The Painted Desert

In honor of Easter weekend, I decided to resurrect my living room. Therefore, I spent two days turning said living room into the colors of a high desert paradise. I am so happy to have my earth tones back.

My entire house has been painted this nasty-assed, dingy shade of yellow. Every room except the kitchen, which I refer to as "Great White". The bathroom is stark white, too. This shade of yellow isn't even a color, as far as I am concerned. It's a special effect. The effect being someone chain-smoking in a white room (with black curtains) for thirty years sans ventilation. It's like a nicotine-stained veneer. Even the name of the shade is offensive: Deep Cowslip. I don't even know what that means. I think cowslip is some sort of weed. Regardless, it sounds gross.

Saturday I went to Lowe's and got a gallon of each of my two trusted colors (I used these same colors at the Fitzgerald house as well): Earth Elements Canyon and Burnished Copper. Hot diggity... now my entire living room is painted. And I have pictures to prove that I didn't loaf around feeling sorry for my sorry self all weekend...

Befores:





Durings:

I painted the window seat/bay window place (the Bay Area, as it is now referred to) and the wall surrounding my fireplace the lighter (Canyon) shade:





The remaining walls get the Burnished Copper treatment:



AFTERS (WOOHOO!):

One room down, four more to go.





Finally, I would like to thank my project manager (who perched on the arm of my sofa, barking out all my mistakes).



Now all I gotta do is put everything in its right place and I'll have Santa Fe southeast dialed in.

Not From Here

I've been feeling homesick for the west lately.

I made a little design to cheer me up. Maybe I'll put it on a t-shirt or something...



On a related note, I found this quotation from Wallace Stegner the other day. He is one of my favorite novelists of all time; I love the man. What he says here definitely strikes a chord in my heart:

"The Utah deserts and plateaus and canyons are not a country of big returns, but a country of spiritual healing, incomparable for contemplation, meditation, solitude, quiet, awe, peace of mind and body. We were born of wilderness, and we respond to it more than we sometimes realize. We depend upon it increasingly for relief from the termite life we have created. Factories, power plants, resorts, we can make anywhere. Wilderness, once we have given it up, is beyond our reconstruction."

- Wallace Stegner, Wilderness at the Edge , 1990