Tag: orange

Nesting Craze

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Baby Mal is due in 3 days. So naturally, I have energy to spare and have put it to good use in finally completing our dining room.

Now:

I just adore the pictures I had printed from Snapfish. There are no pictures of Baby Mal, but he isn’t likely to care for at least a year or two and that will give me enough time to accumulate some pictures of the kids together.

Before:

It’s such a huge transformation. It is amazing what a new can of paint can do (and what a new camera can produce). Though Dan was worried about the bright orange, even he admits how much better the dining room looks.

Because I had such fun making the Haigh letters, I bought more letters to do Baby Mal’s name. 

Poor 3rd child. He has to share his room with the occasional guest until we buy a bigger house. Though truthfully, it is Dan and I that will have to share our room for the first few years with Baby Mal. It is only his clothes dresser and changing table that is in the guest bedroom.

Painting the Dining Room

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I have always heard that if you paint your dining room walls red, then guests will want to eat more and talk more.

I am not painting our dining room walls red. My cooking can stand on its own legs now and our family does not need any encouragement to talk longer.

No, I am painting the walls orange!

Well, everything above the chair rail is going orange and everything below the chair rail is yellow with orange stenciling.

Every time I stencil I fall in love with the process all over again. This stencil is from an Etsy store called Royal Design Stencils.

Now Dan was a little surprised by my choice in color. He even tried talking me into only painting one wall orange, but I couldn’t keep such a bright, fun color to just one wall. He’s lucky I am keeping it to the dining room. I could have painted our bedroom orange.
Oh, now there is an idea!

Back to the dining room.

This is the never ending paint project. According to my old blog posts, I started painting the walls below the chair rail in May 2012. Hopefully, I will finish painting above the chair rail by May 2014. I think it would say something bad about my character if I let the project drag on longer than 2 years.

Orange Furniture

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Go on. Admit it. You’re jealous.

Well, maybe orange isn’t for everybody, but it’s definitely for me. I smile every time I walk through the dining room and see it sitting in the corner.

This was one of the colors I was going to use to paint stripes on my dining room wall, but we all remember how that ended. So, this table is my consolation.

It houses all of Elly’s crafts that are allowed upstairs. (The messier crafts like play-doh, paint and glitter are kept in the basement.) Oddly enough, pouring a quarter of a bottle of glue on a paper plate to make a tissue flower is not considered messy in my book.


Elly’s craft table is so bright and cheery now.

When Elly saw it finished, she gasped “It’s beautiful, mama.”

That’s my girl.

The Walls Hate Me

Marie Haigh2 Comments

I’ve written about the walls in my dining room a few times and my stripe design.

First, I sanded, primed and painted them.

Then, when sanding off the primer and paint didn’t work, I scraped all the prime and paint off.

Next, I painted with an oil-based primer and painted a top coat of latex paint in white. 

While measuring out my stripes, the paint peeled up in one spot.

It’s small, but I don’t dare put up painter’s tape since it will likely peel more paint off. And though I swore I would run to the hardware store and buy beadboard because hell was going to freeze over before I scraped the walls down again, I have yet to visit Loews.

After living with the dining room walls white below the chair rail for 3 weeks, I know now that I do not want them to remain white. I love color. I need color.

So, we are on to plan B which involves more paint. Surely, more paint will solve my problem.

I’m thinking a base coat of yellow and an allover stencil of orange on top. The stencil will look similar to the scrolls on the fabric I am using.

Or should I go with a base coat of orange with black scrolls on top? Since the kitchen is next to the dining room, maybe I should incorporate turquoise into the colors.

Yellow and turquoise?

Whatever colors chosen,  I’m going to have a colorful house by the time I’m done. Oh yeah!

A 30-Year-Old UFO

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Don’t you just love the 1970’s colors?

Clearly, it’s not my UFO, unfinished object.
1. I don’t crochet.
2. This would be an advanced project to make when one is 6.
No, it belonged to my neighbor, who is about the age of my Grandmother.

During a recent visit, my neighbor saw me knitting on the hexagon blanket. (I just have to shout out that I finished the 4th hexagon! If I can keep this rate up, I’ll have the entire blanket completed by mid May). She mentioned that a friend had taught her how to crochet many years ago, but that she had forgotten and frankly no longer cared for it. Still she had kept a half-finished afghan all these years, unable to throw it out. Would I want it?

I fell in love with the design. It’s not the typical crocheted afghan. It almost looks like it had been knitted.

But now that I have it, I’m uncertain what to do with it.

A. I could complete crocheting the afghan after taking a refresher course on how to crochet. Enough yarn is included to make it several inches longer. However, I’m not a huge fan of the colors and I detest the tassels. Plus, it’s acrylic yarn and not the nice stuff that they have out today.

B. Crochet a few more inches onto the afghan, but don’t include the tassels. Though the thought of weaving in all the current tassels makes me seasick.

C. Regift the afghan to someone who crotchets but not before translating the design into a knitting pattern. Then, knit myself a similar blanket in lovely superwash wool.

D. Hide the project for another 30 years.

What would you do?

Stripes in the Dining Room

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Dan vetoed beadboard wainscoting.

Source: CTMLS, Inc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Searching for ideas on how to decorate the dining room, I fell in love with this striped idea.

Source: The Family Handyman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can you picture stripes of yellow, olive green and orange in our dining room?

With Elly’s help, I was able to try out the idea in crayons.

The green fabric is what I’m using to slip cover the two wing back chairs in the adjacent living room. The fun and vibrant fabric will be curtains for both the dining room and the adjacent living room. Isn’t it great? I have become a fan of bright and cheerful colors. I can’t help myself.

Oddly enough, Dan is not opposed to my new plan. He thinks I’m nuts, because painting stripes is a whole lot harder than just painting it all one color. He is also slightly concerned about me adding green back to the walls when it had taken us so long to get rid of all the green in each room. The original homeowner must have loved green. It was everywhere. It’s still the dominant color in the basement.

I refuse to worry about a few green stripes taking over our house. Besides, I’m just giddy to begin painting another room. This house is starting to feel like our home and not the old home of the Elliott household.