Still Life with Piano and Cello

When I went to Chicago, we spent almost the entire day browsing the Chicago Museum of Art. I really enjoyed this because looking at art is not a luxury I get to do anymore. Taking the kids with me would mean I need to watch them and make sure they're behaving around valuable artwork. If I don't take the kids, it means I need to make separate plans so they're under someone's supervision. 

When I was at the museum, I saw authentic works by Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Claude Monet, and the famous Seurat pointillism. It was great, and I loved seeing these paintings in person because I had studied many of them in high school during my humanities class and AP art history. However, as famous as these paintings are, they're actually not the ones which stuck with me.

I surprised myself by the one which actually stuck. I had seen multiple pianos on display throughout the museum, but then I saw this artwork.

"This painting is part of a series by Vilhelm Hammershoi capturing his sparsely decorated apartment at Strandgade 30 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Hammershoi often moved furniture and objects around his home like studio props: here, he placed a chair, piano, cello, and violin in a corner of the drawing room. Despite the inclusion of musical instruments, the scene evokes only eerie silence, with no sense of a human presence to play them."

This painting hit a little too close to home. There's definitely an emptiness depicted in this scene. The arrangement of the chair pulled back with an empty space, the violin placed atop the chair. The cello leaning against the piano. The almost empty wall behind the piano. 

 

This is my real life experience with this painting. I purposely edited the photograph so the colors are more muted, hazy. The cello is leaning against the chair, bow placed behind on the seat of the chair. The piano, although with the key cover open, has the bench pushed in, not being used. It, too, is empty. 

This painting and this photo are lonely, sad, and burdened. The piano and cello from the painting are probably no longer arranged in that way. Perhaps they were moved shortly after the posing for this painting. The piano in the photo has been sold. The cello has been packed up and moved out of this room. The furniture is gone. The frames hanging on the wall are gone. The walls have been repainted a different color and the floors have been redone. Piece by piece of this room were removed one by one. 

I'm glad my friend had this photo. It made me sad, but it is the perfect real life experience we shared represented in the painting above from 1907. 

Another Cabinet

We have a running joke of tackling one house project a year. In the beginning of the year, we finished our bathroom cabinet. The year trucked on and we didn't think much about doing anything else around the house.

During the summer, I brought up the topic of painting our built-in cabinet located in our breakfast nook to my husband. We had put this off when we originally painted the kitchen cabinets...because the kitchen cabinets were already a monster to tackle and took a lot of time to DIY. This built-in was also located away from the rest of the cabinets so it could stand alone as a piece of furniture. The second reason we put it off was because the top cabinets have glass so you can see into it. This meant a more time-consuming prep and painting process.

We revisited this conversation of painting the cabinet this summer. We talked about painting it white to match the rest of our kitchen. This idea was halted when we realized we'd need to purchase a new gallon of white paint because we didn't have enough leftover in our existing gallon to complete this project. We also discovered the lip which secures the glass will not be able to be painted. So if the cabinet surface was going to be white, the lip underneath the glass would still be wood-colored. That nixed the white paint idea.

We discussed scrapping this project completely due to this hiccup, but then I brought up painting the cabinet in a dark blue paint. This paint was a random $9.00 purchase from the "oops" paint shelf at Home Depot our first year of living in this house. It's an exterior-grade oil paint, I liked the color, and we originally purchased it to repaint the trim around the windows on our back porch. As we remodeled and replaced exterior patio doors, I continued to use this paint for the doors as well. I even used the same paint to paint over some beige tiles on our window ledge. 

We made the decision to go for it and paint the cabinet blue. Walking into this project, I knew I was going to be the one painting 100%. I actually enjoy painting, and now since getting AirPods, I can knock out a number of audiobooks while painting which makes the entire process a lot of fun for me. I will forever remember Me Before You by Jojo Moyes as the book which grounded this entire project. 

Cutting in for this cabinet took hours.

The cabinet box and shelves took two days to complete - one for primer and one for paint. Painting in between all the shelves was the hardest part because none of the shelves in this cabinet are removable. Because of the glass doors on top, I had to make sure to cover every nook and cranny including the undersides of every shelf. 

Originally, the project was supposed to start after we returned from our trip. Due to having some extra time, I actually finished the inside paint and primer before we left. This ended up being a much-needed change because the fumes from the oil-based paint were heavy. This was the second time we had used this paint indoors and the fumes this time were probably 2-3x stronger than previously because there was so much more surface area to cover and much more paint used. Coming back from our trip to a non-fume-filled house was a breath of fresh air, literally. 

After our trip, I had to finish painting the doors. This took one day and I was able to paint everything outside.

I spy some creative drop cloth weights. 😅

We finished this project in three days (of actual painting) with a total cost of $0. All the materials we used were purchased from previous projects or reused multiple times. The one expense we did purchase for/because of this project was a gallon of paint thinner. I did that in order to save my $10 Zibra Triangle paint brush from being ruined by oil paint. But the actual cost of this project is still $0.

I absolutely love the finished results.

I'm really happy with the way this project turned out. It's not perfect by any means and there are visible flaws, but for the amount of time spent and the cost of the project, the results far surpassed what I thought could be done. 

My favorite part of completion was actually purchasing risers to display our little trinkets on. My mini snow globe souvenirs can proudly be displayed in the cabinet now.

A sample of my snow globes and global trinkets.

Another Cabinet

We started the year with a project again. It's no surprise, we did the same thing last year. Although this year's project didn't involve any cleaning out, it was motivated by organization and storage.

Since we remodeled our bathroom in 2017, we've had a little niche in the bathroom. Originally, we had a massive storage cabinet and a tiny shower. When we remodeled, we enlarged the shower and stole some space from the original cabinet. We did not put a cabinet back, and instead, were left with this niche. 

It had strange dimensions. 96 inches tall. 24 inches deep. 20 inches wide. For the last six and a half years, we put a shelf in the space, but it didn't fit well, left a lot of unused space on top, and a lot of unused space on the sides. I would always go on random rabbit trails online looking for shelves or cabinets we could use to fill the space. Last winter, we finally committed.

We found a tall, narrow pantry cabinet which had the closest dimensions to our space: 96 x 24 x 18.

Moving this box into our bathroom took some skill.

The actual installation of the cabinet itself was rather quick. The problem was the details. We had a six inch gap at the top and a two inch gap on the sides. The goal was to make this cabinet look built-in, like it belonged perfectly in the space. 

Test-fitting the cabinet. 

As a result, we needed to fill the side, cover it in trim, and somehow figure out a way to fill the gap at the top of the cabinet. We brainstormed ideas to "crown" the top in trim, build an insert to fill the space, or somehow extending the top of the cabinet. In the end, we ended up using a genius trick to fill the space: raise the cabinet up from the bottom. 

We had some existing wood in our garage which hadn't been thrown out during last year's purge for the lift. My husband built a box for the cabinet to sit on and secured the entire cabinet on top of the box.

Much smaller gap, and I painted. We added three extra shelves because the unit
originally came with two. We can now maximize that space in storage.

My husband really detests painting. I've done all our DIY painting projects we've ever done. The only thing he painted was our master bathroom vanity cabinets. I was pregnant at the time so he primed and painted those. The rest? All me, now including this cabinet and three additional shelves we added. 

We added some hardware, reattached the doors, and voila! A built-in cabinet in an awkward space. You'd never know it wasn't planned to be there in the first place. The best (and most ironic) part was about a day after this cabinet was installed, I'd already "forgotten" about it. It blends in seamlessly into the rest of our bathroom and stores a ton of our extra towels and toiletries.

Part Two: Foresight

This is part two of a two part series. To read part one. please catch up here. 

Years passed. The Small Table was still outside on the patio. By this time, his wood was stripped on the most exposed side. The once shiny, polished finish had turned black in areas. Dust and pollen accumulated on top. The Small Table was losing hope. He had waited through many changing seasons, and still, nobody came for him. 

One day, Foresight entered this house. Foresight surveyed the area. Foresight looked inside the pantry. Foresight looked in the refrigerator. Foresight looked in the freezer. There would be a time and place for dealing with these areas. By chance, Foresight opened the blinds to the patio door and stumbled upon The Small Table. 

Foresight asked The Follower if The Small Table was being used. The Follower did not use him. There was no need to ask The Fool as that is why The Small Table was rejected in the first place. Foresight cleaned, wiped, disassembled, and transported The Small Table away.

The Small Table was elated. He was so happy to be found. He was so glad to be rescued from the patio. He was ready for his makeover.

Foresight had a vision of the beauty which could be revealed from The Small Table. There would be a new coat of paint. Choosing the color would be slightly trickier. Foresight debated white. Gray. Navy. Even a bright shade of teal was considered. But in the end, Foresight made the decision to leave the top natural and stain it. The legs would be painted white to create an elegant, modern look. 

It's so nice to have a covered workspace in the garage, even with two cars inside...😊

Of course, the actual transformation process is never easy. The Small Table had to endure a generous layer of sanding to remove all the damage and ensure an even coat of new stain and paint. On went a generous coat of stain as well as three layers of poly to protect the surface. The Small Table would be protected and taken care of. 

The first coat of primer never looks like much, but you have to trust the process.

Each of the legs was meticulously primed and painted white with a satin finish. You would never have guessed what The Small Table had been through from seeing it now. 

The Small Table hopes to be able to listen to children laughing. The sounds of voices in conversation. He wants to be colored on, be painted on. He wants to be the surface to rest bowls of freshly cooked meals. He wants to soak in the smells of various cuisines. He wants to support the pages of a book or the paper in a notebook as someone studies, completes homework, or writes for fun. Yes, he wants to be used and worn over time in these ways. Yes, he wants his surface to be occasionally scratched or marked. 

These ways, however destructive they can be, are much better than being left outside to the mercy of the weather. These ways, however destructive they can be, are much better than suffocating under a pile of things. These ways, however destructive they can be, are much better than being rejected. 

Because these are the ways in which love and purpose happen. And Foresight was able to see it. 

We're Painting Again: Part 3

We finished painting my studio shelves! It's been about a month now. Since we finished, I had to wrap up another school year of teaching, finish making my student recital video, we took our first road trip in over a year and a half (this time with TWO children), and then I had to get ready for my summer teaching schedule.

I'm so happy with the way it turned out. Is it perfect? Nope. It was definitely one of my faster projects and I rushed through some parts. Also, with all the rain we've been having, paint dries pretty slowly so painting the cabinet doors and shelves was a little difficult to maximize brushes and paint. I actually put on two coats of primer and two coats of paint in 5.5 hours. 😳 

Don't ask me to do it again though, I'm not sure I could unless it were 100 degrees outside

So how does this compare cost wise to hiring out? Let's take a look.

I'm assuming that a professional painter would have quoted me anywhere from $750-$1000+ in addition to the cost of paint to complete this. And it would have taken about 3 days. I'd mentioned in part 1 I would not have allowed them to use a sprayer to paint this despite it being the quickest and easiest way to do so because I have a semi-concert grand piano in the same room. So for simplicity and estimation, I'm going to use $1,000 as the cost to hire out and get this job done.

Here's a complete list of materials and their complete cost. Different retailers price differently so these are the approximate actual prices we paid from various retailers:

Zinser Primer 1 gallon: $24

Benjamin Moore Paint 1 gallon: $60

24 Paint Rollers: $10

Zibra Paint Brush: $10

Painting Pyramids: $12

TSP Cleaner: $6

1 roll of Painter's Tape: $3

Sanding Materials*: $5

Wood Putty: $5

Paint Pourer: $1

Total: $136 + tax : $150 to round up.

*we already had an orbital sander and sanding sheets to use which saved us so much time with this project. The other option is to buy sanding blocks which is what accounts for the $5.

Let's take a look at the actual cost of materials for this specific project though. 

Zinser Primer 1 gallon: $24 --> actual used was 1/4 gallon: $6

Benjamin Moore Paint 1 gallon: $60 --> actual used was 1/5 gallon: $12

24 Paint Rollers: $10 --> actual used was 3 rollers: $1.25

Zibra Paintbrush: $10 --> this was a new cost. so actual is still $10. but this brush is amazing and worth all the money.

Painting Pyramids: $12 --> we bought this when we first started painting so they've been used a multitude of times. we'll call it $1

TSP Cleaner: $6 --> actual used is almost negligible because you dilute the bottle and then spray to clean so we'll call it $1

1 roll of Painter's Tape: $3 --> actual used was probably 1/3 of a roll: $1

Sanding Materials*: $5 --> I clarified above what the $5 means so we will keep it for the actual: $5 

Wood Putty: $5 --> actual used 1/5: $1

Paint Pourer: $1 --> we've used this paint pourer so many times through various projects I think it has earned it's worth. : $0

Actual Total: $38

If you go one step further and actually look at how much of this was new money spent, that would only include the Zibra paintbrush and the 24 pack of paint rollers. So the true actual amount of new money spent on this project was $11.25.

The total number of hours we spent on doing this was approximately 10-15 hours of labor spread across 3 weeks. Considering this wasn't time being taken from anything else we would have done normally, I'd say it's almost negligible. We may have lost some hours of Netflix or browsing our phones, but I think we picked a much more productive way to spend our 15 hours of time. 

Now if you're attentive or extra observant or have experience painting, you might be wondering, there were no paint trays mentioned in the list of materials used. What in the world were you painting out of?

Well I'll tell you. We were painting out of to-go containers! 

Over the years we've amassed so many of these in ever so slightly different shapes that organizing them in our kitchen cabinets was getting to be more annoying than it was worth. So we poured our primer and paint into them to paint. Total cost? $0! (If you want to be super technical, there was a cost to pay for the food originally contained in them, but let's not do that.)

So there you have it, a complete break down of what we used and the total cost of this project. As I've already said, and if you can't already tell, I'm super happy with this project and the way it turned out. 

I need some more shelves. In due time.

We saved ourselves around $988.75! Worth it? Worth it. 🙂

We're Painting Again: Part 2

Catch up with Part 1 here.

Within a week, we finished painting the built-in shelves and cabinets in my music studio. I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. We are not completely done with the project yet as we have to paint the shelves and doors, but that can and will be done outside of the house.

At the end of part 1, we left off at one coat of primer. We made the decision to put on two coats of primer and two coats of paint because this shelf was going to be used almost daily.

We had a little helper come in for a few minutes to assist us 😊

Still looking a little grainy and uneven after the second coat of primer. That's ok. Here's where good paint comes in and works its magic.

Already looking so much smoother after the first coat of paint. It was also way faster to put on. I was able to paint a coat in an hour by myself. 

This is the final look after the second coat of paint (and before I cleaned up...) 

I love the way this shelf turned out. It brightens the entire room and I'm still pleasantly surprised when I walk into my studio and have this bright white shelf next to me instead of what used to be brown. I'm not against wood altogether, but the original stain, finish, and grain of the wood just did not complement the colors we had chosen to use in the rest of the space. 

I'm really excited to finish the rest of the shelving, except all the rain we've been getting has put a damper on my progress. Ideally, I would need two hot and dry days to finish priming and painting. The plan is to put on two coats of primer and only one coat of paint, although I may put on a second coat of paint if everything dries in a timely manner. I would takeover the garage for two days, prime, flip, prime, flip, prime, flip, prime, flip, and then call it a day. Then, I'd do the same thing on the second day except I would paint, flip, paint, flip, paint, flip, and paint. 

On nice, hot Texas summers, I can recoat after about 1-2 hours. We...haven't gotten there yet, weather-wise. So the rest of our project is on a temporary pause until the weather cooperates and throws me some sun and heat. But I'm okay with that. 

Fortunately, the shelf is now a beautiful, clean white. Unfortunately, our wall paint looks a little peachy now...I foresee painting the wall in our future. Once I pile up the shelf with stuff, maybe it'll help tone down the white a little bit? 🙈

We're Painting Again!: Part 1

When we were first buying houses, one of our "must-haves" was no wood paneling. Unfortunately, this requirement wasn't met when we bought our house. Actually, a lot of requirements weren't met when we bought our house. So when we moved into our house, we hired someone and had the wood paneling painted.

There were two built-in shelves in our house we did not have painted in order to save money. One was in our breakfast nook and one was in what is now my piano studio. It worked for the time being because only the shelf was left natural wood so it was acceptable. But I would often teeter totter between thinking it was fine the way it was and wanting it to be painted to match the rest of the room.

With the Covid situation improving, I am currently getting ready to reopen my studio and have students return in person for lessons if they choose to. I was also in one of my moods where I wasn't quite happy anymore with the way the shelf looked.

Natural '80s wood glory. Finding a place to
temporarily put all of my piano music was a challenge.

Painters charge more to paint wood paneling because it's been stained and sealed. In order to get paint to properly adhere, there's a couple options:

1. you sand down the wood to remove the finish

2. you use really nice primer and paint (typically oil-based)

3. you clean the entire surface with a strong cleaner (TSP, krud kutter, etc.)

4. some combination of the above options

We never officially got a quote to paint this shelf, but my guess is someone would have charged between the $600-$1,000 range to prime and paint this shelf inside and out. My guess is it would have cost us more than average because a painter would likely choose to spray normally. However, because my piano is in this room, I would never let anyone spray paint. Even if they said they'd cover everything, I would not trust it enough to do it. And then they'd charge you more to paint it by hand because it's more work. So we chose to do it ourselves. 

It seems like we started this project on a whim, which we kind of did, but there's actually been years of experience and thought put into it.

- we painted our own kitchen cabinets and 6 years later, they've held up really well considering it's a very high-trafficked area of our house

- we found a better type of paint and primer since then that holds up better than the one we used in our kitchen

- we have leftover painting supplies

- now is the time to do it if we don't want my studio to look like a construction zone when my students are back

Prep is key.

It actually didn't look terrible after I wiped the entire thing down with
TSP and 20 paper towels. But I'm still painting it.
Also since we have plenty of masks lying around, it was great not to inhale the spray. 

First coat of primer.

I was laughing at myself because less than a month ago, I'd told myself I was done with home improvement projects for a while. Our various handyman experiences from last month left me exhausted. And here we are again...I told a friend we were starting this project and her response was, "You're just bored at home, aren't you?" 😅

Clearly, this past year has had such an effect on me.

So this is how we started another house project and plan to finish hopefully within the next 3 weeks before my students come back. So far of the friends I've talked to, one is sad the wood is going and three are excited. Which side do you fall on? 

Stay tuned for the budget breakdown and final look!

Read Part 2 here.

If You Hire a Good Handyman

If you hire a good handyman, he's going to come over to see your project and give you a quote. You're going to have to wait six weeks because that's how far out he's booked. He has lots of good referrals so you decide to schedule in his next opening despite being a month and a half away. But that's ok because it'll give you time to order the doors and pick them up.

After 4 weeks of back and forth with the store, your doors are ready for pickup. You rent a Uhaul because you don't own a truck and then you and your spouse load the doors onto a hand truck and wheel them through the backyard to the patio. You're very proud of your hard work, and even your toddler says, "Those are the doors Mommy and Daddy carefully moved out of the big van" without you ever teaching her.

The doors we moved all the way to the back by ourselves.

When the day arrives for your new doors to be installed, he will start to uninstall the first existing door and frame carefully. You ask him to be careful with the trim because you want to reuse it if possible. He does a great job removing the door and frame. Unfortunately, you didn't measure the door correctly, and he forgot to check as an oversight. So your door is 4 inches too wide. 

Panicked, you call the store, ask them if they have the correct sized door in stock. They in fact do have two on hand, so the handyman graciously offers to drive the doors back to the store to do an exchange for the properly sized doors. 

An hour later, your husband and the handyman return with the properly sized doors. He continues to install the first door and finishes it at the end of day one.

The next day, he installs the second patio door, which goes much smoother than the first one. He puts all the trim he removed back on and caulks around the edges. You can hardly tell it's been redone. When he's all finished and done, he gives you the final bill and didn't even charge you extra for the trip to the store. In passing conversation, you also learn he is now booking jobs 3 months out. 

He leaves, you clean up, and you proceed to paint the door, inside and out. Except you overlooked the weather conditions and realized you painted with oil paint on a cold, wet day. So the edges don't dry properly and were partially ruined.

At least the inside paint looks great. 

However, painting is really not that big of a deal to you, , and since you're doing it yourself anyway, you decide you will fix it later in the summer once the temperature rises to unbearably hot again and oil paint can completely dry in a few hours. 

And later in the summer when you finally get around to repainting a second coat on the exterior of the doors, you'll be reminded again of the wonderful handyman who installed these doors and how he was worth the 6 week wait. 

*inspired by If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff *

”Tradition”

We have some strange “traditions” in our family it seems. In December of 2017, before our daughter was born, we discovered a leak in the bathroom we renovated two years prior. Luckily, we could go through the wall from behind to take a look at the pipes instead of having to tear down the tile from the front. We could only conclude that the pipe to the shower head was not screwed on tightly or had somehow come loose. That was the end of that leak and after a few days of repatching the drywall and retexturing, life resumed.

“Turns white when dry” isn’t just for
elementary gluesticks!

This DIY fix was easily completed by my husband as we did not have to monitor a toddler on the move and keep her from touching the construction materials or getting paint on her clothes.

Two days before she was born, which also happened to be Easter Sunday, we found a leak in our water heater. We did not DIY the water heater. Paying for installation was well worth the cost because a.) it had to be done fast. Like within two days fast. And b.) our water heater sits in a closet in our garage about 3 feet up from the ground. Hoisting a 50 gallon water heater up into the closet and properly connecting the gas line, AND with drainage up to code under a time constraint was just too much to process mentally when a new baby was coming.

In the last two years, things around the house have been quiet when it came to construction. We replaced some windows here and there but no unplanned home maintenance to undertake.



We call it “tradition” because lo and behold, the same bathroom leaked again recently, and what do you know...we have another little one coming soon. But this time we did not DIY it. We called a plumber and he came out three hours later, and another three hours after that, the leak was gone, and our valve was straightened. That was not part of the leak but it was a nice positive benefit.

That evening my husband had replaced the drywall and the next day he started to mud.

Thankfully, besides the cost of the plumber, no extra repair costs were incurred because over the last five years, we’ve done enough construction to accrue a good selection of wood scraps, drywall pieces, plumbing supplies, tools, and paint to cover a good number of household maintenance around here. Great hint for keeping drywall mud from drying out: put plastic wrap directly on top of the mud, touching the top layer, before putting the lid back on. 

After this repair gets wrapped up and put behind us, we’ll have to start thinking about putting together a bedroom for our second child. Oh, and did I mention all this leak-fixing was in his future room? Yea, poor kid. The stories we will tell him later...

Here’s to hoping “tradition” doesn’t hold up too true and our water heater doesn’t die again in a few months. But it is under warranty this time!

Or we need to be done having babies. 😝

Mondrian Inspired

So if you read in my previous post about the garage art I had created last summer, you would have seen in there that the Mondrian inspired piece was another one I wanted to work on at some point. It took a while, but during winter break when all of my kids (except one!) decided to cancel for the week before Christmas, I had a lot of time on my hands. Finally found some time to write about it so I'm now getting around to sharing.

I went about the process a little differently than the website I got the idea from (because I actually didn't read the website and after seeing the picture, created my own process on how to go about it in my head.) My was a little more tedious than the other way, but it worked.

The first thing I did was tape to paint the black lines.

If you remember from the previous post, I had explained how my husband had picked up gallons of paint randomly on his way home from work one day for free after seeing a Craigslist ad for free paint. Lo and behold, one of those gallons of paint was black.

Now here's where I start telling you all the DIY secrets. I found the can of black paint, but the instant I cracked it open, it was so sour and bitter and repulsive smelling that I knew I was not going to be using it to paint my wall. I closed it right up, made a mental note to make a phone call later to dispose of it properly, and went on to plan B. Plan B was using another dark shade of paint that we had which I originally thought was black, but after using it for a small project, realized it was a very, very dark shade of blue. Seeing as this project is completely my own and only inspired by Mondrian, I veered from the true black lines in his paintings and opted for the very, very dark shade of blue.

Completed lines

As you can see, the dark blue does its job of being a dark contrasting color and doesn't make that big of a difference.

With the first color - blue!

As you can see, I also did not stay true to Mondrian colors. He used completely primary colors whereas I am using softer pastel shades of each of the three. The reason for this was that coming in, I knew I did not have a true red. The closest thing I had was a milder pink, and this was supposed to be a project that did not require spending any money. So I was not going out to buy red paint. Also, I later realized (which worked out in my favor) that the can of yellow paint we had was also a soft yellow and not a bright yellow. Initially, I had wanted to mix the blue to a lighter baby blue because of personal color preference, but it ended up complementing the other colors better.

The pink paint has gone on.

Finished!

As you can see, I pretty much lightened each shade of color from Mondrian's....by arguably the same degree for each color. I purposely left the edges fuzzy and soft because I wanted a "materializing" effect. Once in the heart of the painting, I made sure to fill everything in with crisp clean edges. 

If you stare at it long enough, you'll actually see the illusion of grey circular dots at the intersection of the dark lines. I don't know how to explain this one, but it's just one of the many ways that our eyes can play tricks on us. 

This is actually my smallest piece of artwork in the garage. It only spans about 4 ft wide and tall. My other pieces are pretty massive and measure about 5 ft wide and 6 ft tall.

I don't know how proud my Humanities teachers or my art history teacher in high school would be, and I didn't do exceptionally well in either class, but I do still love art and find ways to be creative with the space I'm given. I'm slowly running out of walls in my garage to paint,  but I'll think of something. ;)

Garage Art

Who's lucky enough to have a husband who's willing to let his wife compromise his coveted garage walls? Me. :) Because they're actually not his coveted garage walls.

He came home 45 minutes late one evening after work because he saw a Craigslist post for free paint on his way home and took a detour to go get it. The guy who was giving them away had used them for art, probably as a side hobby. But he was moving and wasn't going to take it all with him. So of course, my husband went and picked up about 20 gallons of paint. The guy said it was old, but also said some of it was probably still good, so we went with it.

This paint sat in our garage for quite a few months, and lucky for us, we have a rather large garage so this wasn't really taking up that much of our storage space. Over time, we realized that some of the colors we actually needed....weren't the ones which we had. After going to the store and buying two gallons of discounted, mis-tint paint on our own, we decided we probably didn't need the 20 gallons of paint. I do have to say though, the two gallons we bought were exterior paint and so those are harder to come by for free, and since we were painting part of the exterior of our house, we were more picky on color choices.

The husband proposed we just donate all the paint or give it away, but I wanted to do something fun with it. So he let me paint the garage since the inside of our house is pretty much done the way we want.

We started talking about ideas of what to paint. We joked about painting mountains and oceans on our garage walls so we would have some scenic adventures at our fingertips, but let's be real here. Our artistic skills aren't good enough to cover multiple large scale walls. So instead, I looked for some more practical solutions. This website gave us some really good inspiration.

Our first art project didn't quite turn out to what it was supposed to.

Humble beginnings of the first art piece.

The finished product!

So these before and after pictures seem to be in sequential order of each other....but there was quite a disaster that happened in between. I don't have a picture documenting it because I was too in shock. After painting with all the paint tape lines there, I prepared to pull the tape off, because as an experienced painter, I know that you're supposed to remove the tape while the paint is still wet so you don't risk the paint sticking to the tape after it dries.

Well, I pulled off the paint anyways. Yes, I really did. The whole top third of my artwork came down with the tape. Somehow, the tape had stuck on so strongly, (or the top layer of paint was so worn,) that it removed the whole top layer, revealing perfectly smooth, brown drywall. Of course, that's not what I wanted to see. With the top third of my artwork now exposed drywall and the bottom two-thirds still intact, I was freaking out.

After regaining my composure and figuring out how to amend this issue, I quickly found some light colored paint to match the wall color and repaint the exposed the drywall. After that dried, I taped the same design to the top portion of the artwork and finished painting it for a second time. If you look really closely, you'll actually see that the two are not exactly the same. The finished artwork is done slightly differently than the first taping even though it is modeled in the same fashion.

Needless to say, I was very hesitant to continue painting the walls of my garage after this. What if every piece of artwork I painted was going to peel off with the tape? There was definitely no reason in putting myself through it a second time.

Well, I still wanted to paint fun designs like #11 from the inspiration website, so I did. And this one turned out much better, but I ran into a different problem.

After taping up the design, I began painting each wedge. I started with my lightest color and added darker paint to mix in to create the various shades. After I mixed it pretty dark, I decided to open the cans of darker paint and just paint those colors straight instead of mixing. However, when I opened up the can of dark blue that I wanted to use, it had gone bad. Paint smell + sour smell = bad paint. I really wanted to continue trudging through...and then decided it really wasn't worth it. So that can of paint went into the bad pile.

I had a second can of dark paint so I opened it up and tried to use it. Nope. Same smell, maybe even more potent. Those were definitely bad, hence, the new dilemma I had created for myself halfway through starting the project. I originally thought I would have five cans of blue paint to use and mix. Now, I was down to three, and the two that were taken out were my darkest ones. What was I going to do?

I just had to get really creative with my three cans of paint and my well-learned color mixing skills. I think I did fairly well.

I made 10 colors out of 3!

There's still a couple other walls that I want to fill, and I know for sure one of them is going to peel, so I will definitely be scraping that wall clean first before I paint. There's also a can of hot pink paint that I really want to use, you know, since my husband won't let me put it on the walls of our bedroom ;)

Oh, and design inspiration #33 is definitely happening. We have the blue and the yellow. we just need some red....!