When we purchased our fully furnished house it was decked out from ceiling to floor in a very farm-house style. Every detail was there, including fake ivy in every nook and cranny. The most dominant item though was cows. Hundreds of cows. I am not exaggerating, I couldn’t make this up, folks. Cows everywhere, cow pattern plates, costumes, chairs, stuffies, books, handtowels, everything. When we moved in we immediately redid the living room, dining room, one bathroom (outhouse themed), and Autzen’s room. We left the rest because they weren’t horrible and we didn’t have the bandwidth to get to everything.
I made it a year into living here when I needed to make a change in the kitchen. It had been creeping up on me for a while and I finally snapped. And in the way of a partner of a long-term thinker and planner, I did it while my husband was out of town. I researched the colors I wanted and then headed to Home Depot to get supplies. The beautiful thing about the project is that it cost just under $100 and took 24 hours!
The first steps were to clear away items from the walls and to repaint the top half a clean fresh white. I brought the white down just below where I wanted my blue to start.
I left this to dry and moved on to cutting in with the blue paint around the edges. After all the painting when we first moved in I have become adept at painting without taping first. Though, the quality of the paintbrush really does make a huge difference!
This brush was a gift from my brother when he learned I was doing the edging during the first painting projects. It is now my coveted brush that I do not share. You can buy it here:
Edging work done with my Wooster paintbrush:
After completing the edging I moved back to the center where the blue would meet the white. I YouTubed a great video on how to do this and found the best directions HERE. There are several tricks to this and the first is to use Frogtape! It makes such a huge difference to have a high quality tape. You can purchase it here:
To begin you will make several little marks across the wall where the line will go. Measure from the floor up and make a little mark. Do this across the space. Once complete you use a level to connect the “dots”. If any mark is way off from the others then you’ll need to measure again. Remember that I painted the white below where I wanted the blue to start. The tape will go on the white, being sure to line up the lower edge of the tape with the penciled line. Once the tape is on go back over it with your hand or towel to really rub it down along the edge. Lastly, you’ll paint over the lower edge with white. This creates a seal and will result in a smooth and solid line. This is what you see in the pictures. The tape is up and the white paint is on the lower edge. While this dried completely I moved on to painting the lower part of the wall.
Taping complete and painted over:
I never like to just sit during a project so I do a lot of jumping back and forth between different tasks while the previous one dries. While the paint on the tape dried fully I went back to doing the blue. This color is so rich and gorgeous. I loved working with it! The funny part is that I was having trouble deciding which blue to go with and Autzen brought me one. It was a bit too dark for what I was imagining so he found another that was lighter. I went with it! Once we were home and opened it we discovered that it is incredibly similar to what we have in our living room! The living room is more of a teal, but the same tone, and in the right light they are nearly identical. I could not believe how close they ended up being!
I have never been so proud of a paint line. They are crisp and straight!
I did 90% of the work alone but did recruit Autzen to paint this awkward space.
Clean up time entailed really giving the floor a good once over and rearranging all of the items. I don’t know how long I stood and admired the crisp white with the saturated blue. And honestly, that line, people! The only thing marring the finished product was the valances. They were flannel plaid and so ruffled…
Nearly complete, I just needed to figure out how to fix the valance on a budget.
I am a sucker for our local Buy Nothing Facebook group and they totally came through for me! Well, they didn’t know it. I hadn’t thought to put out a request for curtains, they just fell into my lap. Someone posted a set of brand new bed sheets. They were beautiful white with blue leaves and vines. I saw the vision! I was so excited to be selected to get the set and scooped them up quickly. After some measuring, sewing, and ironing, I had a complete and amazing set of valances.
Everything really came together with the addition of the new valances.
In a comical mixup of plans, I was not actually home when Elijah saw it for the first time. He texted immediately and said I was crazy and that he loved it. Yep, that’s about what I expected!
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