The new blue bedroom.

We have been super busy sorting through the last of our "combined households" junk and sprucing up the house to get it ready to list.  We have been packing for Goodwill, packing for home, and listing on Craigslist - and we have drug stuff out of nooks and crannies.

Up until a couple days ago, it seemed we have been making more of a mess then cleaning and clearing and sprucing. 

However, things are FINALLY coming together.

I wanted to share the activities in what is known as the blue room.

The room was painted long ago in a blue (yes LONG ago) so that my local grandson would have a "boy" room to sleep in when he spent the night with gramma.

The room had a faux chair rail that was painted the same color as the walls and the shelves over the windows were painted a creamy vanilla color.

Sprucing up required some creative thinking as I could not paint all the rooms in the house - my arms and shoulders just would not let me do it. 

Plus, we only had about 1/4 of a gallon of the blue paint left.   The paint was in good shape, just not enough of it.  I needed a PLAN.

First, I removed the shelves from over the window and washed the walls floor to ceiling and touched up the walls ABOVE the chair rail with the blue paint.

I laid out some white valances that I picked up at a thrift store for $1 and, using a sponge brush, smeared blue paint on the valances here and there. 

I filled the sponge brush with the blue paint and stuck it into a ziplock baggie for later use.

Next, I painted the shelves over the windows and the chair rails with a white enamel.



I then poured about 3 cups of the white enamel into the blue paint can and mixed well.   I painted everything below the chair rail with the lighter blue.

I gave the chair rail another coat of white and touched up any oopsies of the blue with the reserved blue paint.

After letting a 2nd coat of white enamel on the shelves dry VERY WELL, I mounted then back on to the wall and hung the valances.

I am absolutely SURE that no one could tell that the color below the chair rail is lighter than the color above as the white chair rail interrupts your eye.  

The moral of the story is that I had plenty of paint and did not have to paint the entire room or buy more paint.

And I even got "custom" curtains and some strange stares from the hubby out of the deal.


Sometimes, when I am doing jobs that can become tedious, I need to find a creative project that that recharge my energy.

I found some odds and ends and if time allows, I want to make a lamp out of them for the blue bedroom.  I continue to find the remaining parts and pieces I need for my lamp and can't wait to start when I need another 'break'.

What do you think?    Think I can make anything out of a lampshade, an old Coke lamp, and a teddy bear?