Getting High with Crystal

Not the drug. Derek and I tend to avoid illegal drugs; we generally consider that to be a good plan for our lives... In fact, we hardly even ever drink. Sometimes we like to add a flavoured "beverage" to a smoothie, or our coke. And, of course, there's Passover wine (what kind of Jew would I be if I didn't drink wine at Passover?!) but definitely no crystal meth happening up in this house. Can you imagine how well that would go? I'd probably get so excited and euphoric that I'd try to do something completely beyond my ability and end up breaking everything... or burning down the house. 

Actually, the Crystal I'm referring to is a good friend of mine and Derek's from school. Her name is Crystal Peters (good Mennonite stock, there!) and she is the most amazing artist. Her paintings tend to be very flowy, free-moving, abstract - often with themes including scripture, God, etc. Many of the faculty at SBC have their offices or homes graced by one of her colourful, exciting paintings. And, really, if you want to see her "gallery" just go visit the apartment that she shares with Lana, where the majority of the paintings she still possesses hang, displayed on their living room walls. 

But, recently Derek and I took one of those paintings from her. After paying for it of course! And then it sat on our bathroom counter for about two weeks. Perhaps this is something to fix, but perhaps it is not! Maybe having things sit for so long gives them the time to adjust to being in our house, and gives us the time to adjust to having them there. I like to be a "glass half full" kind of person. 

Despite the fact that it took a bit of time to get the painting off the counter and onto the wall, it was actually a very simple process to get it hanging. I held up the painting to a height where I thought it looked nice, and marked that. Then I took my fabric measuring tape (I often use that for small jobs like this because it doesn't have the awkward hook on the end, so I can hold it directly against the wall) and measured the centre of the wall. Then I made a mark (perpendicular to the first line) to make and "x" to mark the spot to hammer in the nail. Voila. A total of maybe five minutes and we have more art.

It brightens up the room a lot. We really do love it in there (don't mind the missing wall plate; took it off to paint and then it... disappeared) because of the contrast it gives to the walls. It also complements the jewel tone blues that we have going on already in the bathroom.

Although the painting looks off-centered in the picture, it really isn't. In fact, it's the towel bar that's off-centered. But that's fine, since the thing is rusty and old, and really nasty, and we'd like to replace it down the road. And when we do, we'll centre it, but all in time. That's the great thing about our quirky home: the odd little things don't need to be rushed, because there's so many of them that we can just take our time and save our pennies and do things when we can. That way, I think, it'll be more of an art of love than a rush to fix things up. And yes, I have huge visions of grandeur and splendour and gorgeous rooms that are everything that I want, but at the same time, I can look around my living room with its mismatched furniture, and ugly, old carpet, and annoying front door that you need to slam to close... And I can honestly, honestly say that I love it here, because it's our home.

A Bedroom Kinda Mood

No! Not that kind of mood. Clean thoughts, folks! Do any of you remember this post from way back in September when Derek and I first moved in? And this picture, of our bedroom, after we'd managed to dump all of our bedroom-ie stuff in a pile on the floor? Ah, the joys of moving. But yes, our bedroom did look like this once upon a time. 

And then it looked like this, after we moved the bed from being against one wall to the other, and got a bed-frame from Ikea, and you know, tidied. But, those purple walls still felt a little bit out of place in a master bedroom. 

So, after picking out a wall colour (Rockport Grey by Benjamin Moore, in CIL's interior paint - because it's no VOC and budget friendly!), I moved everything away from the walls. 

Then came down all the stuff on the walls, which ended up in the office/storage room/future closet/baby-eating room (yes, it has all of those names... and probably more that I've simply forgotten. Nursery? No. I'm not pregnant. Most of these are future tense). 

Then came taping off all the stuff that would be hard to paint nicely without tape. For the most part, I don't actually do much taping off, because I tend to be very steady-handed, but there are places (like the corner that I'm showing you) that would be next to impossible to do neatly without tape. Yes, this picture has paint on the walls already... I got a bit carried away. And then remembered to take pictures. Yes, painting makes me excited. 

The first part of my painting ritual consists of doing all of the cutting in. Which is what I call the hard part.

It probably takes me about two or three times as long to do the cutting in as it does to do all the rolling. It's tiring and makes my shoulders and arms hurt. And doing around the ceiling is the worst. Absolute worst. Still haven't figured out what to do with the paint can while I'm working around the ceiling. Mostly, I just put it somewhere central and do lots and lots and lots of stepping on and off the stool that I use to reach the ceiling.

Ah. Rolling in. You're so wonderfully peaceful.

And here it is, finished. I love, love, love it. The bedroom feels so much more moody, and peaceful at the same time. The purple really wasn't doing it for me. Now, the bedroom actually feels like it could be inhabited by a grown up husband and wife. #accomplishment. Though, that owl pillow doesn't really fit with the whole adult feel. But we have a serious lack of throw pillows in the house, so I'll get over it. I'm thinking, though, a nice dark, dark purple pillow? To go nicely with the bed cover? Though the yellow also works. A different yellow pillow, without an owl? I love the owl pillow - I made it - but I more imagine it in a nursery or children's room some day... 

Another view. You can't actually see into the hallway in any of these shots, but the bedroom wall colour really goes nicely with the hallway/bathroom colour. It's something of a darker, moodier version of what is out there. It really creates a nice cohesive feeling as you move from one room to another. Three spaces down, six more to go (not including the basement and closets and stuff)! Speaking of closets, doesn't that closet stick out like a sore thumb now? I think it's time to hang a curtain... Something white and flowy, or perhaps we'll get some curtains for the window, and we'll just use the same material for the closet door? Or I could just paint the inside of the closet, including the bar and the shelf, and that would probably make it look much nicer. Hmm.. what colour, then, would I use? Musing... musing...

And here's actually what we have facing us while lying on the bed. I don't have any before pictures from this angle, but they weren't much different. It's definitely still a work in progress - gotta do something with that dresser, reupholster the chair, put some art on the wall, maybe find a bigger mirror, etc. - but that's the great thing about our quirky house: it's constantly changing and there's constantly things to work on... And blog about! Probably, blog about much more than I do, but that's fine. I got two in this week and that makes me happy!

The painted bedroom also makes me happy. Love it.

Swan's Are Mean Birds

Over the past few months, I've been passively collecting items from MCC that were in need of some paint. As seen below, there was a ceramic swan, a vase, and a terracotta planter. I picked them out because I really liked the shapes, but I really didn't like the colours. So (other than the planter - which has been holding a plant on my bedside table) they've been sitting in our office, collecting dust as I - like typical me - tried to decide what to do with them. In the end, I decided that the best thing to do would be to paint them all white, because it would give me the freedom to give them another colour sometime down the road, but would also enable me to use them until then. 

First things first: I had to take care of that dust that had been collecting. It was easy enough to do with just a damp cloth and some paper towels. 

Then it was time for priming. As you can see below, and in the first shot, I started off with the vase and the planter being upside down (I tried that too with the swan, but it wouldn't stay balanced, though later, as I was repainting it, I discovered that putting it on top of a roll of duct tape kept it upright and balanced). It's generally good to start spray painting things because that way, the top of it (aka, what you see) will be fine and you'll be able to spray paint the whole thing. 

I started off using a spray primer - which helps keep the paint sticking to glossier surfaces like ceramics. It also gives better coverage when you do actually move to the top coat. The key to an even, non-drippy finish is to do lots of very thin coats. Thankfully, just waiting a minute or two between coats is enough time - though I'd advise about 24 hours of dry time before handling the finished product. 

 When the objects were thoroughly covered with the primer, I switched to Rustoleum's gloss white all surface spray to finish 'em off. I waited a day in between finishing the primer and starting the actual paint, just to give them ample time to dry.

The vase and planter turned out really well, but for some reason, the swan ended up with a weird, puckered kind of finish in a couple places. I had to sand it down and give it another couple coats in order to get rid of it.

But in the end, everything worked out, and we now have three more objects to add to my collection of decor items. And who knows? Maybe sometime down the road you'll see me doing some more spray painting with these. Bright yellow swan? Pink vase? I guess we'll see.