paintings on the walls

Ever since we moved into our new home, we've been talking about painting.  In the recent months I've been acting on those thoughts.  In my past life, I've painted my walls: purple and green, both were on the discount shelves at the local hardware store.  Needless to say, I've never had the trouble of trying to pick that perfect color just by taping up paint swatches or painting smaller sections with paint samples.  It's kind of a headache.  I want a dark and light brown for our kitchen, that matches the green cabinets, a mid-gray for our bedroom, and a brown/tan for our guest room.  I keep coming home with different samples and am disappointed most every time.  Since I have so many little jars of paint now, I've decided to start on some other house projects.

The Shoe Rack:  we rescued a shoe rack from an old housemate who was going to toss it about 2 years ago.  However, that shoe rack sucked - our shoes were never big enough and they always fell through.  I found an old kitchen cabinet in our garage, left by the previous owner.  After a little sanding and some fresh paint, it makes a perfect place to put our shoes.

The Bedside Table:  My bedside table is Bandit's dog crate, with a piece of wood placed on top of it.  Willis' side of the bed has a tiny cabinet with the alarm clock placed on top.  Besides the clock, there's not much room to put anything else, so books and things are placed on the floor.  It's also hard for me to see the time in the morning with out sitting up and leaning over Willis.  So I've decided to take this chair and turn it into the bedside table.  We got this chair from the same ex-roommate as the shoe rack.  It was left behind on the front porch after she moved out.  It has some water damage, but nothing a little sanding and paint won't fix.  I plan to paint it brown and gray.

The Gossip Chair:  This isn't a paint project, but still...I've been looking for an old fashioned telephone chair for awhile.  I was driving past Reviva! a few weeks ago and saw this one sitting outside.  It was perfect.  The seat cover was a worn and dirty white vinyl.  I searched thrift stores and reuse stores for the perfect fabric, but found nothing.  I ended up getting some fabric from Fabric Depot.  Although, I was looking for a mustard color, the only patterned canvas/furniture fabric they had was either orange, bright yellow, or green.  I went with the orange.


I've also painted the shelves in the bathroom and a little box that we keep all of our maps and zines in.  Painting other objects has really helped me narrow down my paint decisions.