Upgrading the Walls

We have the newly painted canvases hung in the kitchen.  The first photo shows a few things in front of them, but I still would like to add more to the orange, and contrasting pieces in front of the other three as well.  I am pleased with the overall effect.  It's always nice when a vision comes to fruition!

You can barely see the edge of one arm of the mobile in the photo below, but the colors are very close to those that are on the canvases, and from the dining room looking into the kitchen, it is a very colorful fun look.

Here is the finished 'hood in the dining room.  I am so in love with this little grouping!  I had Ornery cut a few more wooden shapes for me, and I hope to eventually fill more of the wall with additions. It makes me smile every time I look at it.

And, since we painted the guest room and there is absolutely NOTHING to break up the very lilac color on the walls,

I decided to make a foray into painting flowers. Here is my first one, it is on a 12x20 canvas done in acrylic.

The accent colors in the room are to be limey green and icy blue. The guest bed will be a trundle type affair built by none other than Ornery himself.  We designed it, purchased two XL Twin mattresses and now we just have to build it.  Stay tuned for updates. :)

The Living Room

I may or may not have mentioned that I was going to get new curtains in the living room. If you've been following along here for a few months you know that we tried to sell our house last fall and decided to repaint all the color out of it to make it more appealing to potential buyers.  Never. Again. Mark my words!

Anyway, living with beige walls hasn't been quite as onerous as I feared, but it hasn't been all that uplifting, either.  A few weeks ago, we wandered into a new store in Tulsa and found some fabric that would add a little color and pep to the living room.  I thought I might make some pillows with it. Then my friend Mickie came over to help me figure out how I might liven up the room and she suggested curtains from that fabric and that we paint the ceiling to pick up the teal color in the pattern. It took a little convincing, but I finally got Ornery on board with painting JUST the ceiling. Phew!

Mickie brought the curtains (I asked her to sew them for me) last week and we have really been enjoying them. So, this past weekend we bought the paint for the ceiling.  It was a much more difficult decision than I anticipated to select the color because there were none that really matched.  It turned out that it was much more green than blue, but I finally settled on an Olympic color and had them color match it in a Valspar Reserve paint. Because if I was ever going to convince Ornery to paint, I had better provide him with his favorite kind!

We bought the paint on Saturday while we were out running errands, then Mom came over to celebrate my birthday, work a puzzle and switch out her old (dying) flip phone for Ornery's not-so-old but no longer in use smart phone. She got so caught up in the birthday dinner she forgot to bring her phone with her, so we set a time for her to come back on Sunday.

So, running errands and my birthday celebration took care of Saturday. Since we knew it was going to snow/sleet/ice or whatever on Sunday night, Ornery decided to go into work for a few hours on Sunday morning. Mom came over on Sunday afternoon with her old phone and Ornery took her to get a new sim card. She is with AT&T, we are with AIO, Cricket. To make a VERY long story short, it took five hours to get her set up, I have Ornery's old phone and she has my phone. She called about seven times yesterday asking questions. She won't write things down, just keeps on calling asking the same question. I know it must be frustrating to try to learn something so foreign so I am trying to be very patient with her. Sometimes I am more successful than others.

The roads were a mess for sure Monday, and I was really glad he decided to stay home since he drives a 2WD pick-up truck with no traction. It was too cold to work out in the Man Cave on the couch table, so he broke out the paint and got the ceiling done! I wasn't sure about the color, as it is not as vibrant as I normally would have chosen, but it turned out really nice, and certainly gave the room a more put-together and lived-in feel.  Once he finishes the new couch table and I get the rocking chair painted and recovered, the room should be much more to my liking.