No More Black and White Stripes?

Hey EVERYONE!!!! Oh how I have missed thee. I know, it has been so long since I've shared a project. Needless to say I haven't been just goofing around. I have been hard at work for the last 2 months. If you have chatted with me recently than you have heard me say I am embarking on my first true renovation. I have decided to finally redo my office...and for those of you who just said to yourselves "Again, didn't she just redo her office?". Well yes, yes I did. However, I decided it was time to stop trying to work around the red color, and make the room something I love. I had the idea for the red walls and black and white stripes before I moved in, and as much as I wanted it to, it just did not work in this room. I've had thoughts of changing it many times, but just never have. Why? Well painting this room is a complete chore to say the least. It's not square, and red is not the easiest color to cover. My time line is to have it in the "complete" stage by my birthday which will also be my 3 yr housiversary.  

So for those who don't know, here is what the office looked like before. 

First thing I did was clear the room. I did this over a course of a week or so.

As you can see there were some mishaps in the removal process. Some of those wall adhesives are permanent, and they tore up my wall. So first I patched and fixed all of destruction and holes.  

Next we're going to rectify part of the problem without color. There is only one small window in here and no natural light. I needed a really bright light, mostly for project sake. I knew I wanted a starburst pendant. I searched and searched and even debated making my own. Then I found one, and from Lowe's of all places. It was beautiful and wasn't that pricey either.

The light holds 18 bulbs. I know it's CRAZY! Each bulb holds a maximum of 60W.  It came with vintage bulbs, but those have a yellow glow to them and I needed bright bright. So, I swapped them out for clear regular bulbs. The light fully turned on is 1080W of light, which is honestly insane. However I only need that much light when I'm doing a project, so I installed a dimmer. Most times it is set at the half mark if not lower.  

Now for the walls. I cleared the room completely so I could start with a blank slate. I just thought it would make the whole process easier if I started from scratch. I got a good primer with stain blocking. The red on it's own is intense, throw in a few black stripes and this room is going to be a beast.

I tested a few colors out. This was tricky because the color had to look good in mid light and turned all the way up. I settled on Burnished Clay by Behr. This happens to also be the same color that is in my bedroom.

Now let's make some magic. I decided to do something fun on the back wall. First I'm starting out with a coat of Pure White paint.

I thought long and hard about this. I needed some flare because I couldn't just go back to plain walls. I contemplated more stripes, but I wanted something different. I did lots of research about focal walls to get ideas, and came across Herringbone. 

Now came the very painful process of creating this masterpiece. First I had to tape the wall. Normally when I've seen this done people use a darker color as the background and a lighter color as the lines. Me, of course I had to be special. I decided the main color would be white and the accent lines would be gold. This would be a lot harder and time consuming to paint considering I can't paint the gold first. So I started with the white and then taped the line edges. It took me a while, but not nearly as long as I thought once I got a rhythm and a good Pandora station. 

I painted inside the taped lines. Metallic paint is apparently pretty transparent so it took a solid 3 coats of paint to get the coverage I wanted. I painted all of the diagonals first, and then went back and did the vertical lines separately. When all was said and done. This is what it looked like.

Sorry, still playing with my new camera. In full technicolor...

FANCY!!!!! 

I absolutely LOVE how the wall turned out. It took me about a week to complete fully. 

This had to be one of the hardest rooms I've ever painted. Not only is it a weird shape, but the focal wall was not fun and there was lots of cleanup. Once I was done with the gray, I noticed just how messy I was with the red. It was everywhere, on the trim, baseboards, doorways, and ceiling. I never noticed it before but without the red walls it was shining at me like Rudolph's nose. Everything was an off red. It took me at least a couple of days to clean and touch everything up.

The rest of the room

What do you think? I think it is pretty darn fantastic. It looks so bright and airy down here now. 

Oh did I mention that I was getting new floors too. HA, Surprise! So I decided to get new flooring. I figured if out I was going to make changes why not go full out. Originally I had carpet in the main area and tile around the door and stairs. However, after awhile the tile was looking boring and the carpet was a direct reflection of my art/project life. I thought long and hard about how to make them work, and then one day it occurred to me to just change it completely.  I have wood in my kitchen and on my stairs, so it made sense to continue it down there. 

I went to Home Depot and selected flooring. Unfortunately my options were limited because I had to match the current flooring. I narrowed it down to somewhere in the Oak family. I thought how hard could this be, but do you know how many oaks there are? Geesh. Flooring is a lot more complicated than I thought. I ordered and had the flooring delivered, but decided to get a professional to install it. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a task I did not feel like doing. However, for some reason I decided I would try to remove the tile myself. (Sorry Herb, oh and Sarah too. Who I know is giving me side eye because she definitely was not okay with me chiseling at the floor)

 I don't know why. I think I figured it might cut down the time and/or money. It seemed easy at first, and of course the YouTube guy made it seem SUPER easy. He had his cool handy dandy tool, bang bang, and it popped right up. Well he lied. They all lie. Now it wasn't the worst thing I've ever done, but definitely not the easiest. I banged and banged and banged and banged some more. I chipped away at the floor piece by piece. It was hard work. I used safety goggles, gloves, and ear plugs. I still cut my fingers a couple of times and had to dodge flying bits of ceramic tile though. Nothing too terrible, but definitely not for the faint of heart.

In the end though it came out beautiful. I've already run around, danced, and did a twirl. The only thing left to do is practice pirouettes in my socks.

So the room is done, and I couldn't be more happy. I absolutely LOVE it! I'll be honest though I miss the stripes. They were amazing and beautiful. So, I just put them somewhere else!

HA! I bet you didn't see that coming. So, at the same time that I was planning the office, I was debating painting the wall in between my bedroom and closet. All of the walls are beige and I wanted something visual. Removing the red color was a blow to my love for bold things. Then one day someone saw a picture of the original room and said "Those are awesome", and the light bulb went off. They were awesome, and so I just moved them.

So there you have it. 2 months in the making and the first phase of this room renovation is done. Now all that's left is to decorate it. Piece of cake. This is going to be the fun part, and I'm definitely looking forward to it. It's going to take me awhile though. I want to be thoughtful this time around. I don't know if I have it in me to change this room again. Well at least for the next 2 years or so. 

Until then...it's on to the next project.