to the trees

we've been having some really crappy weather here lately.  a couple weeks ago it was super snowy and cold.  felt more like winter than the beginning of spring.  so we made the best of it by painting a forest in the playroom and playing "let's shovel the driveway".  we always knew that we wanted to have a dedicated space for the kids to play.  we don't have a bonus room and the basement is plenty big enough to house toy storage and allow the kids to run around. for the last year and a half it's been pretty meh.  we talked about wallpaper, but then remembered this was a play room.  paint seemed more conducive to flying toys and crayon.

i ordered this stencil and the stencil kit from cutting edge stencils.  the hanging level was totally worth the kit, the brush wasn't that great and the stencil was pretty easy to work with.  it took us a couple weekends to get it done, we're at the mercy of nap time and nicely playing together time (the latter isn't to frequent).  here's a look.

basement playroom before:

first we painted the wall white, pure white by sherwin williams. (also thinking this might be the paint for the dining room) having a white wall meant we'd have white trees.  the grey paint was used to fill the negative space on the stencil.  we did toss around the idea of having grey trees, but in the end very happy we took the time to put three coats of white on the wall.

once we had our final coat of white done we let the wall dry for a few days, well a week.  because we moved all the furniture around, we also had to empty out the toy cabinet.  this meant every toy we owned was everywhere.  the kids liam loved that he never had to clean up his toys.  he just tossed them into the giant pile by the window.  

the following weekend was snowy yet again. guess mother nature was trying to tell us something so, we put the kids down to nap and we started building our indoor forest.

it took us about two and a half/three hours to complete a very small section.  i think we were being very careful and uber conservative.  following the instructions to a 't'.  as we moved along the wall during our third painting weekend, we moved much faster.  not sure if we just wanted to get things done or we got better at stencilling.  at any rate it didn't take us as long to finish.

once we had the large wall sections done we had to bend the stencil to get the edges done.  much easier said.  rob took to free handing it down the wall and that worked well enough that he did the same thing for the top of the wall.  the stencil did come with a top part, but i'd say he did a pretty good job with his free hand.  i think also that this contributed to things moving along much faster.  

and ta-da.  here's the playroom all painted.  liam said that he didn't like the trees at first, but as soon as his cousins and gramma came over he was dragging them down the stairs to show them "our trees."  he's still our little lorax. 

up next for this space?  more storage.  we need another shelf or two for the cabinet.  maybe an expedit or whatever ikea replaced it with now that it's discontinued.  i'd also like to find a wooden table and chairs to get crafty with and paint for averie's birthday.  we also decided, as we were painting, to put a funky pendant light for above the train tables.  something like what we have above our kitchen table maybe.  we have all the electrical done there, just wasn't planning on putting a light there until we got a pool table.  and finally, i'd like to set up my work space.  the kids and i share the playroom and i'd like to have some more storage for craft and sewing supplies.  i do really like that we moved the desk to it's new location.  doesn't feel stuffed into a corner anymore.  

all in all, stencilled trees equals complete awesomeness.  love the low cost, big impact projects.   

project kid art

many weeks ago, we were still painting the stripes in the kitchen (side note: turns out the walls are gradient stripes not ombre.  love 'em anyway), liam and i busted out the paints and made some modern art for the playroom.  nothing fancy.  but totally fun.  we had a blast and some how managed to not get paint all over ourselves and the floor.  total win.

liam got our master piece started and moved on to other projects.  so i continued to add to his creative vision and we ended up with something pretty freaking awesome.  liam stops to look at it once and a while as we're playing downstairs and say something like "mommy i made that" or "oh wow mommy look at my painting."  it absolutely is little man.  all it took was a painting smock, a bunch of craft paint in random colours, a really large sheet of paper and someone to watch the terrorising toddler.

and the master piece

we had a blast.  love that we've put something completely original in the kids play space.

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.