I meant to do a full photo tour of our house when we moved in here two and a half years ago, but I started slapping on fresh coats of white paint the same day we got our keys and then I felt like I missed the boat on capturing the true “before” state of things. I decided I’d wait until we were done with our refresh and then just do final pictures – finish one room a month, nine(ish) rooms in the house, take a short break for the holidays and we’d be kicking back in our well-styled crib by Spring 2019! Oh, Kel. Silly Kel. Two years later it felt like we still hadn’t really finished anything. When we started spending all day, every day at home in March I resolved to give our house some love and get some shit DONE.
Pandemic Project 1: Finish the dining room. Let me take you back to the pre-purchase staged version (from our listing photos). That chandelier was…fancy, but hardly the mid-century vibe we were going for.
We made good progress on this room when we first moved in with new lighting and new windows and new furniture, but the main white wall was a blank canvas begging for artwork or wallpaper or some kind of focal point. After not finding anything on the inter-webs that sang to me, I decided to channel my inner DIY-ist with a Sharpie paint pen and a lotta foliage photos for inspiration. Here she is… Finito!
I naively thought I could just free-hand this thing right on the wall, but oh, Kel. Silly Kel. My first take was not so good, so I slapped another coat of white paint on the wall and spent a couple of weekends mapping out a full-size mockup of the pattern I wanted on trace paper, getting my leaves and overlaps just so.
I then traced the final linework on the back-side of the paper with thick pencil, taped the pattern to the wall, and transferred the pencil marks with a good rub. Then the satisfying work of tracing those lines with a rich, black Sharpie.
So fun, you guys! Seriously, I love a long, tedious task like this.
It was hard to know when exactly I should be done, but finally the wall felt sufficiently un-blank and I was able to call it a day.
In hindsight I wonder if I should have opted to draw magnolia branches and rhododendron leaves to carry in the patterns from our backyard, but nope. NOPE. The Monstera leaves are perfect. This room is complete and I’ve got a big blank picture frame hanging over our mantle that’s calling my name. Onward.
