I promised myself I would post at least once weekly on my "Chit Chat" column. Unfortunately, I failed already with that goal. However, it’s only because we’ve had a family member pass away. My husband’s mom lost her two year battle with cancer last week. It’s so very sad and painful losing someone, especially a parent. As many of you may know, I lost my dad to cancer a few years back as well. It’s just awful. I hate the saying, “Time will make everything better.” That’s absolutely not true. Time only teaches us to live without the loved one. It teaches us to live differently. The pain in our hearts never goes away.
I’m a person who always tries to be helpful and find solutions to problems. It’s the way I’m made. However, during times like these, I can’t fix anything. I can’t make things better. I can be helpful by being supportive and a consoling listener when needed. When difficult things like this happen in life, I like to cook or create in my kitchen. However, many folks don’t have an appetite when they feel sad. So my "cooking up a storm" during difficult times isn’t always helpful - even though it makes me feel like I have a purpose.
So what’s a girl to do? I needed to be present and available to my husband at all times. Yet, it was impossible for me to focus on work - I needed a mindless project to refocus and settle my own nerves. And so this week, I took on a new project that’s been picking at me for a while now. I have been desperately wanting to paint over a “pop wall” in my family room. It was painted a few years back in a bright, royal blue. I liked it for a while but I didn’t care for the shine of the paint. It was time for the change!
First, you should know, I’m extremely frugal. My husband and I are both small business owners. We work very hard for every penny and nothing has been a gift to us. I also appreciate things far more when I tackle them myself! Now, this project was only meant to be a 2 day maximum overhaul… it ended up taking me 6 days and a lot more work than I anticipated. I’ll explain the details within the images below:
Here’s a before image of the blue wall before my project:
I’m a person who always tries to be helpful and find solutions to problems. It’s the way I’m made. However, during times like these, I can’t fix anything. I can’t make things better. I can be helpful by being supportive and a consoling listener when needed. When difficult things like this happen in life, I like to cook or create in my kitchen. However, many folks don’t have an appetite when they feel sad. So my "cooking up a storm" during difficult times isn’t always helpful - even though it makes me feel like I have a purpose.
So what’s a girl to do? I needed to be present and available to my husband at all times. Yet, it was impossible for me to focus on work - I needed a mindless project to refocus and settle my own nerves. And so this week, I took on a new project that’s been picking at me for a while now. I have been desperately wanting to paint over a “pop wall” in my family room. It was painted a few years back in a bright, royal blue. I liked it for a while but I didn’t care for the shine of the paint. It was time for the change!
First, you should know, I’m extremely frugal. My husband and I are both small business owners. We work very hard for every penny and nothing has been a gift to us. I also appreciate things far more when I tackle them myself! Now, this project was only meant to be a 2 day maximum overhaul… it ended up taking me 6 days and a lot more work than I anticipated. I’ll explain the details within the images below:
Here’s a before image of the blue wall before my project:
Here’s the color I choose to cover the blue: CARBON BLACK in eggshell finish (sorta of “soot” color and not really straight black). I went darker because we have this old black leather couch we bought 19 years ago from Huffman Koos “going out of business sale.” It’s still in excellent condition - so I hate to just get rid of things that are perfectly good. I just figure out ways to rework them!
I also decided to use some fun crown molding made of styrofoam!! It’s amazing what exists out there today! I’ve always wanted beautiful crown moldings in my home but it’s so expensive. I stumbled onto these foam pieces, which look gorgeous once painted. You can cut the pieces by using an ordinary box cutter. Plus, I only spent $80! These types of “faux moldings” come in all sorts of styles. You can even find rubber flexible ones, which I used as well.
If you've never attempted crown molding before - the corners are a killer! My walls happen to be extremely uneven (so I found out with this project, which is why it took much longer) and therefore, the corners turned out fairly AWFUL. I used those pretty ornate single "feather-looking" pieces to hide the corners above the fireplace. See finished idea here in this photo...no one has to know how bad my corners really are...
My home is a center hall colonial - typical of our area in NJ. The bedrooms are upstairs and the kitchen & family room is downstairs. We have a mish-mosh of 1930s Art Deco furniture, which is all hand-me-downs from my grandma, combined with newer pieces we have collected over time. We make it work. I always feel like I should love a room and it’s decor so much, that I want to spend as much time as I can in that room. I wasn’t feeling this way with the blue shiny wall! What do you think about this room now? I guess since I superglued the styrofoam molding to the walls and ceilings, I am sorta stuck with it for a long while! I like it and this little project gave me my sanity for when I couldn't feed people over the last two weeks.
