Beachy Feeling

This past weekend my project was painting the living room and accent wall in the entryway. I thought I had picked great colors, Behr's 'Cloudless' and 'Blue Jewel.' Just to be sure, I did a test patch on the living room wall of Cloudless...the test patch became an entire wall, and when it was dry, the words that came to mind were, 'Easter egg.' It was BAD. I felt like I needed sunglasses to look at it. And the entryway test patch...well, it was so ugly it made my stomach slightly sick. Epic. Fail.

So...back to Home Depot. After what seemed like forever, I finally decided on 'Twilight' from Martha Stewart's paint collection for the living room and Behr's 'Seven Seas' for the entryway accent wall. After two coats of each, I'm very pleased with the results. When I walk into my living room, I'm reminded of the beach. Especially since I've also taken down my heavy thermal drapes and just left up the sheers, so the sun spills in. A fresh coat of white on the baseboards and trim really makes it pop. The room is bright and refreshing- I love it! Now to find scarves for the top of the windows...
living room



part of the entryway wall

left: Martha Stewart's 'Twilight'
right, third color down: Behr's 'Seven Seas'






I've also decided that I *NEED* one of these Zebra print accent chairs for this room, how awesome are they?? I have just the place for it.

Happy Spring!

It's official, Happy Spring!!!

The seeds I planted last Tuesday are starting to grow. I bought Burpee and Jiffy mini greenhouses and so far between the two of them and a few planters, I've started cucumbers, bell peppers, big boy hybrid tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, garlic chives, dahlias and delphiniums in my sun porch. I still have more to plant- maybe I'll do that this afternoon. I've decided that this summer I'm going to try my hand at vegetable container gardening. Hubby is going to build me a raised bed underneath the trellises so our three rowdy dogs can't trample my flowers, but I don't want to put a raised bed where I'm planning on putting the veggies. So- I'm going to try a group of large containers. This is my first time planting veggies, so I hope they turn out! This has all been inspired by the 'urban homestead' trend I've been reading about. The economy's been so miserable and I love the idea of a modern day 'victory garden.' We have a small backyard and we are constantly entertaining so I'm not about to put a chicken coop back there or anything, but a vegetable garden...that's something I can do.

I also really like the idea of vertical gardening- we have a six foot wooden privacy fence around our entire backyard, and I think this would be a great way to beautify it. I saw some really inspiring pictures when I searched the term in Google images.

I've been really motivated lately in the home improvement department. About two weeks ago I used a steamer and removed what felt like a million layers of wallpaper from our upstairs hallway, pulled off the crown molding and painted all of the trim and doors a few coats of glossy white. Hubby's patched the old plaster and lat walls, I'm just waiting on him to finish sanding them so that I can give them a good coat of primer.

The new color I've picked for the living room, dining room, stairway and upstairs hall is "Cloudless" from Behr. It's such a refreshing blue. I love it, can't wait to get it all done!