little black journal

I still remember the day we closed on our house.  After 7 years of being renters, moving every year to a different apartment, we were settling down into a place of our very own.  Ohhhh, I was excited – I had picked up a gallon of paint on our way to get the keys and was rolling that blue-gray on the walls before we’d moved even a single box into the place.  Add a smattering of framed photos to the wall, some orange-red damask curtains fashioned out of remnants from the Joann Fabrics clearance bin, and I was really starting to feel like all those years of watching Trading Spaces had finally paid off.

Those rash, antsy-new-home-owner decorating decisions have served us well over the last six years – I was really content in our cozy little living room…until we visited Mitch and Kathryn a few weeks ago and I went a little gaga over their new deep gray bedroom walls.  That blue I had loved quickly lost its charm.  And then I started looking at our photos more closely – good Lord, when was the last time I had updated anything on that wall?  And black picture frames?  Ugh.  I was so over those black picture frames – they needed to be white.  And bigger.  With large mats.  Set against a warm gray wall.  Stat!  I was suddenly jonesin’ for change in a bad, bad way.  A couple of trips to Lowes for paint and supplies, one 9 pm mad dash to IKEA for picture frames, an online print order to Costco for the photos, and I busted this facelift out in just a few days – it’s done!  And we love it.  For now. (Gray is the new blue, but it’s only a matter of time before green is the new gray.)

The deets:

Wall Color:  Valspar ‘Cathedral Gray’

Frames:  IKEA ‘Ribba’

Photos:  mine, printed at Costco