Bunny Nursery

Bunny on cavas that I gave as a baby gift to my neighbor.

Isaiah Nursery

This is one of three nurseries I painted at Grace Presbyterian Church and by far my favorite one. I have included some before pictures here:

And here's some after pictures:

No Girls Allowed

This is a room makeover for my friend's son. I also stripped wallpaper and retextured the walls in the bathroom and bedroom with a sand finish. (Kind of a Desert Storm thing going on there.) I can't say this enough - Wallpaper, nothing personal, but I hate you.


I think it's funny that he was pretty insistent on having the "No girls allowed" sign in his room. In a couple of years, he's going to want to paint over it, and his mom is going to be saying, "No...I actually like that."

Second Grade Musical!

For those of you who wandered over here from my other blog, this is the stage where I death gripped a ladder as it slid down the giant wall of paper. How high was I? Let me put it this way - If I was in the below picture on said ladder, you could only see my calves and feet sticking out from that tan curtain on the top of the photo. That's also why the paper is a tad wrinkly.

And yes, that adorable little gal followed by three boys is my daughter and one of the stars of the show. No, she's not short. Those boys are just freakishly tall. I suppose that's why they were cast in the roles as teachers. I think my daughter got the role because she's really bossy.

Everything piece of scenery you see here was created with giant rolls of paper, paint, staples, velcro tape, pink insulating 4' x 8' foam sheets from Home Depot and an overhead projector. Except for a little bit of shading here and there, it takes no great artistic skills to create this set - just a little imagination and several boxes of staples. The car, beach ball, tent and "Play Ball" sign are all cut out of the foam sheets with a box cutter. It gives the set dimension. It also allows me to work on stuff in my garage instead of the school gym. Today was the first performance. Tomorrow night is the big show. Can't wait!




This looks way cuter when it's covered with kids wearing baseball uniforms.







Here's the tent in progress.

Pink, pink and Zebra = Girly Room!

Generally speaking, my clients don't employ the services of a decorator. One of my favorite things about what I do is the brainstorming process. If the client has already selected bedding for the space, it's usually smooth sailing. It wasn't exactly a giant leap to figure out how this room would be painted. The previous owners of this house had already installed the border trim, so after a coat of primer to cover the dark blue and dark green paint on the walls, we simply color matched the two pinks from the comforter.

I spray painted the iron bed black. The side table is from IKEA. To make the zebra print on the top, I covered it with clear contact paper, drew the zebra stripes with a sharpie, cut out every other stripe with an exacto knife, then spray painted it white. When I removed the remaining contact paper -- presto! Zebra top table!

I did not want to paint the furniture. It was beautiful, high quality oak furniture in perfect condition. But in the end, the girl needed furniture, the client was downsizing to a smaller house, and it actually turned out much better than I expected. Since this was one of several projects I was working on for this particular client, and she wanted it all finished before she moved in, I subcontracted out the painting of the furniture to a friend. He was more appauled at the thought of painting it black than I was, but he did it. He was a life saver! The drawer pulls were originally brass, but I've found this amazing little product called "Rub-n-Buff" that I used for the new patina.

The last little project to finish with this room were some zebra stripes painted on some white, Pottery Barn letters:

>

Dumpster diving with Katdish

I suppose there's a certain gift to being able to look at something (or someone for that matter) and be able to see what might be; to be able to see a diamond in the rough. I find myself doing this all the time.

Check out these before and after pics:

Why the color scheme? It was going back into this room:

In my defense, I know the border looks unfinished, but she actually wanted it that way! (Just saying...) I know better than to argue with a teenage girl. Whatever!