HELP: Painting the bedroom

Brown blinds.
My decorating Achilles' heel.
Maybe they are the reason I've been shying away from design posts lately. I just can't get them out of my head.

What am I talking about? Well, it's time to paint the bedroom and, under other circumstances (sans blinds), I'd be pumped as all get out. It's not that I don't like the color brown. I mean, these blinds that run throughout the house are actually a dark brown--three shades away from black (and a color I can work with). So, I guess it could be worse. I shouldn't complain, I know, but every color scheme I wanted to go with didn't include brown. This is the reason for my decorating distress.

Simple solution? Take them down and get new blinds.
Negative, Ghostrider.

These blinds were here before me and expensive. Plus, as far as a blind's function goes, they are brilliant. In short: They are here to stay (at least for a while).

So, instead of NEVER painting the bedroom, I am having to come up with alternate color combos. It isn't such a daunting task as I assumed but I still am stuck.

Current Bedroom Deets
Tray ceiling
White baseboard
Permanent dark brown blinds
A lot of black decorations (picture frames & TV stand)

What colors I love
Teal
Blue
Light Gray

I've really considered the scheme in the picture above, but as you see, I've had some reservations with it as well. See, I have a tray ceiling to deal with. So that means I need to paint that sucker as well and I really don't want it to be a dark or bright color. That's why I want to it to be either light gray or white. 

So here are the three options I've come up with:

1. An accent wall of color (hopefully a teal or blue) and the rest of the walls a gray or white as well as the tray ceiling.

2. All walls painted a color and the tray ceiling a white or gray. (Probably white so it can compliment the trim.)

3. Half walls! Paint the bottom half of the room a bright color and the rest (including the tray ceiling) gray or white.

So, there are my options. What do you think? What would YOU do?

Help!

-Tyler Anne (aka Chick Tyler)

All images can be found on my Color make me go OH! board and tracked back to the original owners.

Inspiration: Battling Distraction

Lately life has been a little bit…distracting. 

Two rooms in our house are still only half-way painted, my future office is storing all the things we haven't unpacked and I  haven't written on my book in weeks.

This, plus balancing the wonderful distraction that is newlywed life and work…well, it's just plain hard to focus.

Last Friday, this kind of all came to a head for me in the form of a really fun wave of anxiety. 

My strategy when things are just too burdensome? Walk away. 

Not forever, of course, just for the afternoon. Since my lack of office and crazy house were a big point of stress for me, I decided to paint something for my future office. (That, and I know where the paint is located in my home!)

This little painting was particularly fitting for me during my dry spell of writing: Write Something. 

Since almost all of my work involves writing, I wanted this little reminder above me while I work, so I can close the Pinterest browser more often and just focus on writing. 

I've also really been researching for my book I'm writing, which is great, except that I haven't been writing at all on it. 

Just taking the time to paint this while indulging in some shameless crime show watching was the perfect stress relief. 

Hopefully, it will soon find it's new home in my proper office, but for now, this little space will have to do.

Anyone have any fun things they use to keep focused? I'd love to hear!

—Holli Anne

Homemade Art

Recently, I've done posts about infusing YOU into your space and how creatively de-stressing can be wonderful. THIS post is all about combing the two plus adding the note that homemade is fantastic.

I'm a big DIY fan (search our DIY posts here) so, in turn, that means I'm a big homemade fan. Right now, I've been trying to put more ME into my newest home space while also staying stern with my budget. Luckily, I've found that painting small, wooden squares (though you could definitely use canvas) can make my eyes happy while keeping my money in my bank account.

It all started with my herringbone art. I loved the outcome so much that I made a second panel in shades of gray (not 50, though). I also decided that I liked the color in the first one so much that I made two ombre style pieces. 

I started with a little bit of black in my base color to make it dark. I made that my bottom layer. For the rest of the layers I added a little white in each coat to make it lighter!

Lastly, I really wanted a yellow-something. I didn't want to do any more ombre so I painted the whole square yellow (three layers) and added one layer of gold on the top. It looks brilliant in the light.

These five 4x4 wood squares will be a part of some new wall decor for my office! This a very inexpensive and fun project that can help make you love your own space! 

I wholeheartedly suggest finding or coming up with an art project for your home space! If you do find something you would like to share, leave it in the comments!

-Tyler Anne (aka Chick Tyler)