Dining Room Project - The Wall

Where to start?

This old trailer had no character, though it was in fairly decent shape (or so we thought.  See here for what I get for thinking!)  And I loved the kitchen.  A u-shaped arrangement and a bit of space over the cabinets will win me over any day.  That extra space gives me some other place to decorate.  In this case, one of the legs of the U backed up to the dining room.  That gave me a place above the dining room to decorate!  Yay!  hmmmm... I wonder if I have a picture of the ivy I put up there for a few weeks.  It's gone now.  Not enough light, and there is cloth covered wire snaking around the top of the cabinets.

Oh, wait.  This is supposed to be about the dining room...  Okay.  'The Wall'.




The very first thing to go - no kidding about 5 minutes after we bought the place - was that white cabinet under the wall air conditioner!  The shelf over the AC unit and the living room window came down also.

See that wall with the rooster border?  It's a 6' wide expanse of gray 'wood tone' paneling with those awful cardboard strips covering the seams.  Those strips  had to go!  Well, after the rooster border across the top.



I wanted a venetian plaster kind of look above a wallpaper wainscot.

Having done that before, using regular mud (what is that stuff officially called??) I knew that in order to prevent any dings from showing through white it would be best to tint the mud.  I had to beg the paint mixer at Lowes to attempt to tint it, and provided a sample of the dining room color to try to match, since I planned to use the same willow green (That isn't the official name.  I think I mixed a few colors I had laying around.  I do that a lot.)  The color of the mud definitely was not the same!  The mud base is different from paint base...

color I wanted to match

This is what I got.

But I took the mud home and tried it on the wall.  Better to have it too dark under the paint than white.  This is what I got.

And I loved it!!  Reminds me of moss.  I love moss covered rocks, and this was a good start on a garden theme. 

Oh!  And look at how it goes so well with the picture I picked up at a thrift shop for $3!  A plan is emerging!  I never - well, rarely - have a plan.  That way if things don't go as planned I don't feel bad, because - how can you go wrong if there isn't a plan??  Besides, my space is always evolving, depending on what is available.

I took the sample board to try to get it matched.  Didn't come out anywhere near the same.  Especially since the mud was a much duller color when it dried.  I never did figure out how to have the paint guys match the wet color...  Well, at least not 'shoot' the color to match it.

What I did was take a bag of wet mud with me and scan the paint chips for something close.  Nothing at Lowe's or Home Depot...   I finally found 'Spanish Olive' at Walmart, and added a bit of black.  That was a pretty close match.  Not as vibrant as the wet mud, but close.

And check out the picture against that wall!  Beautiful!  Draws you right in to the middle of the painting.

The wainscoting was up, and I finally got to use the trim that I've been looking for a place to use since before Lowe's was Lowe's in Anchorage AK (pre-1998)  This is what it looks like in the kitchen.  For the dining room I didn't paint the leaves.

That outlet on the right of the window was in the way, so I had to cut a piece out of the trim.  And this is how you fix the trim when you use the chisel on the grain before cutting the trim across the grain - the split has a tendency to run!  Since this is $10 a stick, and I was running out, I had to fix it.    Notice the plastic on top of the trim to keep the glue from sticking to the spring clamp.  Only I notice that the trim has been repaired.

After painting, papering and trimming the wall, that white formica buffet needed something...  I tried a nice green contact paper with white paisley.  The problem with it is that the buffet is 6' long and the paper only comes in 5' lengths at the Dollar Tree.  And it was too much green in one spot.  Next plan??

A trip to Walmart netted a pinkish beige granite Contact paper.   Aaahh.  Much better.  It was very easy to do.  Just clean the formica well with TSP to make sure all the grease and dirt is removed, and carefully apply the contact paper.  There was a bit left over on the front, which I simply cut off with a razor blade knife against the lip of the formica.  Made a clean cut.  And it looks like the real thing, don't you think?

I'm debating if I want to paint the window wall that beautiful green also, or maybe the color of the trim.

Before and After

 

Aside from the obvious addition of furniture, how many differnt things do you see in these two pictures?  And do you want to see the projects?  (Too bad, I'm going to post them anyway!  lol)

homemade paper picture matting

   I was messing around with making paper and made it a bit too thin for any use as actual paper, so I decided to use it thusly.   

     To tint it, I added leftover paint to the water when adding the mash to the tub.  I’m too lazy to use the proper equipment, so when I make paper, I only use one screen, not the approved method of a frame and deckle (or whatever it's called...)  Works for me.  In this case, I may have even poured the mash on top of the screen and swirled it around in the water to get it to even out.  Rebel, I am…

     And then there was this old Home Interiors print with water-spotted print matting…

     A trim to fit the new frame and some glue inside a penciled border…

I tore off small pieces of the homemade paper and layered it on the edges of the picture, paying attention to the corners of the picture.

     

Some of the pieces of paper were a bit thin, and the background color showed through.    

    

     You may be able to see the vegetation hanging over the wall in the center of the picture – I used some watered down paint from a wall project to give a bit of depth to the print.  (Which reminds me, I still have not posted the dining/living projects.) 

     Ya know, I think maybe I like this again.  It’s currently hanging in the office on the wall, awaiting it’s turn to be hung back in the living room.  (The office walls are the storage place for all the pictures that get changed out by season.) 

So... what do you think?

Look at That! Yarn!

Have you ever been looking for something very specific, but couldn't find it?  And then out of the blue, in an unexpected place, there it was? 

Let me introduce you to my momma.  She does the most amazing work with yarn… and fabric… and beads…Never gonna be a day I am that good! 

Here is one of her latest creations.  She posted this on facebook for all the world to see (and rightfully admire), and then she sent it to me for Christmas!

Now, listen to her very own Watchin’ God story.

Tell me God doesn't take care even about the simple things!!!! 

I wanted two colors of yarn for a scarf I'm knitting and no one in town had them. Plus it had to be 100% wool & sock weight yarn. I looked at Value Village (a large thrift store) several times but nothing like it ever was on sale. Plus they had hardly any yarn so when I stopped there today I didn't think about yarn but I looked at their craft wall.

Not only were there two balls of yarn but the very colors I wanted and it’s 100% wool sock yarn from Norway!!! 

 I'm still amazed- God is good!

or, as her daughter would say ---  

It's So Much Fun Watchin' God!

That Moment in Time

I can see in my minds' eye the time I realized how unreasonable and damaging my screaming rages were.

 

We had recently acquired a computer - our first.  My son talked me into buying it so he 'could use it for school'.  How many parents of children in the 90's succumbed to that particular logic?  The only school use I recall is his request to take it to school for a dance because he had so much music downloaded on it.  I was a bit protective of the machine, and refused.  Wish I hadn't.

 

A very intense romantic relationship had just illogically blown up when the following sad incident happened.  I was frustrated, hurt, angry at life in general.  

My 16 year old son was on the computer, and it was time for him to do something.  I told him to turn off the computer.  Whether he didn't do it immediately or not, I don't recall.  What I do recall is that I screamed at him to shut it down NOW! 

The look of fear and hurt in his eyes as he said 'mom, I did but it takes a while to shut down," still causes tears to run down my now much older face.  

That was the beginning of the end of the yelling.  It didn't stop, but I saw myself in that moment, and I didn't like it.

Life got more depressed, because the doc asked me to stop taking my 'happy pill' supplements for 6 weeks so he could run some tests.  

In the meantime, we moved.  By then I was so severely depressed that I didn't even think about the happy pills.  

My son did something - probably related to a video game or something (I hate the things, because they are to me, and are according to me, as bad as drugs or drinking or gambling.)  I promptly started screaming at him, arms flailing in the air.

With something akin to compassion, with a bit of hurt mixed in, (or maybe the other way around) he looked at me and calmy asked if I had been taking my happy pills.

A light went off in my brain.

Immediately I calmed down.  To this day, when I get unreasonable, that question from those I love immediately diffuses an undeserved tantrum.

'No...'

God was so good to me.  Still is.  I happened to have part of a bottle of those happy pills, and I knew where they were.  Even though we barely had enough money to live on, when that bottle ran out, I found a way to buy more.

The rages became less frequent and less intense rapidly.  I didn’t stop taking those supplements again until just recently, also for a test, when my wonderful husband helped me through it.  (And I didn’t ever get to the rage stage!  Thanks Lord!)

I'm not sure my son has forgotten or forgiven those rages or if the effects have been mitigated.   I can only pray that God will work in his life in such a way ‘all things will work together for good' for him.  I hope he knows I love him, and that he saved my life more times than he will ever know, both literally and figuratively.  

May I live to see the day I can say of this devastating problem... 

It's so much fun watchin' God!

This post was precipatated by a facebook link to this article.

I wanted to add these pictures in the post, but didn't want to distract from the seriousness of the post, so here they are now.

                                                                                                                                       

Our house when we bought our first computer

Our first computer - a Gateway