the little room, day 8 through 12

i've been painting shadow lines around the stones. i mixed the brown color and the green color i had been using on the wall as well as adding a touch of black acrylic to muddy and darken the mix. i only used this particular color mix because that's what i had on hand.  it's taken 5 days so far only because i'm only in there 3 hours at a time.  it's really tedious, as are most of the steps in this project.

 

today's cloudy and stormy so i've had a hard time capturing a good photo, but i'm going to just throw it out there anyway. 

 

most of my time was spent deciding how many of the blocks get which side shaded.  i have to consider where the light source is.  i laid my little arty paintbrush against the wall to see how much of a shadow it would make to determine where i would paint my shadows.   i think only three blocks are shaded on three sides, oops.

 

no one is actually going to come in to the room and say "wow, for a minute there i thought these were real."  it's like somebody with pink hair - you know it's not real, so you just accept and embrace it for what it is.  at least i hope so.

 

now i have to color wash all of the walls to soften the grout/stone transition.  then paint and stencil all of the doors.  i found this stencil pattern on line while i was searching faux finishes.  



sorry, i don't know who to credit this photo to

 i have no hope of replicating the effect because i barely know what i am doing anyway, much less this stunning effect. isn't it great?

 

i just got my new stencil from royaldesignstudio.com.  it comes in large and small.  i'm going to use it on the big closet doors so i ordered the large and it was $$$.  $39.00!! yikes.   i'm looking forward to using it, though i don't yet know what i'm going to do.  i really like the look of the blue and rust.  it looks like looking outside through a trellis.  and the blue color would be nice to break up all the gold and brown stones in the room.  hmmm, dare i?
 

photo courtesy of royaldesignstudio.com website

the little room that could, day 2, day 3, day 4. ugh.

a new day.  i painted the room.  i chose behr's creek bend, a gray paint that will serve as my "grout".  i absolutely love behr paint.  i have one of their fan decks and it weights about 4 pounds.  it gives great coverage.  you can get it with the primer mixed right in, if necessary.  i have decided to do a faux stone wall. 

no, this is not my room, just my muse.  love the stones and colors.

i've been looking at a lot of faux stone walls on-line and decided to keep my stones a little more structured than those in the photo above.  i thought i would run a level around the room and mark out my grout lines, but couldn't figure out how i could see the pencil marks on the charcoal colored walls to line up the tape and i didn't want to use something that i would have to paint over again when the project was finished.  because i was going to tear the tape in such a way as to create a chiseled effect i was going to have to tape over the line.  so i decided to "wing it" and just started putting tape on the walls; no level, no pencil, no hassle.

 

 

i started by putting a 3/4" wide piece of painter's tape on the wall and tore it in half length wise.  i did a bunch of them and just lined them up for quick access.
 

 

i then put them up randomly to get started.  i placed one half of the tape horizontally, then placed another half on the bottom, except turned it around so the two straight edges were together.  this makes the lines chiseled and uneven, which gives a great edge to the grout lines.  be sure to overlap the straight edges so it makes a secure seam.  i mix pieces, not the same pieces from the same tape, as it gives a serpentine or wavy line, which is not what i want.  anyway, practice to find what you like. 

 

 

putting up the lines randomly helps me to get started so i don't get stuck trying to make them perfect; i just started putting up pieces and didn't get focused on symmetry.  i appreciate the "randomness". 

oh, sure, one might just paint the room the base color and do all the faux finishes then paint the grout lines on later, but i'm not that "one".  i am not artistic in the sense that i can "see" the grout lines.  i'm not a faux artist, just someone who wants what she wants, but can't afford to have someone else just do it for her, so i just muster up the courage and i soldier on.  either i come out with both barrels blazin' or just shoot myself in the foot.

 

 

end of day 1

 

 

day 2, 3, 4, etc.

 

 

this is the result of many, many, many hours of tearing and taping {and many, many oreos}.  i had to take one day off in between to rest my sore little fingers.  i don't know what i'd do without my ipod, this part is creative, but tee-dee-us.

 

 

but i'm better now. 

 



 

now it's gettin' excitin'!  time to pick out paint colors!  off to home depot.

the little room that could

we moved in to the house six months ago and i have just now finished unpacking and emptying this little bedroom.  yes, there's a bedroom in there somewhere.

it was used by the movers to dump everything in when i didn't know where something should go.  and it seems i didn't know where to put much of anything.  it was jammed to the rafters.  i continued to use it as a "dumping ground" through two other decorating projects and finally decided this is "the little room that could". 

it doesn't look like much now, but i hope to turn it into a charming little guest room with twin beds.  i picked up two vintage drexel twin beds with headboards, footboards, and rails on craig's list for $140 {for both!}  the room's just 10' x 12' with a good-sized closet with sliding doors.  it has a wonderful view of the backyard and pool.

 

 

 

it's a pale blue with this cute little vehicle border around the entire perimeter of the room. cute, yes, staying, no. it looked like a decal so i just grabbed an end from the inside of the closet where it started and gave it a yank.

 

 

yikes.  it's wallpaper.  ugh.  i started picking at it to try to start getting the backing off of the wall, but that wasn't working well. hmmm.

 

 

i googled "how to remove a wallpaper border" hoping the remedy wouldn't be vinegar, a self-contained fresh-air breathing apparatus, and a leaf-blower.  the answer was "steam it off", which was the easiest first step, and beginning with the easiest step first is critical to me.  the steps just got more complicated and involved farther down the list, so i hoped steam was going to be my answer.

 

i'm the kind of person that takes the path of least resistance, a path that won't involve me getting showered, dressed, made-up, and behind the wheel to go get anything to start a project that just popped into my head.  i envisioned having to drive all over town to find a professional wallpaper steamer thingy to steam this mess off the wall.  didn't wanna,  didn't hafta.  i grabbed my travel iron/steamer thingy, filled it up, and plugged it in.  while it was cooking away, i gathered the other tools:  something to scrape the paper off the wall.

 

 

the instructions called for a plastic scraper, which is preferred over metal as the metal can make scratch/gouge marks on the wall.  again with the whole "least resistance" thing, i found a plastic scraper on the end of a tube of drywall repair stuff.  i thought, "how perfect.  in case i put a ding in the wall, i'll already have the drywall repair stuff right in my hand!"  a least-resistant path is a path of multi-tasking preparation - in the event i didn't have/do what i was told to have/do, i'll have a way to fix/repair/hide what i had/done.  i threw a sponge in to my arsenal of wallpaper removing tools and was ready to go. 

 

 

i held the steamer thingy up to the lower edge of the border and watched with great anticipation as the steam started to melt the glue.  condensation started to gather under the paper and i used the plastic scraper to lift the paper.

 

 

it worked!  it really worked! while one hand was scraping, the other was holding the steamer thingy on the next spot to get a head start on melting the glue for the next scraping, and on and on.  i was a machine; steaming, scraping, peeling, steaming, scraping, peeling.  i was on fire.  i even started narrating my actions like i was giving a demonstration.  i can do this!  

 

 

it took about three hours to go around the whole room (ok, i had lunch and watched barefoot contessa).  there was a bit of a mess to clean up as i never seemed to get big patches peeled off, just little bits.

 

 

but that's ok.  that nasty job is done.  b-t-w, the steamer thingy is blissterin' ass hot, ouch.