The winner is...

After narrowing down our paint choices and painting some samples on a 2x2 foot piece of drywall, we had a winner - Behr's Observatory. It was a close call between that and Benjamin Moore's Newburg Green, but ultimately we felt that Observatory was a touch more blue.

Source: homedepot.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: knightmovesblog.blogspot.com via Courtney on Pinterest

We sent the kid off for a weekend with the grandparents and then spent Friday night prepping and all of Saturday painting. I love how the colour highlights our Crate & Barrel pillow shams and I think it looks fantastic with our trim colour. One day down the road we may trade out our bed, I want to change out one of the bedside tables, and we have to add art to the walls (I have several pieces ready to go) but I think that paint made a huge difference in the feel of the room.

We used Valspar's Ultra Premium paint in a satin finish and had it colour matched to Observatory. It only took one gallon and two coats although it probably could have used a third coat. I'm not super happy with the finish but that's probably a result of us not being great painters and a downfall of picking such a dark colour.

Overall, I'm really happy with the result and am yet again amazed at what a difference a can of paint can make.

Here's the before... (pardon the dark photo - I didn't get a chance to take a photo during the day.)

And the after...

Have you painted any rooms in your house recently? Do you have a go-to colour?

Picking Paint

We are at the point in our bedroom beautification process where I have convinced A. that painting the room would be a good idea and we've taped many swatches on the wall to try and narrow down a colour. I've been tracking down inspiration photos that use paint in my favourite colours and now I'm having a hard time narrowing it down.

Here are the front-runners.

Source: thesamplesstore.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: westelm.com via Courtney on Pinterest

This bedroom from West Elm is painted in Benjamin Moore's Marine Blue.

Source: passport2design.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: passport2design.com via Courtney on Pinterest

This fun space uses Benjamin Moore's Newburg Green.

Source: creategirl.blogspot.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: creategirl.blogspot.com via Courtney on Pinterest

I'm diggin' the drama of Benjamin Moore's Old Navy.

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Source: viveredrayton.blogspot.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Another one that's captured my eye is Benjamin Moore's Twilight. Admittedly, I've only seen the Benjamin Moore colours online. I still need to go to our local store to pick up some paint chips.

Finally, we have two that have been living on our walls for a week and I'm liking them both.

Source: homedepot.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Observatory by Behr

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Admiral Blue by Olympic

We will need to pare it down to two or three colours and then get test pots for the final comparison.

Which one is your favourite?

I'm loving... cozy grey bedrooms

Our master bedroom is large. It's not huge but it's definitely bigger than we are used to and the empty corners tend to be black holes for crap. When we built the house we chose a buttery cream colour hoping that it would be a nice neutral but it's kind of turning our bedroom into a big blah box. We have a TON of natural light in the room (three southwest facing windows) which I think would lend itself well to having a darker colour on the walls. A while ago I did up an inspiration board and sent it off to A. He liked it but doesn't want to spend money on new furniture since we just bought ours when we moved back to Calgary in 2008. I'm hating the matchy-matchyness of the set but in the spirit of using what we have, I think I've come up with a plan.

Here is the inspiration board I came up with awhile ago. Forgive the shoddy quality - I created this using Microsoft Word. Ha!

Source: flickr.com via Courtney on Pinterest

I am obsessed with the Colette bed from Crate & Barrel but since that's not in the cards I am going to swap our bed with the LEIRVIK bed we currently have downstairs in the guest room. (The bed in the photo is actually a more affordable version of the Colette called the Beaconsfield from Sears.) While it was living in the guest room I had plans of painting the frame yellow but against a dark grey wall, I think the white frame will look quite nice. Perhaps something similar to this blue room seen on Design*Sponge.

I wanted to keep the big pieces pretty neutral and bring colour in in the form of seating and accessories. I think two slipper chairs would be perfect under our large south-facing window and in my corner of the room, a fun coat rack would be a great place to hang clothes we intend to wear again.

I have plans to make three map art pieces inspired by a photo seen on Pinterest and I'd like to hack the Ikea RAST 3-drawer chest so that we can split up our current matching side tables.

Source: everythingfab.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: aubreyandlindsay.blogspot.com via Courtney on Pinterest

We are going to keep our big dresser but I would like a fun new (king sized! We tend to fight over the covers) duvet cover like this Lucia duvet cover from Crate & Barrel. A gift card I received for Christmas will go a long way in off-setting this cost. (Thanks Elaine!)

Maybe one day we can bring in a small writing desk to place under the window and change out the lamps, but for now I think this is a pretty good start to making our bedroom feel like a sanctuary. Here are a few rooms that are fueling the inspiration.

Source: srgambrel.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: day-lab.blogspot.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: flickr.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Have you painted any rooms in your house lately? Yearning for a change?

Pinterest Challenge : Autumn edition

A lot of the projects that I've worked on around the house lately have been inspired by Pinterest, but the things I had planned to do this past weekend coincided perfectly with the second Pinterest Challenge that was hosted by Sherry, Katie, Ana, and Erin. Check out their projects - they are pretty awesome!

Since it was Halloween on Monday it was the perfect chance to try out some of the pumpkin designs I had pinned. My sister and I took M. to the Calgary Corn Maze over Thanksgiving and we picked out four lovely pumpkins. A. was in charge of two of them (M. coloured on one and then we carved a design) and I took the other two. The designs that peaked my interest the most were the pumpkin village {original source: Disney Family Fun} and the drilled holes {original source: Martha Stewart}. A. make a happy face using some cut out parts and we carved a monogram on M's coloured pumpkin.

I think they turned out pretty great although I should have stuck with one chevron row and used a bigger drill bit so more light got through. As it was, I had to leave the lid off on the little one so enough oxygen got in for the candle to burn.

The pumpkins were the main project I had planned for this challenge, but as luck would have it, we completed two others as well.

With winter fast approaching and snow in the forecast, we really needed to get some raised garden beds built so that I could plant my garlic, winter onions, and chives.  I had pinned many different raised bed ideas (like this, this, and this) but the design A. decided he liked the best was this cedar raised bed {original source: Sunset}.

I wanted two beds so we went with 6' x 4' so that it was easy to cut on a 12' board. Now, cedar isn't cheap so we could have done this project for less money if we had gone with pressure treated wood, but cedar is naturally rot resistant and we didn't want to run the risk of any of the chemicals from pressure treated boards leaching into our soil. Plus, cedar is beautiful and smells amazing!

A. built two 6' x 4' boxes in the garage in about an hour. It took another hour to dig trenches in our rock hard ground to settle the beds in to and about another hour to fill them with black garden soil. (I ordered a Big Yellow Bag from Eagle Lake Turf here in Calgary.) We did the digging and filling after M. went to bed. Now we are the weird neighbours who garden in the dark! All told we spent about $300 for the two beds - the cedar and supplies were about $150 and the bag of soil was $150 delivered. Seems expensive but the amount of money we will save on produce during the summer (fingers crossed) will pay off the beds in no time.

Last, but not least, I made these cranberry granola balls {original source: Sweet Potato Chronicles} for a Birth & Babies Halloween gathering we hosted on Sunday.

They were really easy to make and taste delicious! Sunflower seed butter is great if there are any nut allergies in the group and has a nice flavour but you could substitute any nut butter you want.

Did you complete a project recently that was inspired by Pinterest?

Library : work in progress

About a month ago I saw the bookshelf below on Pinterest and fell in love.

We needed to buy new bookshelves for our basement library anyway so I decided that four Billy shelves from Ikea would do the trick and that I would paint the backs yellow. We stopped by our brand new, friendly neighbourhood Lowe's and purchased a test pot of Olympic No VOC paint in their Bumblebee colour. I sanded all of the backs (the two smaller ones were a chip board type material but the two larger ones where paper so they took more paint) and crouched on my hands and knees this past Sunday and got painting. They turned out really well and only took one $5 test pot of paint!

We finished putting together the bookshelves tonight and lined them all up and I am so happy with how they turned out. I can't wait to FINALLY unpack all of our books and knick knacks! It's going to be such a bright, happy space.