just say Om...ombre diy canvas art

Sit down.

Cross your legs.

Close your eyes.

Breath deeply and say Om....

And then finish it with -bre because Kevin and I got our Picasso on this weekend and made a crazy awesome DIY ombre canvas art piece for our dining room wall.

After obsessively searching over the last year for the just right art and arguing the pros and cons of a funky gallery wall vs. a statement piece, I finally searched "DIY ombre canvas art" on Pinterest and used this blog post as our inspiration.

Not only will we save major cash, but perhaps this final decision will cure me of my insomnia.

We wanted the same color scheme as our inspiration piece, but changed our lines to horizontal. I also wanted the color to extend all the way to the edge of the canvas.

Just personal taste.

Fortunately for me, my software sales by day husband is a repressed artist by night. However, this really can be done by someone with stick figure expertise, such as myself.

Case in point: my recent artistic chalk rendition of Kevin getting tubed:

Now let's show off Kevin's abilities, shall we?

Measure your canvas with your brush to plan how many shades you need. We used a  2" brush on a 36x48 canvas. Our wall is 13 feet long and we wanted to have one large focal piece.

The most complicated step is making sure that you mix your colors carefully so you get the right gradation of color.

We followed the directions on the blog and started with the dark color, which was a deep forest green and then added white on each plate, starting with one drop on the next, two drops after that, three on the following, etc. However we now think we'd do it backwards. Start with white and add green. We had to go back to a few plates and add more white as the colors were not showing enough difference.

Kevin did a simple sweep for each row. Because we needed thicker rows, we used the same color on two rows.

 

 When we found that two colors were too similar, Kevin simply went over the row that needed to be lighter with some white streaks of paint.

I am so thrilled with the end result. I just may have done my happy dance and clapped with glee. And I'm just saying for the record, that having a guitar playing, paintbrush swaying husband is pretty dang cool.

Here's the final reveal...my house is always this orderly by the way.

Or not.

This room is half way there. Home decorating is a marathon. Now we're planning for the wainscoting, painting all the trim in the house white, and window treatments. 

Like all things in life; one step at a time.

Much love,
Katie

boys' bedroom make-over

After living here for 2 years, the two younger boys' bedroom is finally complete.

*Insert major sigh of relief.

After some serious spray painting drama, we wrapped up the project (minus super ugly carpet and new baseboards).

Here is what we started with when moved in:



Um...yeah, that carpet is as ugly as it looks. You'll notice it is still there. If you notice that the paint doesn't go down to the baseboards that's because we're replacing the carpet and getting higher baseboards soon. Yippee!

And here is what we have now:

Walking in on the right side...















Daddy's glove from long ago...



This is what you see when you walk in and look straight ahead...



One of my fav pics from 3 years ago...



And finally, this is what you see on your left...



The boys picked their own sports themed bedding and blue paint. I went with it. They are 100% all boy, what can I say?



It is my no means a large room, but we managed to squeeze in the essentials and reflect the boys' interests. They also have a big walk-in closet which is a major advantage for toy storage.

My guys are happy to have a room in which they had an opinion and I'm happy to finally have 1 more project checked off our home remodeling to-do list.

Much love,
Katie

Linking up with Heather.