ceiling, white woodwork.

Designed by Rebecca Robertson, image via Martha Stewart

Kitchen with off-white cabinets, robin’s egg blue interiors, and lemon yellow ceiling.

Image via Inspired Home Design

Bedroom with apricot walls, pale blue ceiling, and off-white woodwork. {Not a bedroom, but the closest example I can find!}

Designed by Martha Stewart, image via Peace Love Chandeliers

Library with red walls, squares of silver tea paper on the ceiling, and brown accents.

Image via Sara Gilbane Interiors

3. Look around a space and get a feeling for the room, the light, and air. Then start with a fabric. Look for a tiny detail in the pattern, and use that as your room colour.

 
Image via Livingetc May 2011

4. Have light rooms for day and dark rooms for night, and don’t paint  a dark room a light colour. Instead of painting a dark room apricot, paint it dark orange.

Designed by Jane Lockhart, photograph by Brandon Barré

5. Draw a floor plan and attach the fabrics that you want to use to it. This allows you to see if the colours work together.

Image via Homes and Property

6. Paint your ceiling – pale blue brings in the sky, yellow adds sunshine.

Image vie Cococozy

Designed by Allison Caccoma, image via House Beautiful

7. If a room has bad bones, paint them out the same colour as the walls to make them disappear.

Image via Apartment Therapy

How do you incorporate colour into your home? Do you go bright and bold, or soft & subtle?