More Than Meets the Eye

Let's play Two Truths and a Lie, shall we?  

1.  Blair was in Chicago for five days.

2.  I had both kids all by myself for five days.

3.  It was leisurely.

........................

Ever since we started making our house our own, I have wanted to change this space we laughingly call The Hall.  It really isn't a hall.  It's more of a turn-around.  It has six doors, no natural light, and no electrical outlets.  

We started the change in this space a year-and-a-half ago when we pulled out all of the carpet.  Then we stopped and didn't do anything else.  That is, until this past weekend.  Blair was in Chicago, and I decided to take the bull by the horns and shake things up in the decor department.

Here's where it started:

This paint is the same that was originally in our bedroom and Rynne's room.  It made me think of our first cruddy apartment.  It had to go.

This mirror came with the house.  Nice mirror, but the copper finish is a little "frou frou" for me.  And by "frou frou" maybe what I really mean is that it's a little formal for my style.  I do like the square shape, though, and it was free, so I knew I wanted to keep it.

More unsightly, flesh-colored paint.

Just you wait.

After a couple of days of painting, here's the final result.  My apologies for the lighting in the photos.  Like I said, no natural light.  The paint color looks slightly different in all of these.  I used Olympic Low Odor, No VOC paint in Royal Palm with an eggshell finish.  It only took one quart.

I used some of the left-over spray paint from Kathrynne's curtain rod to spruce up the mirror.  So much better.  It brings a little color and playfulness to the space.

 This big black rectangle on the wall?

It's a chalkboard.  Blair and I see this wall as soon as we walk out of the bedroom each morning.  I plan to keep rotating Scripture verses on it.

A lovely spot for my chalk.

 And in those other two glass jars?  Why, I am so glad you asked!  Those are magnets.  Remember how the title of this post is More Than Meets the Eye?  Well, here's the more...

It's a magnetic wall!!

A magnetic wall that doesn't photograph well, but a magnetic wall nonetheless.  

I used three coats of Rustoleum magnetic primer top to bottom and all the way across then covered that with two coats of the latex paint.  One thing to remember with the magnetic primer is that it is primer.  Primer is much thinner than the latex paint and will drip and splatter if you aren't careful.

The wall looks great, Blair and I love it, Noah really loves it, and it's super cool!  I can't wait to get started using this.  I went ahead and put our English Magnetic Poetry set up.  We also have one in German if we're feeling super smarty-pants.

This space actually feels like a room of the house now rather than simply an awkward and unused space.  Just a little paint goes a long way in making a house feel more like a home.