Room Service Atlanta

Last year, you might remember that I volunteered for the Room Service Atlanta project. It is such an awesome group volunteer effort, put together by Dayka and Erika, and I loved seeing how everything has turned out! I hated that my schedule didn't allow me to participate in the actual design this year, but I hope to be back on board the next go-round. 

Anyway, I was perusing my usual daily blog readings, and happened to stop by one of my favorites - Angela's.  My fellow blog friends (internet friends! nerd alert!) Angela, Lori and Rhoda teamed up to create a couple of rooms for the project this year, and my jaw dropped when I saw the fantastic look they put together. The modern, playful, masculine, COLORFUL rooms that they designed are killer. 

Please check out the photos that I borrowed from Angela's blog so I could show you guys!

Angela did the painting over the sofa - killer, right?!?! She is so talented.

The snack/desk area, opposite the sofa. 

So cool! 

Angela also did both of these paintings. I adore teensy canvases, I am always tempted to buy them for no reason every time I see them at Sam Flax. I havent bought any in a while, but maybe I will soon!

And here is the cool entry they did:

All the designers were working with this really bright wood paneling - in lots of places, they primed and painted over the paneling, but here it stayed. I love it with the checkered floor contrast.

GREAT job, ladies! Hope to see you all soon!

Kitchen Cabinet Makeover

Hi!

I wanted to share with you guys a kitchen cabinet makeover that I recently completed (for one of the NICEST clients ever. Here is her blog - she does amazing things!). 

Anyway, she wanted to update her kitchen, which had laminate cabinets, and yellow walls before:

Don't you love the brick floor?!

(and that is her cutie son, who I blurred out in the face, just for privacy, however she has tons of photos of that little sweetie on her blog :))

And here is what it looked like after I finished my job! She had some trim added, and I think it makes a huge, huge, huge difference, not to mention she painted the walls, too!

I LOVE the putty color on the cabinets. It's a gray/green/brownish color in real life, and it kind of changes throughout the day. It was a custom mixed color that my client bought - it doesn't have a name or number, sorry!

I did a little bit of glazing in the cracks and crevices, and randomly on the doors and stalls. She wanted some glazing(but not a lot) so that little fingerprints won't show up so often :)

I love this color for cabinets! 

Mycolor Blog Post

Head over to my Mycolor Blog Post to see how I transformed a hideous bathroom cabinet!

Ocean-y

I recently completed this ocean-inspired painting for my living room... I just did it on a piece of very heavy weight watercolor paper, because I knew I wanted to frame it in this large Ikea frame, so that it would be shiny. 

Ignore that yellow wall, which is about to be painted white, thank god. After 3 years of living here, we are finally getting that gross yellow hallway painted. Don't ask me why I've lived with it for three years when I hate it so much! I think the guy who renovated our condos just walked around and sprayed EVERYTHING a flat yellow color, including the ceilings. I have slowly painted all the walls and all the ceilings, but I couldn't do the hallway because it's two stories, and I don't do stilts on stairs. 

Anyway.

I also painted this little dresser minty green, which I love. I did it in a high-gloss, and set my fake-succulent-planter on top. They are holding up quite nicely ;)

oceany, no? Jordan doesn't see it, but I do, and it makes me happy. 

"Fish's View" Painting

This post is funny, because I wrote the whole thing, posted it into my Etsy shop for sale, and before I even could blog about it to tell you guys it was for sale, it sold. Wow! Exciting.

I am going to start doing a lot more studio work in the coming months, which is a really exciting turn for me. I love working on canvases, and I have said it a hundred times - I adore color, and coming up with color combinations, so I can't wait to see where this road of non-commissioned paintings takes me.

This is the piece that I just finished, it's titled "Fish's View"

The main colors are:

coral

tangerine

red

sky blue

mint green

lime green

chartreuse

turquoise

lavender

royal purple

geranium pink

peach

All four sides of this canvas are painted too, and you can flip it around and hang it facing whichever way you like!

This is my favorite painting yet! I say that every time. But it's true!

I posted this photo on instagram last week, and one of my friends said, "It looks like what the goldfish in the pond must see when you throw the food in, and they come swimming up to get it"... I thought that was a perfect description... hence, the name!

Weekend Happenings.

Time for a weekend photodump...

Just thought I'd share a little of what I was up to this weekend!

Friday of last week, I finished up this cabinet job... I'll post better pictures of the job later this week, but here is a teaser - don't you love the cabinet color my client picked out?!

Friday night, Jordan and I went down to my hometown of Griffin, Georgia to watch my cousin Anna and her bandmate, Matt, sing a little bluegrass at Bank Street Cafe (the restaurant my brother manages). 

The name of the band is The Sage Hill String Band, and here is a link to some videos I posted of them performing. They're so good!

This is an instagram shot I posted Saturday.... (my handle is kfddesigns)... my friend made this turquoise necklace for a me a while back. I love it!

I also posted this photo of an awkward Mika hanging out in the living room. What is wrong with this dude?!

Jordan and I ate at The Republic on Saturday night, which is only about a block from our house...I loved their halloween decor on the giant R:

Then, Saturday evening, my friend and I sat around her firepit and chatted - not a bad setup, eh?!

Later, we were graced by the presence of a furry friend. I saw something slowly walking by us, and said, "Aw, look it's a cat!"...unfortunately, my less-than-stellar vision failed me, and the little guy was a POSSUM. Not cute, and that little freak climbed the fence (over barbed wire!) and was closer to us than we preferred. Yikes!

How was your weekend?!

Mycolor Blog Post

Morning!

I blogged over at Mycolor today - please head over and check it out! 

Also, Wednesday we had a new group of bloggers participate in the Mycolor Painting Party. Here's a little sampling of the party - Holly's cute custom painted jars (Inspired by Anthropologie):

Here is the line up, so you can go check the blogs out for yourself, and enter the contest!

Courtney @ A THOUGHTFUL PLACE

PJ @ BLOG-A-DAZZLE

Cassie @ PRIMITIVE AND PROPER

Holly @ LIFE IN THE FUN LANE

Angela @ NUMBER FIFTY-THREE

Heather @ PAPER PRINCESS STUDIO

Faux Succulents

Well, I have done something really tacky. After about 3 failed attempts to keep a grouping of succulents alive this summer, I decided (randomly) to buy some fake ones today at Hobby Lobby. 

I removed all the 90% dead ones in my white planter, and decided to just stick them into the soil that I had. Feels more real that way?

Like I said, this was kind of a random happening, as I was perusing Hobby Lobby, I saw a whole end-cap full of fake-but-realistic succulents (and they were 50% off). I grabbed several, and the whole group was about $17. That was less than the cost of all the real ones I killed. Succulents are weird plants to me... they either live forever (I've had some in my house for 3+ years!) or they die within a couple of months. Hm. Any advice?!

Anyway, I just placed them into the pot, and I think they look pretty!

I placed them slightly randomly, and slightly planned. I didn't want it to look perfect... So I had the two middle ones symmetrical, and then two different types on either side. A great place to look for inspiration is the West Elm or CB2 catalogs - both have great succulent planters and gardens. 

Here's where it sits at my house (this was taken at night, by my phone, so it's not the best photo)

I painted this little dresser mint green about a month ago. It makes me happy... and I also painted the painting above the dresser about a month ago. I need to take proper photos of this for you guys, too!

(the whole area)

Rug Painting

I am no stranger to rug painting... a few years ago, I painted this flat-weave rug from Ikea, and blogged about it:

before: 

Taped it off:

spraypainted it:

and after I pulled the tape:

This rug was not a long-term solution for the perfect rug, BUT I will say it lasted just as long as one of those printed flat weave rugs from Urban Outfitters, and it was way, way, way cheaper. 

A couple years later, I tried my hand at rug dyeing:

I found this Oriental rug lookalike (really, it was much thinner than a real rug) at a thrift store, and decided to dye it for that "over dyed rug" look that is so popular. For the full story, you can read here what I did. 

Anyway, it looked like this to begin with:

After a little of this:

it looked like this!

(naturally, Mika models)

Soooo, recently when a client asked me to paint a rug for her, I had no problem saying yes. 

she bought this large 5x7' rug from Ikea, and told me she loved Christi Holcombe's rug she made for her son's nursery (which I'd seen too, and loved!)

My client was putting the rug in the nursery that her young daughter and her newborn son will share. She was using mostly gender neutral colors, but wanted to incorporate a pop of the bright pink into the rug, too. I loved that idea!

Here are my steps from the process: 

I used a roll of contact paper and placed it onto the end of the rug, from top to bottom. I’d drawn out my pattern on a piece of paper, so it was ready to trace onto the actual contact paper.

Then, I repeated the pattern all the way down the rug. It made about 4 and a quarter of the little medallion patterns, so when it came time to move my pattern over, I switched the placement of the paper to be upside down, so the pattern was “short” on the other end, which made a more even looking/intentional pattern.

I also realized early on that it would take 4 rows of my pattern to fill up the whole space, which was important to me.

Next, after I drew my pattern onto the contact paper with a permanent marker, I cut it out with a razor blade. Very easy! After that, I poured my paint in paint trays, and was ready to go.

I used foam furniture rollers to roll my paint on (the small ones!) and MyColor™ inspired by PANTONE®’s “Honeysuckle” (color of the year last year!) and “Raw Sienna” as the colors.

I rolled it on, but I did not let it completely fill the rug’s weave. I didn’t want it to get too “crunchy”, and I thought the fact that it didn’t fill the whole weave made it look more legitimate – almost like it was woven into the rug.

and, I was done!

I loved how it turned out, and you can't beat $40 for a fun, unique, custom, patterned rug! 

Monday already?

and just like that, the weekend is over.

It was a very busy and productive one for me, though! How was your's?

This is a photo that I took last week when I was getting ready for a photoshoot at my house (!)... I really need to take new pictures of my living room for you guys - it's getting more to a "finished" state these days. It sat for about 8 months (after I started the "makeover process" and painted it "White Dove") looking unfinished, but I have done a bit more in here, and it's feeling more "me" these days. I kind of want to paint the living room walls a more bright white, versus a warm white, but I am trying not to be too crazy over here ;) I have changed so much stuff around... I'm lucky Jordan hasn't kicked me to the curb. I still love my reupholstered sofa and my clear acrylic table though, so that counts for some consistency, right?!

I also had to iron my sheets and duvet for the photoshoot. Those things are a lot of work! 

Anyway...

I finally got around to a chore I've been meaning to complete ever since I made my curtains with fabric from Spoonflower. I love the curtains hanging in the bedroom, but they are very thin, and every morning we are blinded by sunlight. It's really not that big of a deal on days that we don't want to sleep in (AKA most days), but for the days that we DO want to get a few more minutes of shut eye, it can be really annoying! I'm one of those people that wakes up easily, and once I'm awake, I can't go back to sleep. So, I bought so blackout fabric from Joann's (only 6.99 a yard there, and a sweet lady gave me her extra coupon for 40% off, so it was a cheap project!) and added it to my curtains. 

As you may know, I rarely actually sew things. I added this fabric to my curtains with Liquid Stitch glue. It worked like a charm!

and this is what our bedroom looked like the next morning:

(minus the little hole where sunlight is coming through. I had kind of opened them a bit this morning before I took this picture!)

So great. This reminds me of my Papa, and how he is obsessed with darkening the room to sleep. When I was little, and we would go to Florida for the month for vacation, he'd put black trashbags over his windows to black out the sun. So funny.

This past weekend I also did a little painting-shipping. 

said goodbye to this painting, which is headed to a client. 

Also, I snapped a quick picture of this canvas that I am working on:

It's not done, but I sometimes like to take photos of the many phases my paintings go through, so I can remember all of them. I posted this photo on instagram, and one of my friends said that she thinks it looks like what goldfish would see out of a pond after you throw food into the water. Perfect description, huh? I loved it.

This painting will be up for sale soon, when I feel like it's done!

Another personal project I started working on this weekend was preparing for the engagement shower that my other brother and I are throwing for my little brother and his new fiancee. It's going to be great! We are currently working on venues and dates, and I can't wait to get to the fun part of decor and food!

I started prematurely searching for invitations, and loved this option I found on etsy:

(this is an iPhone photo I took of my computer screen - bad quality, sorry)

This invite is very "David and Mary" (my brother/ his fiancee). Not sure which one we'll pick, but I had fun searching options!

OK, that's it for now...hope you enjoyed my rambling!