Ubercrafty: Kibbutz guest rooms

We are starting our third winter at the country house, better known as the Kibbutz of the North. Last year, I had my very handy handy-man of a brother banish the burgundy and forest green from the main floor, and I painted the girl's room a cheery green apple color (with lots of pink accents thanks to bright IKEA furniture). I even painted fabulous colors in the basement playroom.

But alas, our two guest rooms were still untouched.... and by untouched, I mean, builders-primer, yucky, dirty, and FULL of pin holes from letting 2 teenage girls go hog-wild with posters and push-pins.... SO! it was time to make our guests feel welcomed! I bookmark a thousand things when I read craft/decorating/design blogs, but two ideas had really been stuck in my head every since I had seen them, namely:

The ethnic-inspired circle patters of Oorbee Roy, a local textile designer (see the cabinet, not the ceiling) who was featured on a ton of blogs and both Style at Home and Canadian House and Home, and the wonderful vintage wallpaper animals of Inke Heiland, which I discovered through Daddy*Drama waaaay back when.

The first one was easy. Since I have a thing for orange (see old blog, and guest room at home, and color of my stores, and store logos, and wedding color.... yeah, I like orange!) and I have been doodle-ing repetitive circle patterns in my school books since I was a kid, I decided to paint the "main" guest room using an adaptation of her technique.... I quickly sketched out my pattern and then Dumpling and I cut some shapes out of sticky shelf liner, which I then applied to the wall in the patterns I wanted to achieve. I covered the entire wall with 3/4 coats of the orange and then we peeled the vinyl back... I present to you, the main guest room:

the bedspread is terrible and doesn't match, but I actually have a really cool orange and white city-scrape print bedspread that I bought in Argentina a few years ago. It's usually on that bed but was being washed and I was too lazy to put it back on for pictures! I promise I'll update next week!

The second room was more of a challenge. I really wanted to do some sort of animal silhouette, but not safari animals. And a while back, while picking a white for the wood we are about to paint over at the city house (shame on me!), I took Dumpling to the paint store and she picked a dark, bright magenta and made me PROMISE to use it somewhere, someday. So I have been surfing Ebay looking for a roll of vintage wallpaper that would work with the color palette, to no avail. Then a few weeks ago, I bought my daughter a Joe Fresh shirt (I'll have to blog about my love of Joe Fresh one day) and it had birds on a wire on it. I didn't even think about it, but I totally dreamed up the room with birds on a wire. I could "SEE" it in my head, and I could not find the paper I wanted. But I happen to sell really great wrapping paper at the store, so I grabbed a few pieces of paper that were in the right scale and colors......

As you can see, we did the reverse in the play nook. I painted the rest of the walls with a fresh coat of bright white, which did so much for brightening up the room. In the last picture, you can see how much nicer it's going to look with a brighter bedspread and some colorful pillows, but I have to hunt those down.... For the record, Dumpling selected the location of each of the Mama birds and the Baby birds.... She was a great help!

And for the record, this is what it looked like before. I don't have a pic of the other room before, but it was exactly the same..... both of the feature walls are actually recessed 4 inches, which makes a little ledge that goes around the beds, like a built-in nightstand, so it made it easy to pick where the color was going to go.

Comments

That is just so beyond cool!! I could neither think of nor implement any such cool ideas, I love it!! Can't wait to see what else you're up to!

Julie

Posted by: Julie | January 20, 2008 at 09:10 PM

Gorgeous! I'm loving the bright colors on these cold, cold days. Wondering how you got the wrapping paper to stick? Did you use spray adhesive or something? Did they curl up? I like the idea and might be able to use it in the playroom. Any insider tips?

Posted by: Bobbi Jo | January 20, 2008 at 10:38 PM