project paint the walls

in keeping with my word words for 2014 i'm happy to say that the we've started knocking projects off our "operation house into home" list.  during the month of january we painted our breakfast nook.  and for serious, it took a month.  not just because we have little people running around the house that require most of our attention, rather it was because of the type of paint job we tackled.  as well as the attention starved little people running around.  i'd seen this pin a long long long time ago and threw the idea out to rob some time last year.  we need a bit of time to process whether we're going to do something or not.  don't even get me started on how long it's taken us to decide on wallpaper.

we knew we didn't want more grey and that we wanted/needed to inject some colour.  an ombre wall seemed like the right choice for what we wanted.  and as we were looking through paint fan decks, it became apparent to us that there seems to be a colour theme developing in our house.  blue, grey, white with an ever changing accent colour, currently it's orange.

our breakfast nook started out as a blank canvas.  when we built this house there were only a few rooms we had the builder paint a colour different from the main colour in the house (grey).  paint is something we can tackle, except maybe the gigantic wall in the family room.  i'm not so keen on getting up on scaffolding to paint that sucker.  but a ladder or a chair?  no problem.

we used four different shades of the same colour, had to tape each line very carefully, paint it and let it dry.  because of that we only painted a line a weekend.  hence it taking us an entire month just to paint three walls, most of which are covered in windows. we painted the bottom section first.  no reason other than we thought it would be easier to start at the bottom, then do the top and meet in the middle.  next time we'd start at the top and then work our way down.  that way there would always be a lighter colour to paint on top of instead of the other way around.

i highly recommend using frog tape for a project like this.  there were absolutely no paint bleeds between the stripes or around the door or window casings.  we used general paint.  wasn't that impressed with how the paint covered.  it seemed thin.  but, i loved these particular shades that general had.  

and now, ta-da.  the finished product.  just excuse the mismatched chairs.  we ordered our eames eiffel chairs and we're missing a few pieces for them.  as well as a couple of the chairs are cracked.  so we're now waiting on the parts and three new seats to arrive.  in the meantime our table and chairs are more reminiscent of a set i had in one of my university apartments.

we both absolutely love how this turned out.  and even more, we love the paint colours we chose.  they constantly change with the light and time of day.  sometimes they're super blue, sometimes really grey, and sometimes even green.  the kitchen also feels a little more calm.  if that's at all possible in a house with two under four.  we're now on the hunt for the right fabric for curtains.  and we've got the chairs.  sort of.  

so on a scale from one to ten, i'd say that our ombre wall painting project was a huge ten for the win.