Hall Overhaul

Remember that mirror I got in December and hung in the hallway between the living room and bedroom?  I adore it.  And I LOVE having a mirror in that hallway.  The table and stuff in there...not so much.  It was a placeholder, until I figured out what to do in that hallway.

Before

I've also missed having a big art wall in the hallway, ever since I did it a few years ago.  And I adore vintage-looking botanical prints, but each time I try to pull off an arrangement of them, I end up hating it, usually because of the frames.  I have about a half-billion of them, and nearly all of them are black.  

I loved the bronze-y color of this mirror frame, though, and the way it works with the wall color.  And I just happened to have a metallic spray paint that yields just about that exact color.  So...

After

I LOVE the frame color!  And all the prints I found (for free, around the internet. Yay color printers!).  What I'm not sure about is the arragement.  I didn't move the mirror at all, just hung the prints around it.  I think I'd like to slide the whole thing over to the left and put another row of botanical prints down the other side of the mirror to balance it out.   I'll do some more thinking about this.  For now, it was free, quick, and easy, to change it up.  Fun! 

I think my favorite thing is that no matter which way you're looking, the mirror reflects a plant, so it fits right in, hehe. :)

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What Year Is It??

When last we met, I was like:

Two weeks, you guys!  UGH.  I'm up and around - I'm even back at work today - but "intense physical labor" right now is still like, walking eight feet from my desk to the copier, so, I'm not exactly in any shape to do anything around the house.  I washed like six dishes at home the other day and had to take a nap.  I'm not even kidding.

Until I am ready, though, I'm dreaming of bathroom paint.  Still.  I've decided to go with something like this:

by Urban Grace Interiors, via DecorPad

I have no idea what actual color that is, but it's exactly where I'm going.  A wee bit greener, a wee bit grayer, and a whole lot lighter than the color I have now.  Near as I can figure, this is pretty similar to Benjamin Moore's "Quiet Moments". 

Quiet Moments                                                                                          Smoke
                                                                              (pretty much the current color)

The "Smoke" (I have no idea what color it is, I mixed it myself, but it's about like this) is just WAY too much blue.  It's in-your-face, why-did-I-just-eat-all-those-cookies bright, sweet blue.  It's pretty, but an entire room of it for like six years is a bit much.  Lately I feel like it's oozing blue.  It's bleeding blue.  It's bleeding blue at me.  Done with it!  

It doesn't help that the walls, ceiling, trim, and doors are all the same color.  And don't get me wrong - I abosolutely LOVE it that way, and I don't plan to change it.  My master bathroom has three doors and a window, and a lot of trim - that was a LOT of white breaking up the wall color before I painted it all.  

The idea was actually based on this scene from Pirates of the Caribbean: 

screencap from leavemethewhite.com

You can see it here:    

I stood in the bathtub to take this picture. Hee. 

Along with some of the stuff about the room that I can't WAIT to change:  the artwork (dark brown wood frames, matted to match the wall color...why??),  coke-bottle-green glass accessories (*yawn*),  and some ugly faded gray candles, in this picture, for some reason.  I have no idea.   Oh, and the curtains over the doorway.  Hee.  I actually thought those were fun.  But they were basically a big dust magnet, and some wild dogs gallivanting about the house tore them, so they're gone now. 

Pinterest

Pinterest, in its infinite wonders, has finally granted me a freaking clue as to what to do with that big sheet mirror over the vanity.  One day I'd like to replace it with two smaller, framed mirrors; but for now I needed to do SOMETHING with it.  I'd thought about framing it for months, but couldn't think of a way to make that not boring.  This?  This is it.  I am so doing this.  I already have wood and parts in the garage I can use.  Squee!  

Now I just have to figure out what color to do the mirror frames.  A dark brown stain, to match the cabinetry?  Or would that be too heavy?  Black would definitely be too heavy.  White would look silly unless all the other trim in the room was white, too.  Silver?  Gold?  And do I do the picture frames in here to match the mirror frame, or is that too much matchy-matchy? 

Hm.  

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