It all started with a suggestion I made to Chris.

“Maybe for mother’s day this year, you could paint our bedroom.”  I said to him.

We did have gallons of yellow paint in the basement, and our blue bedroom walls were peeling.  Chris liked the idea, except he applied it to the living room.  The cords hanging down from the flat screen TV had been bothering him for years.  We had never owned a flat screen TV until I had the bright idea to ask his friends and family to give Chris donations for a TV in honor of his 40^th birthday.  They were all so generous (and Chris is so loved) that he was able to buy quite a big one.

Our living room does need an entire overhaul but Chris suggested because of lack of sufficient time and money, we just do a few walls – a mini makeover.  Any makeover is exciting to me, plus I had been wanting to paint a few accent walls…so I told him my idea.

BRIGHT RED!!!

I had been thinking about bright red ever since Christmas when I wanted to buy slip covers for our raggedy sofas.  I couldn’t imagine having guests coming over and sitting on those sofas.

But Chris said, “Don’t waste money on slip covers.  We just need to buy new sofas.”

Those new sofas did not make it to our house in time for Christmas.  In fact it was April when we got them.  But what an awesome deal; one hundred bucks for a new looking sofa and love seat.  I was thrilled.  When we got them into our home, they turned out to be so close in color to the wall and carpet that they practically disappeared.  So a few good accent walls would do the trick!

When I was researching red pillows on the internet (back at Christmastime), I found these certain hand-made Pillows on Etsy that I just loved!  I couldn’t get the lovely pattern out of my mind.  I felt silly for being so obsessed with pillows, and $40 pillows at that.  I kept researching and found the fabric at Hancock Fabrics.  I put it on my wish list for my 40^th birthday, and my mom was so wonderful to purchase 3 yards of the beautiful stuff!

All we had to do was pick the right red paint to match the fabric.  Chris could paint, and I could make pillows to my heart’s content.

Picking out paint is hard!  I chose two possibilities and put them on the wall.

“No More Drama” and “Circus Red”  they were called.  I looked at the wall for days.  I asked the opinion of all the children.

Finally it was decided that “No More Drama” was THE RED that we needed.

Chris couldn’t just paint it on the walls however.  First he had to strip the wall paper, patch the cracking walls, and skim coat everything.

Then we had our carpenter friend over AGAIN…seems like he helps us with all our projects, and I hope we haven’t worn him out.  He and Chris built a box to insert into the wall.

It would hold the cable box and blue ray player.  This worked great because there is a closet behind that wall.  They ran the power cords behind the wall, and Chris was as happy as a clam!

Finally, on Mother’s day the big moment came.

BRIGHT RED PAINT ON THE WALLS!!!

Once the walls were painted, I loved the look of it; bold and beautiful.  The couch didn’t disappear anymore and the beloved fabric would look great.  Yet…it wasn’t quite the red I had wanted.  In my experience, 100% of the time paint doesn’t look the same on the wall as it does on the card…or the way you had envisioned it in your head.  It looked more like “Circus Red” than “No more Drama”, and I was a bit disappointed.  I want my house to be peaceful without unnecessary drama.  I most certainly did not want to live in a circus!

To make matters worse, one day Chris sat down on the sofa and looked over the house.  From his vantage point he could see the bright yellow in the dining room, the deep blue of the entry way and the BRIGHT RED of our new accent wall.

“It looks like Romper Room,” he said and stomped on my delicate heart just a little.

“Don’t let anyone make you doubt your vision,” I said to myself.  I had just read that in a magazine in a waiting room that very day.  It was a quote from an interior decorator.  Some rooms she had designed were featured in the magazine, and I must admit that I had serious doubts about them!

My vision was different.  It just had to work out!

Over the next week, I racked my brain for a way to break up all of the BRIGHT RED.  Perhaps if I put some of that lovely fabric on picture frames and hung them on the wall.  I looked up tutorials on YouTube and found something I wasn’t even looking for; how to make wall panels by stapling fabric on fabric stretchers.  That was it!  I ordered those fabric stretchers and stapled away.

I was very happy with how they turned out.

It took me a month to arrange the decorations in a way that I was happy with.  In that month I attempted to sew my dream pillows.  This scenario always happens when I start to sew, because it is kinda like having a baby.  Once I have those lovely curtains or pillows gracing my home, I forget about all the pain of making them.  Pretty soon I am planning another sewing project.  I start out with big dreams!  I get just the right fabric.  I have to wait until the children go to bed.  I only have a few hours before my bedtime, so I have to hurry.  I begin the process, making sure everything is clean and ironed and lined up correctly.  I begin to sew… and inevitably I mess it up somehow.  Either the stitching is all crocked or the hem is in the wrong place or I break the needle.

Then I become the ugly version on myself, cursing my machine and my materials (by cursing, I mean yelling at them and calling them stupid).  I chide myself for starting this project in the first place.

“Why did I think that I could actually sew?!”  I say.  My husband and sweet teenage daughter try to tell me that it will be OK.   Under all the frustration, I know that it will be OK…eventually…after a lot of hard work.

So I haven’t gotten all the pillows done yet, but they are on their way.  Oh, and I did purchase 4 red pillows at Costco for $30!

I even have some fabric left over to make a cushion for the top of the beautiful wooden toy box that will double as a bench that we will certainly get one day.

The mini makeover is almost finished.  The living room still needs the ceiling fixed and new light fixtures put in.  The other walls still need the peeling wall paper stripped, then patched, then skim coated, then painted.  The carpet still needs to be replaced.  But we had already accomplished more than I thought we would this year, all for around $350 which included the sofas!

We are still unsure about all the BRIGHT RED.  What do you think?  Romper room or bold and beautiful?

My eight year old son, Cooper suggested that we mix the two red colors together to create the perfect shade, “Circus Drama.”  That is all we need around here!  More Circus Drama!