This is what we started with: old bedroom furniture, green walls, and a paint-effect-sky ceiling that came with the house (the best part was the glow-in-the-dark stars).
Honestly, I don't know how the HGTV shows do it, when they come in with three artsy designer folk and repaint, remodel and rejuvenate a room in a day. Seriously. Do they have a small army of house-pros in the background? Ten nimble-wristed painters just aching to cut in trim? And the part that adds insult to injury: they have time to design and make these fun fantastic decorator elements. Not enough cash to purchase a work of art for that wall? No sweat! The nice guy with the dark hair will throw something together... just some MDF, willow branches, a jig saw, paint and some funky copper nails and *voila* you have an original masterpiece you can tell all your politely dubious friends about.
Say good-bye to green and hello cafe au lait.
For us, unfortunately, there is no army and I'm no longer particularly nimble-wristed (I am, however, aching in some interesting places). But, the painting is done. We have successfully transformed our lovely green spare bedroom with the little computer hutch into a study and craft space: cafe au lait walls with white trim, a new desk and sideboard from Ikea, and that old computer hutch is in the process of becoming my craft hutch. I haven't had a chance to do much to it except claim the space by putting my sewing machine where the computer used to be. I have big plans, but so far have been too tired to actually do much with it.
Did I mention just how much trim there is in this relatively small room? Crown molding, a picture rail, two windows, two doors and baseboards all around. Lots o' trim.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I am the biggest instigator of all this exhaustion and achiness. I do love to paint: we paint at least one room a year. I'm so hopelessly caught up in this cycle that, in spite of my better judgment, I'm already starting to plan how to redo the bathroom next year. And, we haven't even finished the study yet.
The painting is done, with the exception of a small amount of retouching on the closet door. This is so big. The trim is done. We are known for not finishing the trim. I can't overstate this. We have rooms we painted two years ago that have paint splotches on the trim because we never went back to that. We almost never finish the second coat on the trim. We just get used to the splotches and uneven paint job and figure that we'll be repainting the whole room in a few years and, well, we'll get to the trim then.
But not this time!
My sense of accomplishment is enormous.
Two old chairs that Gabi found at Savers in Minneapolis a couple of years ago look right at home next to the new sideboard from Ikea. I will re-upholster the chairs ~ eventually.
Next step: bring out the textiles that we've had in storage ever since we got back from Togo. We brought back these lovely things and then discovered that their fabulous yellow, orange and green colors just really didn't go with anything. So last year we decided that we wanted them out, dammit, and we designed the study around them. The neutral walls and white, sort-of-contemporary furniture, should be a great foil for the colorful blankets and wall hangings.
We'll pick up some curtain rods to put on the two open walls so that we can hang our beautiful adinkra from Ghana as well as a bridal blanket from Mali. We also have some kente strips ~ some vintage ones that we picked up at the blow-your-mind-it's-so-big market in Kumassi, Ghana. Also, in the process of digging out all our textiles I found a beautiful little piece from Pakistan. It was given to me by a friend of mine who worked in the embassy in Lome, but had been stationed in Islamabad before that.
All work was supervised, of course, by Rosie.
So, now comes the cleaning up and the putting away of painting supplies until next year. I'll share pics of the completed room as soon as the pretty stuff is up.
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