A touch of chevron

OK…if you’ve been around these parts for awhile you know I show you the good and bad and the ugly around here. (Go here for a REALLY bad one that ended good.)

Not every project turns out as I had hoped, and some turn out…but I just can’t quite decide if I love them or not. This is one of those.

I’ve planned to do this project forever and was excited to finally get it done – it was a simple little trash can redo for my office:

I’ve had this wood one for YEARS. I think it was my first Pottery Barn purchase ever, about ten years ago. It was on clearance and it’s a great little waste basket. After all this time the structure has held up great, but the outside was a little nicked up. So I figured it would be the perfect project to experiment on. :)

I started by sanding it down super fast in my “workshop.” That would be on the trash can in the garage:

I got that sander a few months ago and it makes sanding SO much easier. It’s the first one I’ve owned that doesn’t leave skip marks all over everything. I loathe sanding and I love this thing so that’s saying a lot.

After I wiped it down I gave it a coat of primer and then a couple coats of a satin white paint in my other workshop. Or on an old sheet in the front yard:

Next was the FUN part. :)

I let the paint dry for a few hours inside so it would hold up to some painter’s tape. This wasn’t just any painter’s tape though – it was chevron tape!: I work with the lovely folks at Frogtape so I have had this stuff for awhile – I’ve just been waiting for it to come out in stores so I could show you! I saw it at Lowe’s a few weeks ago.

I sat and watched TV while I taped off the trash can:

So I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m usually eons behind the latest decorating trend. Either that or I’m so far ahead of the trend it’s not even cool yet. (I was putting chalkboards everywhere before they were the thing.)

Chevron isn’t one of those trends I’m hooked on – I haven’t added it anywhere in the house yet. When I got this tape a while back I knew it would be fun to use it somewhere small to see if I liked it. Just a little spot, a smidge. A skosh of chevron if you will.

When I redid my office years ago I added in a few touches of pink in the space just to break up all the blue and beige in there. I picked up a pink paint sample (Sunrose by Valspar) months ago to use on another spot in the room and figured it would be a cute accent on the trash can.

I didn’t worry about great coverage on this – I didn’t want the color to be super saturated, so I just did one quick coat of the pink. I was kind of excited as I peeled off the chevron tape:

It was looking super cute!

But by the time I was done taking it all off…I didn’t like it. At all. It was too much.

I was doing this at night so I tried to get a shot of it in the bathroom:

It’s hard to get a good idea of how it looked – it was just too bright and SO girly. I mean, I love some girly touches but it was just a LOT. In a little girl’s room, it would have been perfect. For my grown up office? A little much. (For me.)

Soooo, I tried to figure out how to salvage it. I didn’t hate the chevron, the color was bugging me more than anything. I decided to try using the sander again to knock it down as much as I could. I used a 220 grit sandpaper and then a 120 to knock it down even more.

And whew…I liked it SO much more.

It gave it a washed, old look that I liked so much more! Cause you know chevron is on all the old stuff. ;)

Do I love it? I’m still not sure. I do like the look of chevron, I’m just not sure I love the look of it in my house. ;) It really is pretty cute though:

I AM love with my new mercury glass “vase” on my desk – it was a clearanced out outdoor candleholder at Menards. Three bucks!:

I think it will be absolutely beautiful with a candle inside too – but I’m obsessed with my hydrangeas right now. :)

But oh, the possibilities with this fun tape!! It makes it so easy to add this look to anything! I’m not sure of the exact shapes they have out, but I do have a wavy look too that I’m thinking of trying somewhere.

Are you a fan of the chevron? Do you have it in your home somewhere? I thought it may go away but I am still seeing it all over! I don’t think it’s going anywhere soon. So NOW I’m totally caught up with the trend. Finally. :)

**For more on my office redo, go here.

Dark or light side?

Hello all! Hope you had a great weekend! We took a little road trip to the Chicago area for a couple drum corp shows (for hubby), Legoland (for the kiddo) and IKEA (for me). It was a fun, quick trip!

So now that the powder room is done I’m moving on to a room I’ve been itching to change up for a while – our master bedroom. I made some changes earlier this year using things I already had, and the room got a few other changes a couple years ago.

We have a new addition coming to the room that kind of spurred a new redo on but I’ve been wanting to change some things up for a while – No. 1 on my list is getting rid of the striped wall behind our bed. It’s given me the itches for a few years now.

But my biggest dilemma before I can really get moving is the wall color – I’m torn between the allure of a deep, dark wall color and the light and bright look. I STILL can’t decide. Every time I think I have I see a new picture and it takes me back to the dark side. Or light. Or dark.

You get the idea.

I’m drawn to the moody, comfy feeling of a dark room:

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Did you notice the trim is painted the same color as the walls? What do you think of that?

Although if I went dark I would keep the headboard light like Dear Lillie’s room:

The light bedding brightens up the room and gives great contrast – I’m a lover of contrast you know.

I actually have a sample of a deep navy color like Carmel’s room:

Mine has a little more of an aqua tint to it, if that makes any sense – like a peacock blue. Can I just say how much I LOVE that mirror above her bed too??

In general I think it’s easier to pull in colors with a lighter room, but I love how color was used in this room, even with the dark walls:

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I do love the pop of pink with the dark chocolate walls in this bedroom:

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Just not sure the hubby would go for that. ;)

Here’s a great example of how a darker color completely changes the look of a room:

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There’s plenty of other changes too, but isn’t funny how much bigger it looks in a dark color? You always think it will be the opposite but that’s not always the case.

But here’s the thing – I’m finding I’m loving the power of a neutral wall color. It’s soothing, yes, but it also allows you more options when it comes to decorating with color:

My friend Layla’s old master bedroom is one of my favorites:

I love that the walls and bedding are light but the room is still so warm and colorful.

I think it’s evident by my photos (and recent projects) that I’m loving the wall planks:

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I just adore that room – I think every room can take some black pieces and this looks amazing with the white walls and green accents. Love!

And no, I’m not planking our bedroom walls – I need a break from the painting for awhile. ;)

Of course it doesn’t have to be white on the walls – I don’t think I could do an all white room anyway. This greige-ish space is just beautiful:

I love that you could pull in pretty much any accent color and it would work. It’s that a gorgeous room?

I love this blue color too – and it proves that a lighter color can still offer plenty of contrast against white trim:

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I also love that there are plenty of darker accents in there (rug, chairs, ottomans) that offer some depth without making the room really heavy.

Overall I just love the idea of a calming, serene space:

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But the thing is, our current wall color is darker (Tornado Watch at Lowe’s) and it feels super cozy too:

A dark room feels like a hug to me, a lighter one feels like a big breath of fresh air.

Decisions, decisions.

A few months ago I was getting ready to slap a deep color on the walls, now I’m leaning big time toward a light color. I think I’m ready for a change!

What is your favorite for a bedroom – dark or light? Do/did you struggle with your wall color like me or did you know exactly what you wanted? Do tell!

P.S. I also painted the Bub’s room a dark blue but kept it light with lots of white trim – you can see it here.

DIY nautical oar art

HEY there! Thanks SO much for all the lovely comments on the powder room post! I’m working on answering your questions so stay tuned if I haven’t gotten back to you yet!

I wanted to show you how I made over one of my favorite parts of the room (there are a lot of them) – the boat oar I found at a vintage mart a few months ago:

I first showed it to you in this post and as of a few days ago it still looked like that. :) This little redo seriously took about 20 minutes, and that was with paint drying!

I started out by wiping it down to prep it for paint:

I let it dry and then mixed some white paint (I used my CeCe Caldwell stuff, but regular white paint would do just fine. Flat may work better for this particular look.) with a little bit of water:

I didn’t want the oar to be covered completely – I wanted it to have a “wash” kind of look and this did it:

The nice thing is when it’s watered down a bit it takes even less time to dry. :)

I let it dry about ten minutes, and then used my delicate FrogTape to start marking where I wanted my stripes:

That one was on the handle -- I just searched striped boat oar images and kind of winged the design.

I taped off each section, painted and took the tape off immediately. I did that just because I knew even though the paint was dry to the touch it wasn’t cured and the tape may remove it. I take my tape off right away whenever I do stripes anyway so I get a really sharp line.

I moved on to the wider part and did a little stripe first:

When I pulled off that tape it did pull up a little bit of the paint, but I actually liked the look so I didn’t worry about it. I didn’t want it to look perfect anyway. ;)

Then I made a wider one in the middle:

You can see there that I cut the FrogTape down the middle for skinnier pieces. Since I was working so fast I didn’t want to put the tape down over the red paint I had just done – this allowed me to keep working quickly. :)

I did all the red stripes, hung the oar in the bathroom and then realized I wanted to pull in some of that blue tone in the room. I had it over at the vanity/sink, but everything around the toilet was red.

So I grabbed the blue paint I used on this post (it worked perfectly!) and added a few more skinny stripes:

I gotta be honest…I squealed a little when I saw how it all finished. ;) It was so stinkin’ cute!:

I think adding that little bit of blue was a good call – it ties the whole room together!

To hang it I just nailed a picture hanger thing to the back of the handle at the top.

In the real life you can see much more of the bottom of the oar because you see it from higher up than in the pics:

So that’s how the cutest little oar art came to be! It was super fast and I used paint I already had – the oar itself was $10. Love it!

The room isn’t exactly nautical themed but I think it still works – you don’t need to follow a specific theme to make something you love work in a room!

Thanks again for all the sweet comments my friends! Have a GREAT weekend!