Stenciled Walls in the Entry

Hi all!

Hope you're having a wonderful week!  We are having the most beautiful weather here in Michigan and have broken records for warm temperatures in November.  What a blessing!

Sorry to be gone for so long!  I took a break from decorating my own house and helped my daughter with several projects at her house.  I'm also a 'slow' decorator.  Sometimes I have to think about what I want to do for a while before I know.

But, this week I did something I've been thinking about for a long time!  I repainted our entry way walls and I am so much happier with it!

In my last post I showed you how I painted this dresser.  I had put a very large painting over it and just wasn't loving it.  I found this mirror at HomeGoods.  It was all white and I painted the blue and gold to tie it in with the dresser.

Inspiration picture

And then I just kept being dissatisfied with the walls. I painted this room SW Interesting Aqua about three years ago and even though I liked the color, I just wasn't loving the look.  When I showed my daughter my inspiration picture, she laughed and said, "I like clean and bright.  YOU like 'ruins!'" Ha!  She's right!

I also love patterned walls.  I stenciled this room with the same damask stencil several years ago.  It took me three months to finish and then I wasn't happy with my color choice!  So I didn't want to work that hard again.

I started out with the original color I had on the walls.

Then using this roller and tray, I put our family room color (which I mixed myself and is about 1/2 the intensity of SW Rain) on one side and a small amount of Valspar Gold Glaze on the other side.

I rolled over the walls until my colors were blended well.  I added the stencil...spacing it around the room. I used SW Interesting Aqua and a little of the gold for the stencil pattern.

I dry brushed over the pattern after I removed the stencil, softening the edges.  

The walls in this room, and a lot of the walls in our house, have a textured wall paper on them that we were not able to remove when we bought our house. The good news is that it was applied so perfectly that there are no seams. The bad news is you can't get new wallpaper to stick on top of this old wall paper. So if I want pattern, I need to use a stencil.

I haven't finished the other side of the room yet.  I'm hoping to have time to finish tomorrow.

I got the wooden wheel barrow at Joss & Main.  The cement garden angel was a gift when we lived in Alabama and I bought the lamps at a discount store in Virginia.

So this room has changed dramatically in the last several months!  I liked it a lot before.  I love it now!

love and blessings~

 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." John 13:34

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End of Summer French Blue Shutters

The weather has really been cool here in Michigan the last week.  I think fall is so beautiful, especially here,  but the summers here are short and mild and autumn is followed by a long, cold, snowy winter.  And I honestly get a little sad when I realize summer is ending.  So I cheered myself up with a little paint!

Recently I changed my rug in my living room.  I'm really happy with this rug in here but the jute rug that was here before was medium brown and added a little more contrasting color to this room.  The wool rug is the same color as the furniture and has washed things out a bit.

The thought that 'I can re-paint my shutters' has always been in back of my mind and this seemed like a good time to see if changing them would add a little more color drama to the room.

I painted all the shutters in this area.

I am really liking the contrast now.  The shutters were originally painted SW Interesting Aqua and SW Rain and darkened a little with SW Seal.

The new color I mixed here at home but is more of a French Blue.  I left some of the old, lighter and darker colors showing - giving them a worn look.

 My Endless Summer hydrangeas were starting to fade so I filled this copper pot and put them on the dining room table to dry.  I love the beautiful mix of colors!

My Strawberry Shortcake hydrangeas are all still beautiful and slowly turning pink at the bottom of each bloom.

I think the darker color is perfect and gives a new dimension to these rooms.  

The shutters in the family room are still the lighter color.  I always want these rooms to coordinate, because they're open to each other, but I like that there's also a difference now.

Have a wonderful weekend!

love and blessings~

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."  Philippians 4:8

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French Shutters

I love our French Shutters that we added to our home a few years ago.  

When I originally began redecorating our main floor I made drapes for all the windows. The fabric I chose was a sand-colored faux silk. I spent a lot of time sewing yards and yards of drapes, lining every one, sewing a valance for the bay window and when I got all done I didn't like them.
At all.

When I made the change to shutters, I finally had the look I wanted.  I can't ever imagine going back to drapes and the wonderful thing about them is if I should ever change my color scheme, I can just paint my shutters.

These shutters sat on the floor for a few weeks before we got them hung.

Most of the shutters are nothing but bi-fold doors made for closets.  They come in three or four different sizes and I've used the widest ones in these rooms. I originally wanted my husband to help me build all the shutters but he looked so tired when I brought it up that I immediately dropped it. (It can be hard work for a husband to have a decorating/blogging wife!)

He did make the shutters that are in our bay window.  I couldn't find any other solution that had the exact dimensions to fit the window and I have never been surprised that I actually like them the best!

I recently added a handle to each side of these shutters.  I got these gate handles at Lowe's.

The only ones that are functional are the ones in the bay window and the windows flanking the fireplace.  The rest are decorative and we are still hoping to figure out a way to make them open and close easily.  The windows are so wide and the shutters are so heavy that the only way we think would work is to attach the original hardware for the bi-fold doors to the window frame.  We'll see. I'm happy with them the way they are right now.

The bay window is on the front of our house so we need privacy there at night.  The windows on either side of fireplace face the house next door and we also like to close them at night.

The shutters that are just decorative are all on the back of our house.  There's nothing behind us but rolling hills so I never worry about privacy. I have moved them by hand during the winter when it was really cold. The wonderful thing about all the shutters is that they keep the heat and the cold out so well.

The doors were already primed white. I started by painting them SW Interesting Aqua and the next lighter color on the paint swatch, Racing the Rain.  I would paint whole sections in each color always leaving some of the white showing through in places.  I wanted a very uneven look. When the two shades of blue had dried, I dipped a damp rag into SW Chateau Brown and rubbed it into the corners and edges, getting an antique, old look.

We added gates hinges to the outside shutters on each window.  They are also just decorative and don't function. We couldn't figure out how to get these to function because of the width of the shutters.

I was disappointed that we could not add the hinges to the shutters that function.  The shutters would not open and close all the way with them on. We were fortunate that these doors fit the width of these windows perfectly but I would love to see these hinges on them when they're open.

The decorative shutters are sitting on the floor but I have the right amount of shutters to actually close off each window.

Our shutters have dramatically changed the look of our house.  It's much brighter without any drapes or valances and I love rustic feel it gives to our house, balancing out the feminine colors and furniture.

Our son's bedroom is upstairs and has a very large window facing South and he's asked dad to put a shutter on it to keep out the summer sun.

love and blessings~

"I will sing of the lovingkindness of the Lord forever; to all generations I will make known Your faithfulness with my mouth."  Psalm 89:1

Bi-fold doors - Menard's (they are significantly cheaper at Menard's than at Lowe's)
Hinges and handles- Lowe's (Menard's did not have them)
Paint Color - SW Interesting Aqua, SW Racing the Rain, and SW Chateau Brown

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