Calling the Guest Bath a Wrap!

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It is no surprise our guest bathroom is the first to be completed.  It was the first room we painted, purchased an accessory for and probably the smallest “area” within the house.  Before we moved into the condo my mother took me shopping at Home Goods for the VERY FIRST time ever!  Can I just say I love that store?!  I purchased a little vase and fake flower arrangement I thought would be perfect for the back of the toilet seat.  It was the first accessory for our new place and a first for the bathroom as well.  The bathroom came together slowly, but when we hung the final picture behind the toilet and the guest bathroom project was officially a wrap.

A few weeks after painting the bathroom I finally went to Bed Bath and Beyond to purchase a shower curtain and bath mat.  We had guests (my family) coming into town and we couldn’t very well have them shower without a curtain or mat!  While my family was in town us girls went on a little shopping trip.  We went to Pier 1 Imports and purchased the balcony furniture, but before that we hit up Home Goods.  At Home Goods we found the bathroom accessories!  Slowly but surely the bathroom was coming together.

The Son of Man painting like so many other things was sitting in our spare bedroom waiting for us to find  the perfect place for it in the new house.  In our first apartment together it hung in the living room and in our second apartment in the hallway near the front door.  Now it has found a home in the second bathroom!  The green apple ties in perfectly with the light green paint.

All we had left to do was find some painting or picture for behind the toilet seat above the little fake flower arrangement.  After we hung the hallway pictures the husband and I decided to purchase the another picture frame from Amazon for the bathroom.  My husband actually made the suggestion as to which picture should populate the new frame.  I was well, pleasantly surprised!!  He suggested we use a picture of Sophi, our dog, from our engagement session.  She looks so cute and happy in the picture.  I used PhotoShop to turn the colored picture to black and white.  Uploaded the picture to Shutterfly, ordered and a few days later we were in business.

So the guest bathroom if officially decorated!  BUT here’s the things as I started writing this last paragraph I realized there were other things needed for the bathroom … seriously decorating never seems to be really finished.  So what else could we possibly need you might ask?  New towels that match our new fancy bathroom.  Towels are at the bottom of my home shopping list, therefore I still feel comfortable saying the bathroom is a wrap!

What was the first room you finished decorating in your place?

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Hallway Decor

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Before the husband and I first moved in together we decided we wanted three black and white photos for our bedroom.  We narrowed our personal photos down to a picture from the cherry blossom festival, a trip to mexico and one we took while in New York on the Brooklyn bridge.  My friend helped me use PhotoShop to make modify the color pictures to black and white.  I uploaded them to Shutterfly, clicked purchased and we were in business!

These are the pictures we chose …

The husband and I went to a couple of framing stores to get quotes on getting the pictures matted and framed.  We were looking at ~$200+ per picture for custom framing … WAY too much!  The three pictures then spent the next 2 years in a photo album.  From time to time we would revisit the idea of having the pictures framed, but never made any actual progress.  Last week we found a new location for our pictures … the hallway!  I found this post on Young House Love and was inspired.  Although I am not ready to take on the whole wall I do love pictures and have some other items that would work for a wall collage.

In any event we decide these three black and white photos were a good place to start with hallway decorations.  Since Amazon Prime is like my favorite thing I decided to see if there were any nice 8×10 matted frames on Amazon before going to Michael’s or a custom framing store.  I quickly found these picture frames and $17-18 per frame was totally justifiable and the wallet was way more comfortable with it as well!!!

After preparing for Hurricane Sandy Sunday (filling the cars with gas, getting food/water, laundry, dishes, charging every electronic we have and all that good stuff) we took some time out to hang our photos in the hallway.  It took a few tries (three to be exact) but eventually we got the two lower pictures level with each other.

It’s nice to see the hallway starting to come together.  Whether or not we decide to pursue the whole collage look for the hallway is still TBD, but at least there is something on the wall for now :)

Next up is to purchase a runner for the hallway!!

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Getting on the Red Hot Tamale Train!

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Chugga chugga Chugga chugga CHOOO CHOOOO!!!! Sorry couldn’t help myself LOL. :)

My initial plan for the bedroom was to have a dark gray accent wall with light gray side walls. I really liked the mock up I did and so did our friends and family.  We went to Home Depot and purchased a few different samples of Glidden paint.  All I can say is paint color looks WAY different on the walls than it does on the sample card or online.

Here is the room mock up I created using Glidden’s website to paint the walls and then I used PhotoShop-ed in add the bedding and my photo from Mexico:

The silver dust color on the side walls turned out to look super purple in the room.  The Seal Gray was pretty, but just not what I was looking for.  I’m not sure what the lighter gray/silver color is on the wall (in the picture below), because the husband chose it at random and we have since thrown the paint card and sample away.  Sorry for the horrible picture. This is what I get for using my old crappy camera.

Feeling discouraged that my gray accent wall wasn’t turning out as I had hoped a friend offered to help us narrow down color choices.  We got a gray duvet cover for our wedding and considering it is the ONLY duvet cover we have agreed upon in 2 years we weren’t willing to part with it.  Therefore the bedroom color had to compliment gray. Lucky for us gray is pretty neutral! Our friend suggested we do a red wall instead of the gray. I was sold on the idea pretty quickly.

The husband and I had been considering red as our accent color in the living/dining room after finding this Pottery Barn rug.  Luckily my husband has purchased a rug sample so it was easy to find a red paint swatch that closely matched the rug, BM Confederate Red (2090-20).  During one of my many trips to the paint store I purchased a sample of this paint.  It looked nice on the wall, but felt like it had too many pink undertones.  I remember my mother had said her friend had recently done a red accent wall in her living room and decided to ask my mom to ask her friend for the paint color.  Enter HOT TAMALE! It’s a C2 paint, which is suppose to be thick enough to only have to do one coat of paint.

Anyways we slapped C052, aka hot tamale, paint sample up on the wall and we had a winner!  Since the red rug didn’t match the red paint we decided to say goodbye to rug.  We are now thinking a gray rug with red accents around the room to tie everything together.  Hopefully it turns out well!

With the walls taped and the floors covered I was ready to begin painting.  Sophi supervised the whole thing. :)

I’m proud to say I pretty much painted this whole wall myself.  One thing I quickly learned while painting the red wall was to do the trim first.  Painting the trim first with a brush and then going over it (or close to it) with the roller made it blend better. When I rolled and then did the trip the brush strokes stood out more.

Although C2 paint is supposed to only need one coat we decided to do two. As it was my first time really painting as well as wanting it to look perfect the second coat made a world of difference.  I was very methodical about the second coat too and started at the left and worked my way right instead of starting in the middle as I did with the first coat.

When I removed the tape I noticed the window frame had some red on it … oops. I also noticed the tape pulled up a few small pieces of the paint around the edges.

Luckily my husband has a steady hand and went ahead and touched up the places where the paint lifted from the wall.  Now all I need to do is touch up the window frame.  Two mistakes, not too bad if I do say so myself.

Here’s the before and after of our red hot tamale wall:

I can’t wait to paint the other three walls a creamy white and then we can call the master bedroom a wrap on the painting front.  I’m on the hunt for some nice little red accents to put in the room.

What do you think of our red wall?

Happy painting!

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