GORGEOUS SHINY THINGS: Lulu DK

Showing posts with label Lulu DK. Show all posts

Presto Change-o

YES! You can change your wallpaper without stripping it or hanging a new one!

This is my entry now...

Here is it below an hour ago...

What do you do when you love your wallpaper pattern, but have grown tired of the color?

Head to your local paint store. Make sure they know magic.

Shaun Clarke; color extraordinaire, owner of Water's & Brown and one of the founders of C2 Paint got a challenge today. He is also my old boss so he kind of expects this kind of crazy stuff from me.

I love Lulu DK's Chant pattern, but my color scheme is changing and I was done with red. I asked him what he could mix up for me to glaze over the wallpaper and "tint" it to the blue/ plum family. (My new living room scheme.) If he could pull this off he'd be a superhero because I really didn't want to strip this paper. He mixed up a pint of C2 Blackberry and we tested it on a piece of remnant paper I had. I liked what I saw and ran home.

I had a sitter today, so she became my assistant snapping how-to pics. (Thanks Lindsey!)

I was so excited to do this I didn't change my clothes. I'm actually wearing a skirt and heeled boots.

I'm very impatient, when I get an idea I act.

So I mixed one part Open Time (a latex extender) with 3 parts paint, grabbed a high density small foam roller and went at it.

I had originally planned on taping out each panel, rolling and wiping off tint (see 1st pic).

That quickly changed when I hit the big wall. All bets were off and it was drying too fast. I kind of liked the way the roller covered, so evenly so I wound up just rolling (and carefully making sure to feather out roller marks). See how fast I'm going? Where is my hand? FLYING! The whole project took an hour.

I did a light second coat to even it out and got a color a bit more indigo than planned, but I likey.

This picture was taken right at sunset, so its a bit darker than it normal.

I hope to have the rest of the room for you this week.

Its school vacation week so I am home with the kids.

I am trying to suck them into this craziness, making it like a "fun" project.

I have one convinced so far.

Stay tuned.

The Chant is Up!

Two lamps or one? Can't decide.

I finally wallpapered my entrance last week. I was originally going use the Lulu DK Chant in my mudroom, but there were way too many doors and windows. All the math and the fact that I was doing it myself made me chicken out. I have much bigger plans with paint for the mudroom now, so stay tuned. (It just may be my most ambitious and crazy project ever). Anyhow, this was a straight wall, with a little patch over the front door. 5 strips and relatively easy. Here is the before...

By the way, this funky lantern came with the house and makes me happy!

The Living Room

Since starting this blog I have been going through my old binders of magazine clippings. Many of them were from when I was in design school and I saved everything at that point thinking I could somehow use it or learn something from it. Well I did. Looking at most of it now I realize I can safely toss most of it because a) the design was overly "safe" and boring or b) it was way too trendy. So I started cleaning them out and reorganizing, and along the way I pulled out some of my favorite Living Rooms (along with a couple newer ones). There is something in each picture that grabs my attention and I still have a fondness for.

This first one is my all time favorite. When I first saw Lulu de Kwiatkowski's apartment I was in love. I loved her bold eclectic vibe and strong use of colorful geometrics. I also loved that she started off as a Decorative Painter. That to me helped lighten the curse of the title that is always associated with "sponging". If you haven't seen her textile collection do check it out here.