Tuesday, September 24, 2013

More Plywood Floors and Blue Bedroom Walls !


Sooooooooo... I decided to paint my bedroom blue...

OF COURSE ... it didn't go down easy

oh no no no

I obsessed over the color, bought an insane amount of samples

after Mr. Fractured had painted half the bedroom the chosen color,  I decided i hated the color
oh no!
I then asked him to paint it another color... which i was so sure would work since i'd loved it in other bedrooms

after he had painted half the bedroom the NEW color...
I decided i hated THAT color too
...uh oh...

At this point i decided i would call my friend for help
and told her it was 
A ROOM PAINTING COLOR EMERGENCY!!! 

So she came by and said the first color was just fine, and to paint two coats
and she was right!

Geeeesh!

Soooo then i decided i better be very very very nice and sweet to Mr. Fractured - which i was - and then when he was feeling very manly and magnanimous i asked him if he would repaint everything the first color again

Which he did... 
 he was really sweet about it all
i guess he already knows i'm insane and has embraced the horror... ...smile...

Phew!



and  I actually really love it!

Imagine that!

I resisted blue for years
some of my reasons were.....
everyone does blue bedrooms, ,... blue is boring, it'll look too blue... i'll get tired of blue... i really like blush pinks... i really like dark walls...all the blues looked too cold

Boy was i wrong!

It's so peaceful, and clean, and quieting...  
I am actually shocked at how much i like it

I'm  not all the way finished fluffing it up, i want some prettier decorative pillows

apparently pillows in soft blues are impossible to find even though i've seen them everywhere i've been for the last 10 years up until now when i want some ...
 

Here are a few pics of the color


 it is by Sherwin Williams

and it is called "Sea Salt"

and believe me it is a chameleon !
it changes so much with the light it's not even funny

here is a pic with the room almost empty

God it felt good to get all the "stuff" out of the space and have the emptiness
 
even in the different photos you can see what a chameleon this color is



plus, blue looks really pretty with baskets, and i love baskets


"Sea Salt" is  a combination blue/gray/green
very very soft
and seems to be gray enough to go with lots of other colors

i want to get an armload of dried gray/green hydrangeas kinda like these to add to a big basket in the room

wouldn't that be pretty?!



AND... guess what inspired me to paint the walls???

We pulled up our carpet and had plywood floors cut up on put down !

Tada!



white washed with good old Annie Sloan chalk paint !


Isn't that cool!

I hired someone to do it - and asked him to cut the planks 6 inches wide - 
so he drove up with a whole truckload of planks about 4 inches wide...

uhhhhhhh...  what was i gonna do, tell him to take them back... ?!
no freakin way

I had taken some days off work, they were ready to get to it, the planks were cut... the bedroom was cleared out
so i just let it go
this size would have to be fine!

They tore up the gucky old carpet
pulled up those nail strips and staples
 

glued and nailed down the floors
 

it took about a day and a half

the carpenter's total cost was around $375.00 for all supplies and materials
Soooo, if you want to do it yourself - that's about what it would cost!


I white washed them with a mix of Annie Sloan paint, some water... and rolled the paint on with a roller


I then sealed them with some acrylic polyeurathane called 
"Stay Clear"   
boy did the wood suck that stuff up!

It all dried really fast, the 'Annie Sloan' and the 'Stay Clear'

and then they were done!

I love them!  The whole room smells like fresh cut wood... and the floor feels so solid,  the colors are all soft, and i got rid of alot of clutter... 

 Mr. Fractured even cleaned off his desk, which, oh yeah... he let me paint  Annie Sloan "old white" with a little wash of "country gray" ..

 the room smells fresh and clean, and feels calming, 
..more meditative ..
even the light is different in here now

it feels pretty darn nice to have most of the work done and a peaceful uncluttered bedroom to come home to

 


...the end...




Tuesday, September 3, 2013

I Painted My Lampshades Pink!


I have been on the watch for some fun funky pink chandelier shades for a loooong time.  I have seen some for sale online, but they are usually very expensive sooooo....


I had some plain white shades ...


  and i decided to try a trick Amy of "Maison Decor" showed on her blog !

 She is a master of Annie Sloan paint styles and techniques...
 she even used the paint to dye some fabric!.



I grabbed my  little thrift shop white shades - mixed a blob of Annie Sloan Scandinavian Pink with some water, grabbed a paint brush, and just brushed it on the shades!

i wasn't even one bit careful about it at all !






 Scandinavian pink is this wonderful deep almost terra cotta pink color, but when you add white to it it comes up to these gorgeous colors,... deep peachy pinks, then soft lighter peachy pinks...then more blush pink colors depending on how much white you add...
I didn't add any white here... just water... 


I played around and added some faux flower petals...



and even tried some dried hydrangeas

( i was a little worried that they are so paper thin and dry that they might spontaneously combust - (kind of like i have almost done in several situations with my kids over the years- spontaneously combust that is) -
- so i removed them just to be safe)



it was a fun little project - and the paint worked great !
more like a dye than a paint...

there are some spots where the paint soaked through to the underlining and it's not perfectly flawless

but "not perfectly flawless" should be my middle name, because they're just fine for me

and a lot less expensive than some that i have seen online!
 so, if i get tired of them
it's no big deal to change them out for something else

because you know how we all never change things around the house... smile

(just ask the husband's or wives, or signifigant others... they know...)


of course i only had 4 of this shape and size shade and i needed five - so i added this one random pink lampshade i had, in with the mix, and i don't really even think anyone will notice so much... 

can you see it hiding in the back?
it has little fuzzy things on it, and i love it 


maybe you can see it better here....



that's partly why this blog is 'Cindy's Fractured Fairytale' - because nothing..... not one single thing is perfect here...


...the end...