By the way I noticed that my blog looks completely different when looked at on a PC and/or iPad- does anyone know how to fix that? My fonts and colors totally change from the design I have on my Mac:(
So....... I have always been interested in interior design. In fact, before I entered my freshman year of college at Utah State I was planning to major in it. However, I didn't because I thought "what will I do with an Interior Design Degree?". So I backed out. Now, look where I am hahaha. I have always loved to decorate. I love to re purpose things for a better use. Pinterest is like my life. I am pretty sure Derek feels like it's my second husband. It inspires me. All of my TV time is taken up by shows on HGTV. I am pretty much obsessed with Brittany from Design Star. If I could bottle her let's just say I would. Now that it is getting a little creepy.... the real reason for this post is my best friend Lindsey. I am in love with that girl. I honestly could not ask for a better friend. We are twins. She was so frustrated with her living room that she came to a breaking point. Of course design is my love and I was there to help her with all sorts of ideas. This is her living room before:
She was not happy with the green color on the walls and was contemplating painting the fireplace. Now, I am all about brick. I love character in a house. But we both agreed that she needed to paint it. Justin (her hubby) and Lindsey both wanted to paint the walls a blue color. So after multiple trips to Lowe's and a few paint strips on the wall they picked the one they loved most.
It turned out to be this baby blue grayish color:
Like I mentioned before Lindsey was at a breaking point with decorating. I don't know what it is with decorating your own place....it is so much harder! With Lindsey's room I was inspired from the moment she started sending me pictures of the paint color. But with my own house it took me months to come up with ideas!
With such a beautiful long fireplace comes a huge space to decorate. Such a long narrow space is tricky because you don't want to overdo it and make it look cluttered and you don't want to do too little because you'll leave too much negative space on the left and right.
Lindsey did a cute collage above her fireplace. She did a great job but she was feeling uncertain. So I talked her into letting me come down to help her. Once she agreed the ideas were flowing like crazy. I knew we had to do some sort of design above her fireplace. I wanted to do some sort of stencil graphic. Mainly to fill up all of that space. So I sent her these two pictures:
Both I am in love with.
The Chevron is a DIY wall art and the one on the right is a wall stencil that can be purchased off of Etsy. She decided she loved the chevron. Step number two. I started sketching the pattern onto a piece of paper. Here is my sloppy work:
I drew a grid pattern where it would give me 4 chevron lines. I thought 3 lines would be too much white and 5 would be too much pattern going on. The blue ink is some of the decorations I wanted to put on the mantel. I counted the boxes on each side. Once I finally got to Lindsey's I just divided each measurement by the number I put going horizontally and vertically. It was as easy as that. After a few of Justin's softball games we got to work! We used chalk to draw the grid pattern. Which really only took us about 30 minutes? It was so easy!!!! I would definitely recommend chalk!
So, after measuring out the vertical distance (and dividing that by 7 from my drawing) and the horizontal distance ( which was divided by 18) we got to work. We used just a long sheet of contact paper to help us draw the lines straight. But anything would work. Next we drew the vertical lines. Here's Lindsey actually working while I'm snapping pictures:)
Once our chalk grid was drawn we went to bed and decided we would start taping in the morning. To tape all we did was cut about a million pieces of painter's tape and make sure that each piece touched it's diagonal corner. Here are some pictures that will help this concept make sense:
So since I am the most patient person in the world... not!!!!... ha ha I began to paint as she was finishing taping the last chevron lines. I was so excited at how it was turning out. It looked exactly like my drawing:) Here is my favorite person accidentally stepping in paint. I am pretty sure by the end we were ready to take a nap! We only did two coats of paint with the paint brush and it turned out beautiful!
We then went shopping (my favorite part). Lindsey was on a budget and I wanted this room to turn out like the one in my head so I made a shopping list of all the things I knew we needed. This really helped us not overspend! We went to Real Deals, Gordman's, TJ Maxx, Ross, Michael's for the flowers, D.I. and an antique store in Bountiful for some vintage books. I kept track of how much Lindsey was spending at each store to make sure we weren't going over her budget. At the end we did the whole thing for just around $100!!!!!
Since Lindsey and I are so much alike I knew she would like the style of how I wanted to decorate her room. We got home and started to set all the decorations out. I was so so so happy with the end result I could barely stand it! Here is Lindsey's new front room.....
(Most of these are taken with my iPhone so bear with me)
Notice the mirror? It was repainted white and it looks amazing!!!!
Couch Area Before....
....and After!
The shelves were changed out to be these Ikea white ones!
Bookshelf Before.....
and After
We put contact paper on the backing of the bookshelf. It was so easy because of it's already adhesive backing and look how much it brightens the decorations!
Here's just a few more looks at the finishing touches! Excuse the pixelated pictures. I snapped these from my phone hoping they would turn out!!!! I'll know better next time:)
Best,
Kendra Lloyd
