The walls, as I mentioned, are dark blue with metallic swirls hand-painted ALL OVER them. This is a very big room, for a bathroom. To give you an idea, there is enough room to place a twin bed or two in the middle of it. It has a big tub in one corner (I can put 5 of my kids in for a bath – although it is getting a bit tight now), and a shower in another corner. the third corner has the toilet, and the fourth has an attached linen cabinet. Between the cabinet and the tub is a counter with mirrored medicine cabinets above. Between the tub and the toilet is another counter with a sink and mirrored medicine cabinets above it. Between the shower and the linen cabinet is the door to the Master bedroom, and between the shower and the toilet, the wall juts out with a coat closet and the door to the mud room. Next to the shower is a space big enough to place a vanity and chair, but we currently have a changing table with a shelf above it for diapers & supplies. Whew! I am sure that is confusing, but there it is. The original white walls made this room look very big and cold. I think I should cover the gold swirls, but a dark blue might work in here if it coordinates with the red in the kitchen and the cashew in the mudroom, which are both just outside the door. But maybe a more subdued sage green would work, too, and make this a more restful place, especially as it connects to the Master Bedroom, which should be a place of rest. I’d like to run a chain across the ceiling and hang a lamp above the changing table. You’d think the 5 bright, hot vanity bulbs above both counters and the fan light in the ceiling would light up every corner of the room, but they don’t. I would like to also keep these counters clear of anything except for a pretty liquid soap dispenser and a hand towel holder by the sink, and maybe some candles or a tart burner on the other counter. I would like to eventually have a vanity where I could keep my makeup and do my face with good light, but diaper changing days are not over yet, and they won’t be for a while. A new toilet brush and plunger would be good, too. 10 years is probably long enough to use the same ones.
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Home Decorating: Dining Room
This room is open to the kitchen, so I think the same color walls would be good. It is a very large room. We have a huge conference table as our dining table in here, and wooden chairs with broken rush seats and folding chairs, some with booster seats on them for the kids. I love the table. We have a large family & everyone fits when my In-Laws come over. I found some table cloths online that were on sale, so I can cover the whole thing (it’s about 20 feet long, I am guessing) and make it look quite elegant. When not in use as a dining table, it is excellent for school work and art, as it is not wood and wipes clean easily. I would like to replace the seats on the wooden chairs with pads or solid wood seats, but I am not sure how. I know I can figure it out; just haven’t had time to think about it. I would like to upholster them with something that will coordinate with the living room furniture, so we can take chairs in there for additional seating. The folding chairs keep losing screws, but they have not fallen apart yet and aren’t stained or torn, so we’ll keep them until we don’t need them for the booster seats. Ideally, I would replace the carpet in here with wood or nice-looking laminate (along with the kitchen & mudroom, which are all the same room). But then kids’ running and shouting would be a lot louder and the winter would be colder. Sigh. Maybe a runner along the side of the room that leads from the kids’ rooms towards the kitchen & living room would be a good remedy.
In this room there is also a metal cabinet that holds school supplies, my computer desk and chair, and a buffet. My desk’s horizontal surface ends up looking pretty bad because if the kids break a toy or draw a picture for me, or if they don’t know where something goes, guess where they put it? I do this too, so I am partly to blame. It has a hutch, where I used to keep my cookbooks (when the desk was in the kitchen), but it was put in the garage when we first put the house on the market because we expected to move right away. If I had my ‘druthers I would replace this desk with a roll top or something to hide my computer from view unless I were using it. I would get an attractive (not metal) file cabinet to file away beautiful artwork and broken toys until I could get to them. I would also replace the metal cabinet with something attractive (wood would be nice). The buffet is nice, but it needs to be cleaned and polished (and dusted regularly). I have a beautiful framed picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe which I would love to hang above the buffet, flanked with metal candle sconces or lamps of some sort. I would also like to replace the ceiling fixture with something more attractive than the flush-mount glass bowl with the “energy saver” bulb in it. A chandelier like this would be nice, and keep with the “country” feel of the place. I would probably put little lamp shades on it. I don’t know if there would be a way to center it above the table (or put two in), as the light fixture is not currently centered above the room). There is one long wall in here which I would like to turn into a family photo gallery. I have portraits of our family and I want to frame them and get them on the walls where they can be enjoyed. If we do paint the walls barn red, I think the pictures would look good in black frames with white mats.
Home Decorating: Kitchen
This is the sponge-painted room I mentioned above. The color clashes slightly with the mudroom & living room walls (which both open to the kitchen), so I am thinking of repainting. I like the barn red of the dining area in the article I linked to above, but I need to find a shade that will go well with the Roasted Cashew of the two adjoining rooms. I don’t think that will be hard to find.
I also want to add a little color to the floor in the form of a rug near the sink, and a pot-hanger above the sink where I could hang plants in front of the window. I would love to add lighting to the counters, but I am not sure how to do this (nor do I have the budget). I have some appliances on the counters, and I would like to keep them in the cabinets until I use them. Clutter accumulates on any horizontal surface & it is a constant battle for me, as I don’t have a place (or this) to put a lot of the stuff that ends up there (my purse, receipts, cookbooks, notebooks, etc). I know I have a lot in the cabinets that I never use, so I am going to get rid of a lot of that so I can make room for my appliances and maybe have a special place where I can put the phone book and other things that are needed but don’t have a home. I’d also like to have some sort of box I can hang that will have holes on the bottom and a door on the front, where I can “hide” my cell phone while it charges. I don’t like the “look” of technology and would rather hide as much of it as possible. If I could have clear counters all the time (except for when I am actually preparing and serving a meal) I think I would be happy with my kitchen. I would love to only have a vase of fresh flowers on the island counter, and possibly some decorative item, like a rooster statue (or this one) or pretty lamp on the pass-through, and a fruit basket. A galley slave to clean up after me would be nice, while I am dreaming.
There’s a big blank wall between the mud room and the living room, where we recently placed a chest freezer. There’s still lots of room, so I would like to put a “family center” here -I have a magnetic dry erase board here but would like to replace it with a magnetic blackboard and a shelf for chalk, eraser, extra magnets to “keep it country” – I think the white dry erase board says “technology” don’t you? Maybe I’d top it with some wall decor – a clock perhaps, even though there is a digital clock on the microwave and the stove. How are my kids ever going to learn how to tell time if there are no “real” clocks in the house? I’d also like to move our family calendar here. It is currently on the side of the refrigerator, but it’s not easy to access because of the counter.
Home Decoration: Entrance/Mudroom
This is actually the back of the house, but we had the builders put it on our property facing the front, so that we’d have someplace easy to clean where people would be coming in from the outside. The actual front door opens onto the living room, which is carpeted. I am so glad we did this! We’ve had some very muddy winters & springs out here. It’s getting better as grass grows in and we landscape a bit, but still I like the idea of being able to mop instead of cleaning a carpet all the time. Anyway, the walls are currently “Roasted Cashew” which is very nice & warm. I have a picture of the “Polish Madonna” (Mary hanging clothes on a line with Baby Jesus sitting on the ground playing next to her) which would look great in here, especially as this is also the laundry room. A Holy Water font would be good to have in here by the door. I hung a curtain made of solid burgundy sheets from the ceiling in front of the washer & dryer to make this room more welcoming. I hope to hang a large mirror on one wall, and add a bench and a short cabinet with doors and shelves inside for shoe storage. Maybe some hooks on a wall for hats & coats. We currently have a tall fiberboard cabinet in here which holds kitchen towels. I would like to move the cabinet to the garage for use there, and find another place for the towels (some of the wash cloths need replacing too).
Home Decorating
I have been itching for a number of years to redecorate our manufactured home. It is a big house, and it had a lot of big white walls when we moved in 7 years ago. That first summer, while I was pregnant with my second child, I painted the kitchen with a sponge roller, using a honey-hued paint mixed with glaze over solid cream paint.
The next time I was pregnant, I painted the Master Bath “Neptune Blue” (dark) and added metallic gold swirls freehand all over. I like it, but it definitely does not look professional. I am considering covering it and painting something else that might be less scary to potential buyers.
Then, during another pregnancy, my Sister-In-Law came over and watched the kids while I painted a fairytale mural in the girls’ room. I should say I STARTED the mural. I painted the background land color and sky on three walls, and added a castle on a hill, a big tree in a corner, a lake by the hill, flowers, and clouds in the sky. I meant to paint the wall surrounding the closet doors to look like a wooden wardrobe, but I never got that far.
Another time my Mother-In-Law and I painted the living room and mudroom a beautiful color called “Roasted Cashew.” I got paint chips back then in shades of tan and rose that coordinate with that color, which I have wanted to add to the walls of the dining room, hall & Master Bedroom. More recently I found paint chips in blues and greens that also coordinated with those colors for the boys’ room and the guest room/storage room/ whatever else room and hall bath.
Instead, though, right after I gave birth to my 14 month old, I invited a family with teenage and pre-teen boys over to help me paint the boys’ room and the dining room white, because I thought that would be more appealing to potential buyers. Well, no one made an offer on the house in the 18 moths that it was on the market (perhaps due to the “scary” Master Bath, but no one ever said anything), so now I am looking for a more colorful way to express “home” that would still be appealing to potential buyers.
I just found this over at Starry Sky Ranch.
This country look would work well in our home. We live in the country (on 5 acres), and most of the year we have cool if not cold winds blowing. I think cozy colors would make this house, with its large white walls, more inviting. I don’t necessarily like the “shabby” look of the used furniture with the scraped paint job or ladder used as a decoration, but I think the wall colors used here (warm barn red in the dining area paired with the black furniture, and the warm honey walls of the family room with new upholstered chairs) are charming. The light fixtures and other “country” decorations add the finishing touch.
I have been too afraid to put much on our walls. I know I probably have plenty of things that would look nice on display, but I lack the confidence in painting & putting up shelves or even putting a nail in the wall.
I am pregnant now, and the weather will hopefully be getting warmer soon, so it is the perfect time to do SOMETHING! I tend to have the creativity, energy & will to do that kind of work when I am pregnant, if you hadn’t noticed.
I have decided to put each of the rooms in a different post for easier reading. This post was getting way too long. I hope I am not boring anyone. These home decor posts are basically so I can put my thoughts into words and decide what I can do and what I cannot do to make my house run more smoothly and be more peaceful.
