Spray Painting Mismatched Frames: a house log

We all know I have a pillow problem. And true to form, I could not resist grabbing two of these boldly striped 26″ x 26″ euro pillows for simply nine bucks a pop when we came across them at HomeGoods. In my defense, John walked off and came back holding them, so he might have a pillow problem too. But come on, $9? For giant 100% cotton euro pillows? Sold. In our house, pillows are certainly nomads, so these folks could end up doing a little tour (hitting up the guest room, the playroom, and even the sunroom or living room). But right now we are loving them in our bedroom with the similarly toned flower & berry prints from Alaska that we hung a few weeks back:

It is sort of like adding a fully temporary boldly striped headboard without doing anything more than spending $18 and tossing them on the bed. No muss, no fuss. And no commitment. We truly like how they work with everything from our garage sale botanical art and the lighter toned greeny-gold curtains to the green potted plant on the other side of the room and even Sir Ram. Because when you stop to think about it, what truly works with a giant ram head over your bed? Am I right? Oh and as for the smaller greeny-gold pillow, it is sure to pop up in other places too, so it is not consistently destined to be layered with the new striped pillows for those who object (although in person it is truly pleasant pairing that further ties in the curtains). Here is a wide shot of the quite unfinished side of our bedroom:

I know, I know. That picture looks crazy. So check out all the doodled changes that we are planning to make as we go:

To further expound upon my doodles:

1. We hung the twig & berries art on the same center-line as the ram (simply so they would not look like they were riding high and because the lamp shades only overlapped the written flower/berries names and not the illustration) but once we get new night stands that are hopefully taller (since those old living room side tables are way too low and do not have any concealed storage) we will likely scooch everything up a bit.
2. The ottoman is necessary for Burger to get in and out of bed (yes, we pander to him, although we refuse to buy doggy steps) but it is a little short and chunky and dark (although it does tie into our leaning mirror and dark chair) so we might get/make something lighter and longer (perhaps with dark legs but a lighter fabric top).
3. The wheat colored lamp shades sometimes read as a little dirty since the bedding, trim, light fixture, and door are so white. Mehaps a little makeover or upgrade is in order.
4. We’d enjoy some sort of big chunky cabinet to the left of the bed for function, balance, and to make sense of the odd little nook there.

So that is the long-term plan in there. And simply as new additions to a room frequently inspire some tweaking (ex: in a surprise turn of events our twig & berry art spurred us to lose the ol’ printed duvet cover), the addition of the new striped pillows sparked a little art tweak on the other side of the room. Ever since we brought in the matching framed botanicals by the bed (along with the matching wall plaques on either side of Sir Ram and the matching new striped pillows at the head of the bed) the horse art somehow slipped from feeling pleasant and balanced (since it had two distinct items under it – a chair and a dresser) to feeling a little too balanced and mirror-image since it was one of many things that were now in pairs…

So because we were itching for a little less symmetry (while still wanting to maintain some semblance of balance to assist the new-ish chair and the quite old dresser relate), we chose to play around with stuff that we already had to see if we could come up with a free alternative:

1. Down came the horses above the dresser (which now reside in the playroom but will hopefully find a permanent place somewhere else down the line).
2. Up went two differently sized old Ikea frames that we had sitting in the playroom, waiting to be hung for nearly 8 months.

We immediately liked the less symmetrical arrangement but the oddly mismatched frame colors were not doing it for us (one was a clashy reddish brown and one was white). And since the botanicals looked so good with a little oil-rubbed bronze spray paint I chose to swiftly pop the glass/art out of them and give them a few thin and even coats of leftover ORB. You know, so they’d tuck into the room a bit more and look more integrated with the stuff going on across the wall. So outside I went with my sexy spray painting socks (see those here)….

… and soon sufficient the frames were bronzed and striking…

Then I needed something to put in them. So I dug through the old art stuff we already had and found a plain little green dandelion print from Ikea (it used to hang next to our front door in our first house). I also chose to make some consistently-appropriate-for-a-Hands-on-couple’s-bedroom “paint chip art” with old Ralph Lauren swatches that I had in my basket (yes, I have a paint swatch basket since I hate throwing them away, which is also where I house all of my paint decks except for my go-to one that hangs in the hallway). Home Depot does not even sell Ralph Lauren paint anymore, so I figured “recycling” the old swatches was better than hoarding them or simply trashing them, so I pulled out all of the little colored squares…

… and simply used tones that reoccur in the room so it would tie in (I did not need something that screamed since that would compete with the botanicals and the remaining horse photograph over the leather chair). I was left with a little pile of browns, grays, blue-grays, greeny-yellows, soft sand colors, creams, and whites. So I simply arranged them in a gradient from darkest to lightest (this photo was still a work in progress since I switched out a few of the chips that stuck out too much or looked out of order).

Little loops of scotch tape on the back of each one held them in place on four pieces of card stock that I taped together to create a big 16 x 20″ background to fit the frame. Ta-daaa.

We enjoy that the paint chip art looks like a pixelated photo and the dandelion pic is a pleasant little “neutral” touch in the room as well (so it all layers in nicely without conflicting too much with anything else on the walls). Yay. We are fans. Although we have learned that art posts are certainly the most not-everyone’s-boat-is-floated-by-the-same-stuff kind of thing. But we sleep in that room and we like it mucho. Hurrah! Clara’s go-to part? The pig of course (she runs into the room squealing “piggy!” and pointing while oinking). Quite cute.

For another version of paint swatch art, check out what we did with leftover swatches in our old office (on our postcard ledge) and drop in on Jessica Jones’ excellent paint chip art project here on How About Orange.

Oh and since I am in a doodling mood, here is a bit more about why we did what we did:

See, it is not as perfectly balanced and mirror-image-ish. But it still kind of goes. And it’ll work a lot better after some tweaks over time (get ready for more doodling)…

… like this…

We truly like that the white mirror in the nook relates to the glossy white window trim, and the art hanging on either side of it is dark sufficient to feel balanced but not exactly the same size/shape anymore. So that is where we are.

Who knows what else we will change as we go though. We are certainly fans of the trial and error method (since we never seem with it sufficient to get things right on the first try, haha). Although this corner view is still my go-to for some reason. Likely because the mirror reflects a ton of window-light and the big chandelier is floating overhead with the neutral-ish-but-not-white curtains, the dark moody leather chair, and the horse art in the background.

So anyway, it is pleasant that something as plain as two low-cost-o pillows and some fast & free art swappage (I must be in a free art mood this week) could add a bit more interest while taming the especially-symmetry that seemed to build and eventually boil over as we brought in art and accessories.

Have you folks picked up low-cost-o pillows lately? Or chose to switch out art and accessories as you toss in other additions and slowly build a room? Any go-to pillow sources in general? Oh and has anyone out there gotten it totally right with everything from the furnishings to the accessories in one shot? That must be amazingly serendipitous. We are more of the learning as you go slash bumbling along type. Haha. But at least we did not break anything this time…