Make It Blue

Color on walls is something I can't resist, ever since I first picked up a paint brush three apartments ago. I had decided that in this apartment (I lived in 5 different places in 5 years in Dallas), I would not leave the walls white - or beige, or whatever they were. My mom was in town, and we decided to paint not just a wall or two, but three ROOMS (including the bathroom, which may be small but sure isn't easy with all of the things you have to paint around, right Mom?). Well, unsurprisingly I moved out a year later. Dac wasn't thrilled when he had to help me paint all of those walls back to avoid fees from the apartment building (was it worth it? maybe not in that case or to that extent...), so I promised I wouldn't paint if we were only renting a place. Well, I've now broken that promise... TWICE. In our new place in Kansas City though, I compromised. I said I would only paint an accent wall (since I know we have plans to buy a house in the next year or so). Since I only got the one wall, I had to choose carefully. Here are some of the colors I was picking between...

We decided to go with the happy blue wall (middle of top row - photo found on Design Sponge) because it's just so dang PRETTY. And, it worked with the art we planned on hanging (a piece by the McCabe Bros - Dac and his brother have an Etsy shop... look for new items soon). So, with the photo of the color in hand, we headed to Home Depot to get the paint. Luckily, we found a swatch that was pretty darn close to a perfect match (Glidden - Soft Sapphire in Matte).

I failed to take pictures of the work in progress, but here were the basic steps:

1. I taped the edges (with the blue painter's tape), because I don't trust myself without it, and put down a drop cloth.  

2. I primed the walls (I used white primer - can't say I know if there's a more correct option out there for blue walls but I'm sure there is?) using a brush on the edges and a roller everywhere else.

3. After letting that dry, I used the same technique to paint the blue. I actually only needed one coat, with some touch ups here and there. If we owned this place and were being a little pickier, I may have done a full two. 

5. Removed the tape... threw that step in there just because I think it is the most satisfying part of the whole process. I know it's weird, but it doesn't look finished until the tape is off.

HERE IT IS!

It turned out a little brighter than the swatch, and even brighter than that in this picture for some reason.
I love it! It makes me happy every time I look at it. We are planning on doing a little collage of empty white frames in different sizes on the left side of the wall. If that works out, I'll show you that soon...