pink ombre dresser

Edited to add: I'm linking this post up to Young House Love's Second Pinterest Challenge.  If you want to see the dresser in Princess's room in our new house you can see it here.

Like everyone else in blogland, I saw this picture of an ombre dresser and thought hmm, what can I do that to?

Princess's dresser, of course!  Although I liked the dresser painted orange, I didn't particularly like it against the brown rug that would be in her room.  I thought about painting it pink, but for some reason it just seemed...eh.  Then I saw the ombre dresser picture and thought, ohh....that might work.

And here she is:

The light in the kids' room is terrible, I find it really difficult to take well-lit pictures in there. I feel like my photography does not adequately convey the awesomeness of my projects sometimes.

This was such as easy project.  I got a quart of Benjamin Moore's Autumn Red (yes, really, it was called Autum Red, even though Bubblegum Pink would have been more appropriate) and a quart of BM's Decorator White.  I started with the bottom shelf and painted it pure Autumn Red.  I added some white to the pan for the next shelf, and even more white for the next shelf, and so on.

I had three different containers of color going at the same time.  After I put the second coat on of those three colors, I added more white for the next two drawers and the body of the dresser.  The body of the dresser is painted the same lightest color as the top drawer.

I cannot WAIT to get into the next house so I can finally put Princess's room together.  Two and half more weeks!

el hideoso banyo

I've been contemplating what to do with the Mister's bathroom for a while. Its on my list of Projects to Tackle in 2011.

That thing on the left that looks like a dirty smudge is actually the reflection of a towel on the opposite wall.

The bathroom in our old house had a western facing window that got a lot of sun, the tile and fixtures were all white, all the molding was white, and the flooring was a laminate that looked like broad-plank birch.  I painted the walls a warm gray, put up a Pottery Barn Bettina shower curtain (the one in the picture above, now discontinued), and used navy and orange towels.  I really liked it.  (Sorry, that was pre-blog, I don't have any pictures of the old house.)

In this apartment, the second bathroom has gray floor and shower tiles, a gray toilet, and a white eighties modern-ish laminate vanity (clearly I should change a few lightbulbs). It also has a skylight and a sloped ceiling.  Perfect, I thought.  I'll just transfer the whole Bettina shower curtain/orange/navy accents theme right in.  I did; I even painted it the same warm gray (also pre-blog, no pics).

I hated it.  The gray on the walls, combined with the gray on the floor, the shower and the toilet, and the vanity looked so cold and sterile.  Although the room does get sunlight during the day from the skylight, its not a direct sunlight.  This design just didn't work in here.

My second attempt was to paint some stripes on the wall.  The math involved brought me to the edge, and then taping the stripes off in a level fashion did me in. My laser level suuuuuucks.  

The third try was to pick up a warm off-white for the room to brighten it up.  I almost always do paint swatches, but this time I didn't.  (Dun dun dun....)  Of course, the off-white I picked is actually yellow.

I've seen some lovely pink rooms in the blogosphere lately (see here, here, and here ), so I thought that the bathroom would be a lovely place to bring some pink into our house. The pink is already in the curtains, not that I would go such a deep coral, but I think a light peachy-pink would be perfect. I picked up a few to try:

I don't like any of them.  I am thinking of a very light peachy pink shade, and none of these are it. I think the peachy-pink in Bryn Alexandra's room is what I'm going for, so I should probably just go pick up a sample of Cameo Pink by Ralph Lauren.

I'd also like to paint the vanity a dark gray (Behr's Dark Granite, since I have half a gallon in the basement.)  I think the dark gray/light gray/peachy-pink/navy blues would go nicely together.

Aaaaaaaand.....my plan to paint the bathroom pink has hit a snag.  The bill has been passed to the executive branch and the pink was excised in a line item veto, if you will.   I am not to paint the bathroom pink, despite its universally flattering effect on skin tones and its popularity in the blogosphere.

Le sigh.