Beige Wash

Hello everyone. Welcome to the mansion today.

I have mentioned before, several times, that I live in a "cave" house. By "cave" I mean DARK. When we moved in, the walls, floors, and ceilings were all dark wood planks. Husband loved it, I did not. So...I have SLOWLY but surely changed the dark to less dark.

One of the ways I tried to key down the dark was to beige wash a few walls. I put one part paint to three parts water and stirred it up real good. Then, I brushed it on the boards and quickly wiped it off. This gave me a much less dark wooden wall. You can still see the grain, but no brown. See.....
Ahhhh. So much easier on the eyes. The finished product came out like this...

This process of "washing" was super easy and free. I used the paint that I had from painting other parts of the house.

Well....I must not be the only one with the "washing" idea. I pulled my new copy of House Beautiful out of the mailbox, and what do you know? There on the cover was a wonderful room with paint "wash" all over it. See.....

So...pretty.

I have been thinking of how you could accomplish this look if you live in quarters. Here are my thoughts...You could nail up one by eights or something like that and wash them. Then, when you move out, just pull down the boards. This would leave some holes to fill, but that is nothing new. You could also put up 4 by 8 paneling and do the wash on it. This would leave less holes. Not as attractive, but an option. I have actually lived in quarters that had half wall paneling already up. I could have washed that. Wish I would have thought of it then.

There you have it. "Washed" walls. Hope you enjoyed the pics and the info. Come back again when you get a chance.

Head on over to The Shades of Pink for more Room A Month ideas.

Check out Between Naps on the Porch for great Metamorphosis.

Look to A Silly Little Sparrow for other Tuesday Toots.

It's Talented Tuesday at My frugal Family.

Laura

The Porch Bathroom

Hello ladies. Welcome to the mansion. It's Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps On The Porch. I am joining in.

Have you ever had a room in your home that is just WEIRD? We do. When we bought our house several months ago we did the purchase via computer. Although we had 60 or so pics of the property, there were a few things that could not be fully appreciated from a photo. One of these things was our porch, turned sunroom, turned office, BATHROOM. Yep. Several owners before us had enclosed the back porch to make a sunroom. The next owner used the space as an office. The owner following that decided that our 1923 farmhouse needed a second bathroom... So...they removed the desk and "threw" in a toilet, tub, and sink. I am not kidding. It kinda looked like they threw the toilet, tub, and sink up in the air and where they landed, they stayed.

OK...so we got over the placement of the stuff, but we just couldn't get over the 10 windows with ill fitting mini-blinds. You couldn't do any sort of "business" without flashing anyone outside.

Here are some before photos.

The bathroom had no storage, a mirror that was too large for the vanity, and a dark green color paint. And....those awful mini-blinds.

Our first thought was to take most of the windows out and wall the bathroom in a bit...too expensive. Our next thought was to have shutters made for the windows...too expensive. After much debate we decided to purchase ten sets of outdoor shutters, paint them, and hang them ourselves. We added some new paint, a new mirror, and some furniture for storage.

This is what we ended up with...

Yeah....no more gaps to see through. We can still open the shutters when we want sunshine. The furniture helped to balance the room with the small vanity. The color change warmed everything up a bit. Still a few things to do, but we are loving the updates.

Thanks for stopping by the mansion. Come back soon.

Also posted at Transformation Thursday over at The Shabby Chic Cottage , Get R Done Friday at Expressly Corgi , and Room a Month at TheShades of Pink.

Posting for the first time at It's So Very Cheri for It's So Very Creative .