We've got color!!  Yay!  I can hardly believe it but its true. Finally!  Of course however it wasn't without it's issues.....We did mix the color ourselves and originally we only bought one bottle of the shade we needed only to discover that it was no where near enough, which is a little funny because Luigi and I went to buy another bucket of the white paint to mix it with and at the advice of the sales person decided that we didn't need another bottle of color.  Later when we mixed it we realized that that was not the case at all so Luigi ran out and bought two more bottles just to be safe.  In the end we used two full bottles. In the photos below you can see our various attempts at mixing the right shade. 

This is the first shade which was much too light and had almost a flesh tone to it.

This is the first try and the second shade together, still just a bit too light.

And then we got it right!

y

It is a little darker than I had originally planned, but I am really happy with the way it looks so far. It will need one more coat tomorrow since it is still a bit streaky, but I can't wait to see it all put together. I think it will look really great with the white furniture and some funky bedding.

We have been working a little slow this week since we both have "real" jobs in the middle of it all but tomorrow we are off to Ikea to buy the flooring, so we are hoping that by the end of the weekend the entire room will be finished.  We still have to varnish the window and finish the wardrobe and get rid of this awful light! But at least the hard part is over!   

Time to get a good nights sleep so I can be ready for a full day of work.  I hope to have some fun photos for you by the end of the weekend. 

Happy Friday, be back soon!

Remember the always expect the unexpected part???  Well a few more problems popped up today.  Over the years several layers of paint have been put on these walls and over time because of the way buildings are constructed here (brick, then concrete then plaster) after a while the paint no longer sticks to the wall.......And thats what happened to us today! YAY!! As I was up on the ladder feeling very proud of myself for having almost completely painted the ceiling myself, and having almost finished the second coat of white paint, i.e just about ready to mix the tan, large chunks of old dry paint in several colors starting sticking to my roller......hmmmmm.... that can't be good.  Then I did just as Luigi taught me and I started scrapping the dry patches off the wall and all of a sudden the little patch became a HUGE section! Oops! Oh well, at least it happened now and not when we were actually sleeping in there. 

I really should have taken a photos before Luigi fixed it because you could actually see the several layers of color underneath, yellow, white, and the green of course.  So this is a layer of plaster over the concrete and now we will have to wait for it to dry before painting over it, but at least it will be fresh! You can also see to the left another section, a bit smaller this time, but another one nonetheless!

And then........I was painting another wall and look what happened here! Great!  This one I actually fixed myself.  After watching Luigi for a while I thought I'd give it a try. Not bad for a first timer.  Let's just hope it stops here and that we don't have any more surprises!

But, since I know these are not the most exciting photos, I wanted to post a couple of photos of some bedding I found on Anthropologie.com my favoriteist store in the entire world! 

Are they to die for or what?!  I absolutely love their home department, these two I especially love for the bedroom.  Think I'll be trying extra hard to fill up that tip jar in the next few months.

I would buy everything in this store if I could! Tomorrow will be a busy day for both of us, so I'm not sure how much work we will get done, but hopefully I will have some new photos to show you. 

Happy Monday! A domani

Yesterday was lots of fun!  Laura and I put the first coat of paint on the walls in the bedroom. We talked the entire time and got really messy!  We did realize however, that we are going to need several coats to cover up that old ugly dirty green. So this room is still in progress but here are a few photos of what we have accomplished so far. Oh and I think I have a made the decision to paint all the walls with the tan, especially after seeing some more photos of it being done this way and also imagining the white window and the white wardrobe, I think it will look really nice.  Today I will be taking a break and paying some attention to the apartment that I currently still live in, its been a bit neglected this week.  Enjoy the photos, more to come when all is finished!

I painted the shutters white and eventually the window frame will be painted to match

Before and after with bright white, already looking much cleaner

Still a work in progress but we're getting there

and yes, that awful industrial fluorescent light is going!

I'll be back tomorrow with more photos of hopefully a completely painted room! A domani!

Ok, so where have I been? Well, with everything going on and piles of "stuff" everywhere I can't seem to find my head.  One day I forgot my camera, and now I have forgotten the USB cable to get the images from the camera. Uffff!! There has also been the reality of the day job mixed in with all of this too! So today I will show you some inspiration that I have found and what I will eventually be doing with this room....

But first let me just sum up what has been happening the last few days.....remember that big hole in the wall we found behind the wardrobe? Fixed.  Then we discovered that there we many more holes to be patched up, some major, but mostly minor, nail holes, chipped plaster that sort of thing, but nonetheless they all had to be filled with plaster, dried and sanded.  Its really interesting to actually see my husband at work, I never realized he was such the perfectionist! 

I also had to vigorously clean the window, not only the glass but the frame as well. We're talking years of dirt and dust! Yuck!  So now the room is finally ready for paint! YAY!! This is what I am doing on the walls...

I absolutely love the tan and white together. However, I am thinking of doing only one wall, the one where the bed will be, with the tan and the rest white since the room is long and narrow this will help foreshorten the space. But we will do that wall first and see how we like it and decide from there.  I also really love the neutral color with the addition of the bright orange rug. I'm thinking black and white bedding with orange sheets and throw pillows and maybe an orange rug. 

These fabrics are all from Ikea, but hey really you can't beat their prices.  I will attempt to make the duvet cover, or in the end it could end up to be just some fabric covering the bed! 

I also really like these colors as well and they are feeling a bit more springy to me.  

The good thing about the neutral wall is that we won't be limited to one color palette, ans since we love colorthis is perfect for us.  The floors are going to be done in this wood laminate also from Ikea, cheap and easyto install.  

And then in searching through various interior design blogs, I came across this delicious window treatment on Design Sponge DIY.  I am so very excited about this I want to use it on every room in the apartment, but we will have to see.  You can find the full instructions for this project here.  And since we live in such close quarters this will be the perfect solution. 

Well in order to get to do all this fun creating and decorating I do actually need to go to work!  I mean at my "real job"  So I am off to the Accademia Museum to admire and explain Michelangelo's David, and then I will heading over to paint the room!  I will find that darn USB cable and show the new walls tomorrow! 

Happy Saturday! 

Ciao.

What do you do if the armoire you have is too big? (Too big??? how could it ever be TOO big? No but really is was taking up half the room) Well you cut it with a power saw!  Yup! Thats right, cut it, thats what we did! It was just a few feet too long so we cut off the last set of doors and voila! there we have it the perfect size closet! It's bigger than what we currently have and we will eventually have additional storage in the hallway so it seemed ok to reduce it in the bedroom.  

so basically the last set off doors after the mirrors have been chopped off

First we took off all the doors and took apart everything that we could and then took a power saw to it! And then we moved the whole thing away from the wall to check behind and look what we found!! Uhoh! Thats a pretty big hole in the wall!

Always expect the unexpected! Good thing Luigi knows exactly how to fix that! 

Then since the doors were off we figured we would do ahead and paint them since they were a really dull and dirty looking yellow color and wouldn't really go with the color scheme I eventually plan to have in the room. So the entire thing will be a nice bright white in the end. We considered buying a new one entirely, but have you seen the prices of wardrobes these days?  Mamma mia!!  So this is a little money saving trick to salvage what you already have and make it work! I will eventually change the hardware too, I'm thinking some nice black handles to make it look nice and chic.  If I were in the U.S I would be heading right over to Anthropologieto buy some funky door pulls, but that will have to wait! Or who knows, maybe I'll get experimental and try to make some with my clay.....hmmmmmm......!

So here are the doors in process of their makeover and Maestro Luigi hard at work.

We will be giving them a final coat tomorrow, we want to let the first coat dry completely to make them look as perfect as possible. Next was a lot of cleaning and moving things around, finding space in the garage for stuff we don't need and throwing away of old broken pieces. Then my hubby fixed some walls and worked his magic. I keep telling him how hot he is with those tools in his hands! he thinks I'm being sarcastic, but I'm telling you there is something about a man who know how to build things!

please excuse the pants around his butt, he's really not a sagger, they were just falling down! Think he needs to find a belt!

There had already been some dry wall added to the walls but never finished off properly so here he is closing it up and sealing it off, first with cement then with plaster.  Then it was finally time to go and buy the supplies for painting!!  YAY!!! this is the good stuff! However,.........I was surprised to learn that I will apparently be mixing the color on my own.  That's right, by hand, basically we bought a huge tub of white paint and a few small bottles of ultra concentrated color and I will be adding the color to the white to get my own personalized shade. I've never done this for walls before, but I  think it will be great! Wish me luck! Lets hope it comes out ok! 

So after the last coat of paint goes on the closet doors, I will begin painting the room, I think. So, its off to work we go! Day 3 awaits! 

A dopo ragazzi!