Thursday, December 9, 2010

Lavender

When I was pregnant with my little girl, 7 years ago, I dreamed about how cute and girly I wanted her bedroom to be. Since I had two boys, I was really looking forward to some femininity and pinkness. I remember scanning through a Pottery Barn catalog and falling in love with a paint scheme they did in one of their furniture ads. It was a soft cream color on the top half, pale green on the bottom half and the palest of pinks on a wood moulding to divide the two colors. She's had her room those colors since she was born.

I've been thinking lately about changing her room a bit. I looked at the Better Home and Gardens paint colors and liked this lavender color. I was a little nervous about painting her room all one color as it's always been divided. Here a few pictures of before. Now, please note that her room isn't always this much of a disaster. I remembered to take the "before" picture after I had already shifted all her things to one side. But you get an idea of her colors.

Before

Before

As I started to put the first coat of lavender over the cream and green, my first thought was uh oh.... what did I do? I wasn't too sure of the color and wasn't liking it too much. I know that's common and I told myself (even though I kept thinking that I could easily put the moulding back up and could touch up the area I just painted) just keep going, just finish one wall and see what you think. I still wasn't liking the first coat...

First coat...

But I continued to paint. Once I completed the first wall with 3 coats, the color started to grow on me.


I finished painting her entire room last night. I started first thing in the morning and finished about 8pm. I will post more pictures of the finished walls and thoughts about painting her furniture in my next post :)

3 comments:

  1. Good Morning Valerie!
    I love the lavender colour you chose for your daughters bedroom! It reminds me of one of my favorite delphiniums which has lavender and pale blue outer petals and a white "bee" in the inner petals. I found a picture on the web to show you. You can copy the URL below and paste it into your address bar.
    http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.naturehills.com/images/ProductImages/delphinium_morninglights_big.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.english-gardening.com/feeds/flowers0084.html&usg=__6yqwfE3lK1dZer0Rgf-qIPVDMA8=&h=250&w=250&sz=17&hl=en&start=0&sig2=6O7GHT5qzJLiPKTIw1H4qw&zoom=1&tbnid=0dMKW1Z0V03bsM:&tbnh=142&tbnw=140&ei=eQoCTfSvIsqjnQe30JHoDQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dblue%2Bdelphinium%2Blavender%2Bbee%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1276%26bih%3D583%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=137&vpy=231&dur=7504&hovh=200&hovw=200&tx=120&ty=118&oei=eQoCTfSvIsqjnQe30JHoDQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0

    I am looking forward to your next post.
    I just finished redecorating our daughters bedroom into a guest bedroom and sewing studio. You can check my post from November 20th where I featured the finished room. The furniture was French Provincial like the dresser I see in your daughter's room. I painted that furniture white and you can see the results in those pictures, too.
    Thanks for dropping into my blog.
    Merry Christmas,
    Hugs, Laura

    ReplyDelete
  2. Valerie,
    Sorry, I did not realise how large that URL was. I hope it works!
    Laura

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Valerie,
    Me again! If you haven't started to paint yet, may I suggest that you invest in melamine paint from CIL. It is oil based and provides are very durable finish. It is smelly so you'll have to keep a window open while you are painting. It also takes about 24 hours to dry. I put two coats on, I used a bristle brush and sanded well between the first and second coats. Vacuum the furniture that you sanded after you sand. I did not paint the handles and knobs, I just bought some small wire brushes at the dollar store (four in a package for $1.) and cleaned them up that way.
    I hope this info is helpful. Something else to remember....Christmas is just around the corner, so don't stress yourself out thinking that you have to paint the furniture before Christmas. Painting it in January is perfectly acceptable!!!!
    Love and hugs, Laura

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