Decorating/DIY Archives - Page 193 of 269

Sometimes you start a project that you think you are going to finish in a weekend. And that weekend comes and goes and you decide it will be finished the next weekend. And then that weekend comes and goes and you decide it will be finished the next weekend. And then that weekend…okay, you get my point.

I’m a big believer that paint can do wonders for a room. It’s fairly cheap and fairly easy to create big changes, although depending on your particular level of insanity, it can take a fairly long while to finish. About a month ago, we started with this:

And almost a month later, we have this:

The two gray walls (Dark Granite by Behr) and the white ceiling (Powered Snow by Behr) were easy. The chevrons (or zig-zags, as Tom insists we call them) took lasers. And trigonometry. And the use of the word hypotenuse. It probably wouldn’t have taken *you* quite as long to do this as it did us, but that’s what happens when you marry an engineer.

At least I can say that the paint lines are, in a word, perfection (tutorial coming soon). You can’t really tell from the wide shots, but each gray stripe has a small silver metallic stripe underneath. It shines so beautifully in the sunlight, and is a great update to the basic chevron design.

The morning after we finished painting, I honestly felt like I had woken up in the pages of a magazine. I commended myself for my vision and Tom for his ability to follow my instructions, even when he thought that just two stripes on one wall would have been sufficient. 🙂

Obviously, we still have a ton left to do to our master bedroom. The only thing pictured that’s staying is the yellow dresser and the walls. 🙂 I’m trying to take it slowly and make sure that everything is exactly the way we want it to be. Next up – redoing the other dresser that’s been living in my garage for two months.

What do you think? How have you used paint to completely alter the look of a room?

UPDATE: I put together a tutorial for painting perfect stripes on textured walls. You can find that tutorial here.

After I tried my hand at glazing Miss Matched, I can’t get the technique off my mind. Glaze can be mixed in a wide range of colors, and it looks amazing applied to wooden cabinets and furniture.

But what about other surfaces, such as metal and plastic? Could non-wood pieces be glazed?

Last week, I decided to find out for myself. I had a black birdcage that I spray painted Valspar’s Mediterranean Blue, but it seemed a little flat. So, I broke out a cheap chip brush and my left over Ralph Lauren glaze (tinted to Black Silk). I applied the glaze to a small section, making sure I covered it well.

Then, I used a wet paper towel to wipe off the glaze – wiping off more in some areas than in others.

I glazed the whole cage section by section using that process. When I got to the base of the cage, I glazed the round section by spiraling my brush around the circle.

I wiped off the glaze with a wet paper towel following the same spiral pattern. I left the pieces outside to dry in the sun for about an hour.

The glaze really brought new life to what was once really boring. It has a lot of texture and depth now, and details are now pronounced that I didn’t even know existed previously – like the little claw feet.

Glazing metal worked so well, that I decided to try it on plastic. I sprayed a nondescript buffet lamp a shade of medium gray and applied the glaze to it using the same technique. Again, it gave this boring lamp a new life.

I’m starting to get worried that I’m going to glaze everything in my house now. I really love the look! What about you? Have you tried your hand at glazing yet? What do you already own that could you enhance with this technique?

P.S. My friend Sara is in the running to win a huge sewing room makeover from Bernina and Home Depot. She’s a great gal and military wife who sells on Etsy and donates her time making memorial/burial gowns for sweet babies who became angels too soon. I’d love if you could give her a vote to keep her in the top 10. 🙂 If you have a FB account, you can vote by clicking here. And I promise (maybe) that this will be the last time I ask for your votes for a while!

Mastering the Master Bedroom {Chevron Walls}

Glazing Metal and Plastic Surfaces