Entry Way ReMixx

History:  We moved into this house 4 years and 11 months ago.   After moving around the country to various states every two years since we were married, we moved here and instantly declared we were never moving again.  In every other house (knowing we'd only be there a short time), I'd feel a sense of urgency to hurry and decorate/paint every wall/put my stamp on the house.  Knowing we would be here indefinitely lulled me into a sort of decorating funk.  I felt no rush...my whole life was ahead of me to decorate...I think I was waiting for the house to whisper to me what it wanted or something.  I don't know.  The point is I'VE.  DONE.  NOTHING.  

Until now.  

Here is our entry way as it was a few weeks ago.   

Lame.  Boring.  Vanilla.  Blaaaah.   

No accessories.  No color.  Nothing. 

After perusing many decorating/crafty blogs I was finally inspired by this technique at Jones Design Company.  I knew that if I could figure out how to jimmyrig a ladder to reach up to that right corner, I could do it.   It was high and scary but I trusted the zip ties which were holding my ladder to the railing.  Usually.

After painting the curved section with Valspar's Bird Song Blue paint, I printed off the template here and then cut it out of a thick cardboard.

I traced it on with pencil and then painted over it with a metallic white paint (no fancy paint required, just some metallic white craft paint...it took about two bottles).  In retrospect, I probably would have added a little bit of opaque white paint in with the metallic as there are a few places where the pencil line shows through under the translucent metallic paint.

Um, that might be my phone there in my shirt.  Oops.

This took the better part of two days to finish but I was able to listen to Pride & Prejudice while I painted which  made it highly enjoyable work (I had never read it before...I know, what is wrong with me??).  I then painted the curved area below the stairs the same color but opted to not carry the design down there.... the jury is still out on that, by the way.  What do you think?  Should I add a two foot band of the design below?  Do the whole thing?  Leave it plain?  I'm open to suggestions.

Finishing touches included painting the existing frame there with the same metallic paint, switching out the table that was there for one from the living room, pulling a chair from our guest room, getting a pillow off the couch in the neighboring living room....

...and spray painting this Goodwill $4 frame.  It was a nasty gold before.  I'm so bugged I did not take a before pic.  Seriously.  

And here is the big "after reveal!"  

Side by side comparisons:

I could not be happier with how it turned out.  Especially considering it only cost me about $30 in paint plus $4 for that Goodwill mirror.  That's ::getting out calculator:: a grand total of $34 if you're as bad at math as I am!

Oh, and I'm now in love with Mr. Darcy and have watched almost every movie adaptation of P&P.  Colin Firth will always and forever be my Fitzwilliam Darcy.