It has been a very long day. That's because I decided to get artsy and paint two walls in my living room in a special way called (I think) "sponging." You start with a base color, let that dry and then mix another color and glaze to get a luminous type of overlay. I thought, "I can do that!" and sure enough, I did that! But it took hours... the results are worth it, though.
My base color is Disney/Behr "Tink Pink" (as in Tinkerbelle Pink). Now don't freak. I know that sounds bizarre, but the overlay colors are pale pink and almost white pink. What resulted reminds me of "Starry Night" by Van Gogh -- but mine is better. (Ahem... Well, it's probably not "better" -- I doubt I could get even fifty bucks for my wall -- but it's brighter, sweeter, and far, far happier.)
My living room has one defect -- it has no windows. So I wanted something bright and inviting to light it up, and yellow wasn't going to get it... Nor was lime green. I like green well enough, and it's really relaxing (hence "green rooms"in TV studios where guests wait before they come before an audience), but my sister hates green -- and she has to go through my living room quite often to get to the garage to do laundry, get frozen foods, and drive away, so I didn't want to put anything in there she'd have to frown through.
What did she think of my three-pink room? She came by while it was still Tink Pink and she was not overly complimentary. She said, "My goodness, that's bright!" and kept walking. It was the "kept walking" that gave her real opinion away. She didn't wait for me to say, "Do you like it?" Not a chance. So "kept walking" was her most diplomatic way of saying, "GOOD GOD!!! Are you insane?!"
But that was before I grabbed the lesser pink and mixed it with glaze and spread it hither and yon over the Tink Pink, using two sea sponges. It began to look quite amazing. After that dried, I mixed some pinkish white with glaze and went after my "canvas" again, using one of the sea sponges but cutting it into the shape of a ball, more or less.
At one point some of the lesser pink and some of the whitish pink began to drip a little -- I had laid it on too heavy in spots -- so I took the sponge and did a little twist of the wrist with it to arrest the drips, which resulted in the Van Gogh-like swirls. Well, I couldn't have only two of those -- that would have made it look like I goofed (which I did), so I just went to about every third sponge print and swirled it, so that every three feet or so instead of a sponge print there's a galactic swirl of sorts.
Our contractor Ray is not a real fan of pink, but he flipped out as he saw it coming together. He said it looks very professional and rather rose-y/universe-y all rolled into one. In fact, he liked it so well he said I should place the same pattern on one of the walls I intended to leave Tink Pink. So now I just have one Tink Pink wall (actually, it looks more dusky rose because I left the wallpaper on that wall and painted over it) that's largely covered by a very large china cabinet my Dad made for my Mom. One of the other walls is covered largely by an oak entertainment center Jackie gave me when we moved here. I'll take a photo at some point soon and publish it here -- as soon as my kitchen/dining area is done so I can clear the living room of all the boxes that are residing in it.
My bathroom is 99.9% finished tonight, so I should be able to take photos of it soon. It looks fabulous. It's a very minimalist bathroom, as the kitchen/dining area will be. The large rooms in my half of the abode are the bedroom, a den, and the living room. I have a little over a thousand square feet, I guess.
As soon as the "orange peel"-y underlay on the walls in the kitchen/dining area are dry, I can paint the primer coat tonight... but I have a feeling it won't be dry until close to midnight, so I'll take a nap and check on it later. Once the primer coat is dry, I have two colors to paint over the primer coat -- light brownish-white (99.9% white) on top and gentle doe brown on the bottom. The cabinets will all be white in the kitchen/dining area but will have a butterscotchy swirly formica on the prep surfaces...
Okay, I know I'm probably boring you to tears with minutae, unless you live and breath the Home and Garden channel, or Extreme Makeoever, or what have you... but this is all very exciting to me, so I'm obsessed right now. Sorry. In another week life should resume it's normal shape and I'll be back on politics, or religion, or cats, or who knows what else?
Best I can suggest is "stay tuned"!
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