I haven't posted in such a long time! But trust me, we've been busy doing all sorts of things around this house. Plenty to write about now! I had mentioned that we were in the middle of a project.
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| This is our entryway. |
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| And this is the terrifying pink swatch color that I couldn't get over. It stayed there, I dare say for months. |
I had this grand idea to redo the closet in our entry. It started with doors; gross, brown sliding closet doors. The kind that fall off the track every time you touch them. Needless to say, I hated them. Plus, I wanted more room in the doorway. So we talked and plotted about what to do. I'm constantly on Pinterest, looking for ideas, so I came up with removing the doors and adding hooks and better shelves to create a larger space for guests to enter, hang coats, and also for me to store things. I wanted it to stand out, but go with the rest of the house.
For some crazy reason I was obsessed with the 2014 color of the year: Radiant Orchid.
Now this is where most sane people would stop and say: "But isn't that going to be too bright, too pink, too….much?"
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| Closet cleaned out and prepped. |
Clearly I'm not one of those people.
Right about this point of the painting, I started to panic. What was I thinking? There's nothing radiant about this paint! This is too much!!!! I kept telling myself to keep going. It's just paint, we can always change it. That's even what I told my husband. But inside, I was terrified - panicked at the thought that I would have to live with this bright pink wall in my house. There was pink everywhere!
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| A mess of "orchid" - we ended up doing three coats of paint! |
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| New wooden brackets, before stain. |
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| The two old shelves and one new builders grade plank for the wall of hooks. |
After we stained everything, we went to work hanging all of our brackets and shelves. As you can see from the pictures, the dark wood against the pink seemed to lessen the brightness of the paint. I started to get a bit more comfortable with everything, which made my husband and I much less apprehensive about moving forward.
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| This is a more representative version of the color. Much more radiant now! |
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| A great close-up of the grain in the wood. |
We added our shelves and hooks and then my husband went to work on our new bench! We decided a great way for guests to feel comfortable is a place for them to sit to remove or put on their shoes. So he bought, once again some plain builders grade lumber. After he builds things, I get to work staining. At this point, it was winter, so the bench had to come inside for the stain to dry. Hence, my living room carpet once again gets covered and no one can move around the house.
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| This is what we are reduced to when my grand ideas take over. |
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| Such a strong bench! Look at the wood grain!!!! |
I polyurethaned the bench to protect it because it will get more use then the shelves.
Inside the closet, my husband put some 2 x 4 as extra supports.
Which I then painted to camouflage .
After he placed the bench inside, I went to work styling the new space. I already had purchased dark brown baskets with teal and white print inserts to look pretty as well as hold scarves, hats, gloves, and doggy items. I added some picture frames, vases, books, and other odds and ends to make the space inviting and homey.
I can finally say that I'm soooooooooo…(too much??).... so glad that we kept going with the radiant orchid. It ended up looking exactly how I wanted: a little fun, unexpected, clean - and it also coordinates with the house, without being too matchy-matchy.
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| The final product! |
Hope you like what I've done! What are your thoughts?
See you next time!
Deborah
