Tuesday, January 12, 2010

We finally painted Riley's bedroom.

We have lived in this house for more than 9 months now and just got around to it! I have been wanting to do it for quite sometime, but didn't really know WHAT I wanted to do, just that it was way too white in there and in need of some color....

BEFORE: ALL of her furniture is white. With four large, white, empty walls. It was just awful.
The problem is, I am no interior decorator. I don't have much vision. I am not great with colors and style or anything like that. If you know me well, you know I am all about casual comfort. And I am sort of plain. My house, my clothes, everything.
I searched for inspiration online and found some. I googled little girls bedroom designs. And I found this one room with an ARGYLE wall. And it was C-U-T-E! But I would NEVER do that. First off, I don't have the guts. Or the patience (although patience is on my list of resolutions this year...to have more of it). And I don't have the experience in painting. Or the math skills it would require. Let's face it, it seemed IMPOSSIBLE. I showed it to Travis anyway. And he liked it, too.
So I mentioned to my friend Rachael that I was wanting to paint Riley's room. And I told her about the argyle wall. And....Rachael had helped her sister paint argyle on a wall before. AND Rachael LOVES painting. Let's just say she has some experience painting. You know, she's done it a few times. Or more. And she said we could totally do it. And the project that ensued was ALL because she was there encouraging me.
The planning phase was ALMOST harder than the actual painting. Rachael was part of that as well. In fact, when I pitched the idea to Travis, we were going to do LIGHT/pastel colors. And thankfully, Rachael was smart enough to talk me out of that. She didn't really have to try. I was all for it. I figured why not? If we are doing such a bold pattern, may as well go bold on the colors. It was hours of discussing and then measuring. The above photo showed the start of taping off the room. It was an epic fail. We had to rip it down. And then we decided to let Travis, the master, work his magic. That man spent hours perfecting the diamond pattern.
I moved Riley into Isabelle's room. Let's just say it was a little crowded. But I think they were happy.


And so I went to work taping off the lower part of the wall, where we were painting stripes.
It was time consuming. The plan we decided on was stripes on the bottom third (ish) of the walls (all four of them). Then ONE wall would be argyle...the wall across from the argyle would be the darker pink from the argyle on the upper part, and the remaining two walls would be the green from the argyle pattern on the upper part.
Friday night Travis measured and figured and taped off the first set of diamonds that would be bright pink like the opposite wall. I painted the pink wall.
THEN we painted the dark pink diamonds. That way when Rachael and her husband George showed up Saturday morning to help we had already gotten a small part of the work out of the way.

One color-DONE. Four more to go.

Saturday was a BUSY day. Travis taped off the lighter pink diamonds. Then we painted them. while those dried, I had begun painting the darker brown stripes around the bottom while Travis and Rachael tackled the green walls.




Then we taped off and painted the GREEN diamonds.

Check out the brilliance! The lines were so clean. Travis did an AMAZING job on the math for this wall! I can't even say it enough.
Lastly, the lighter brown stripes got painted.
Where that white strip is, we are putting up a chair rail. So while the room isn't quite complete, the painting is done :)


I re-painted Riley's name letters with the light pink. I love it!



Travis admiring all our hard work.

So we will hopefully be getting up the chair rail by the end of the week and I will be out shopping for new bedding to match. Right now, it's still a work in progress but so close to being complete. YAY!!

9 comments:

Bree Johnson said...

jenna i love it!!!!!

Mom Debbie said...

Nice play by play...love it!

Anonymous said...

OHMIGOSH Jenna! It is AWESOME. . . do you and your hubby hire out!?

Unknown said...

I love the wall, so adorable.

Darcy said...

love it!!

Nate and Jenny said...

Adorable!

Anonymous said...

Wow! I'm so jealous. It looks so amazing. good job to all of you. you did and awesome job.

Anonymous said...

Absolutely love it!

Wren
http://z10.invisionfree.com/Journey_Back_in_Time

Jodi said...

WOW....you guys that looks AMAZING!!! I am soooo impressed! Great Job!