Winter 2013 Pinterest Challenge! Painting Chevron

It's time for another Pinterest Challenge!! 

hosted by...

 Megan at The Remodeled Life

Katie Bower at Bower Power

Sherry at Young House Love

Michelle at Decor & The Dog

This summer I purchased a japanese shade like thing made out of pink shutters hinged together at the thrift shop for $10. I didn't have a plan for it, but figured it was a good deal and I could find somewhere to put it. I don't have much pink in my house, so I knew I wanted to paint it another color, but couldn't decide which. Then, I saw on Pinterest someone had painted their wall with a chevron design using painters tape. It looked easy enough so I decided to try it out on my shutters. A friend of mine who just painted her living room grey had a few sample size grey paints that she gave me so I just decided on two different shades of grey and got to work. 

Here is the photo I pinned that originally inspired me

from here

Here is my shade before I painted it. I decided to put it in my design room behind my fabric shelf, because the shelves I recently had hanging above the shelf fell and left ugly holes in the wall. This way I could add some texture and interest to that wall and cover up the ugly holes in it. The burlap bag hanging over the shade is an old coffee bean bag I bought at an antique store, I still haven't decided what to do with that. Let me know if you have ideas!

I laid the shade out on an old sheet that I didn't mind getting dirty. I sanded it and then wiped it off with a damp cloth.

Next I painted the shutter with my light grey paint (I ended up having to buy one more sample can of paint for about $3) using a sponge brush. I'm pretty sure any kind of brush would work.

Once the shade was all dry I stood it up and folded it slightly so that I could paint the sides of each shutter.

Using a ruler I measured where the center of each shutter was and taped each one down the middle. It was a little tricky to tape because it's not a flat surface like a wall so you have to make sure you press the tape down into each slat.

Roughly measuring with my ruler I taped diagonal lines three inches apart all the way up. 

Finally, the fun part! I painted inside every other diagonal space with my darker grey paint using my sponge brush. I removed the tape after each individual shutter was painted so the paint wasn't too dry and I had a nice clean line.  

As you can see, after you remove the tape there is a big unattractive line down the middle, so I taped the points of each section and painted it in free handing the top part of it.

As I pulled off the tape a few areas pulled up grey paint, so I had to go back and touch up a few spots. I'm guessing this is because I didn't do a great sanding job. After doing that for each panel I was finished!

 Voila! A totally new look for my design room.

So that you don't have to scroll all the way up, here's the before again.

I hope you like it! Be sure to check out what the other girls did for their Pinterest challenges.

Lantern Revamp

It really is amazing how much of a difference a fresh coat of paint can make. My cousin is getting married in May and wants to have lots of lanterns around for decor, so I told her she could use the ones from my wedding. They have been living outside so they were in pretty bad shape, and she wanted them to be black, so I decided I would spray paint them and see if that did the job. I think it did! 

Here is how bad the lantern looked before- lots of dirt, mildew, rust, and pine needles

First I cleaned the lantern and removed the glass squares from the openings. I cleaned the glass squares, but forgot to get a picture of that.

Next step: spray painting the lanterns. I took them outside so that I was in a well ventilated area. I'm very glad I did this, because even doing it outside gave me a bit of a headache (I probably should have worn a mask).  I can't imagine how I would have felt had I done it inside. Plus it was a really nice day so it was perfect weather for spray painting, and a good excuse to be outside. Bonus: you don't have to worry about getting spray paint on the floor. I spread them out evenly on an unfolded box in our back yard and got to work.

I sprayed them with multiple light coats of black glossy spray paint, making sure I kept my wrist moving the whole time, so I didn't end up with thick drippy areas.

2 bottles of $1 Walmart spray paint later my 5 lanterns were covered!

Here they are with the glass squares replaced and candles lit inside. Don't they look so much better?! And it only cost $2!

And just for fun, a before and after shot.

Shhhhhh text in red on cream duck canvas lumbar decorative pillow

To purchase this pillow click here.