Young House Love

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A Soft Pink Ceiling For Our Daughter’s Room

We did it! We can put three big ol’ check marks next to “paint the walls” and “paint the closet” and “paint the ceiling” in Clara’s room. It was definitely a bit of a painting marathon, but how sweet is the soft pink up there on the ceiling? It’s Pink Cadillac by Benjamin Moore in their eggshell finish. In some of these photos it’s pretty subtle, but in person it’s soft-but-noticeable – so while it’s not the entire room’s focal point, it’s a fun layered detail in the room. We thought clean white walls would complement the fun ceiling color without fighting too much with all of the color and pattern in things like the rug/pillows/curtains, so we went with Simply White in eggshell by BM, which is also what we use for trim and doors in a glossier finish.

We also used some leftover ceiling paint in the closet, just to add something in there too. Someday I want to add a built-in bench in there and I even think about doing something interesting to the slanted ceiling (little cedar roofing shakes could bring out that “indoor playhouse” vibe – and maybe even some playful wallpaper on the back wall could be fun).

Oh and you’ll notice that the rug and the curtains from the living room have migrated up here. Clara’s pink rug was shedding like a maniac (the new hardwoods made the giant pink tumbleweeds especially noticeable) and Clara loves playing on this blue rug (she pretends the light blue parts are the ocean for her toys/dolls) so we rolled it out up here to see how we liked it. When we plopped everything down after moving we figured a bunch of things would find their way around the house, so it’s fun to see things making the rounds, and now this woven rug is in the living room – although the jury’s still out on whether we like it there for the long haul.

But let’s rewind to the room all prepped (we moved everything into the center and covered it with a few plastic dropcloths). Remember those old stripey walls from spraying the doors before we installed the hardwood floors? Well, we decided we didn’t want that primer/paint “flashing” (meaning that it could show through the paint if we didn’t prime) so we took a minute to prime just the areas that we worried about that happening.

Here’s that area all primed along with the ceiling painted (we painted the ceiling first, then moved on to priming just select areas of the walls where we worried about bleed or flashing).

Then we broke out the white paint for the walls. I grabbed this shot so you can see the difference between the yellowed old wall paint, the cooler toned primer, and the Simply White wall color.

Of course we’re still missing a bunch of things on the wall, like something I’m halfway through sewing for over Clara’s bed (COUGHcanopyCOUGH) so I can’t wait to get that done and hung – along with some other art and eventually a light fixture that we’d love to add too. But it’s already a huge improvement not to have the old yellowed walls and to finally be rid of those stripes from spraying the doors!

And it’s certainly a far cry from the room full of blue trim that we started with:

We’ve also been trying to work on our photography skillz (picture us both laughing and blushing as we say that since we have such a long way to go) but we shot all of these after photos in manual for the first time! They’re definitely not perfect, but we’re slowly getting the hang of it… I think.

Clara is in love with her pink ceiling. When she came in and saw it she said “now when I’m sleeping I can look at the pink and the pink can look at me.”

I love that it’s a balance of crazy and calm in here, thanks to the fun mix of patterns (in the pillows, curtains, and the rug) combined with the white furniture and the white walls to sort of temper things so the room isn’t too wacky.

Here’s a shot from the closet, looking back at the other side of the room. That wall above the crib definitely needs some art, although Clara seems close to being done with her crib so we might just wait until she’s outta there to move it out of the room and then decide what will live on that wall, which will definitely inform the art above it.

Ooh look, I focused on the book and blurred the alligator. I feel like I should make myself a construction crown that says “Photoshoot Skillz In Da House” … and then promptly crumble it up after checking out my other favorite blogs, which all have infinitely better photos.

This cute kid makes any picture better though, so big ups to my girl for making this shot.

Oh and if you look closely you’ll see that we didn’t quite get into all the cracks where the wall meets the ceiling since we’re planning to add some crown molding – hopefully pretty soon!

What are you guys painting? Any clean walls + playful ceilings going on?

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    • It’s about 9 months old and didn’t seem to shed as much before (possibly because it was just in her playroom, which didn’t get as much foot traffic, so when it moved to her bedroom here (we’re in and out all day for naps and playing and bedtime) it was crazy how much pink fur was flying! It’s from Joss & Main which doesn’t accept returns (all sales are final) but I might just try vacuuming it a bunch of times to see if I can “break it in” or we might craigslist it down the line. Sad though – wish it wasn’t so hairy!

      xo
      s

    • You might want to talk to a rug cleaning company. I spoke to one who said that professionally cleaning a rug can sometimes get out all of the loose stuff so the shedding is vastly reduced. I haven’t tried it yet, but it’s worth a shot since that pink rug is so cute!

    • We got a wool rug a year ago that shed like crazy, but using it and vacuuming a LOT seemed to do the trick. It no longer sheds any more than we do. :) I’m hoping the pink rug will learn to behave and find a nice place in the house to live – I love it so much.

    • I wouldn’t be surprised if you hear from them regarding a refund or exchange. The blog has reached a point where they’d be risking goodwill to ignore this.

    • I actually purchased a rug from Joss and Main that fell apart in a few months. They had INCREDIBLE customer service – like out of this world. They refunded the entire cost of the rug and didn’t even ask me to return it. So you never know.

    • Really?! Wow, thanks for the tip Amanda! I’m not sure if the “it’s been 9 months since I bought this” thing could hurt me, but I’ll have to look into contacting them about it if I can’t use some of the tips folks left on this post to fix the problem myself.

      xo
      s

  4. Very pretty! I always admire people who go ahead and paint the ceiling a color, I am always to afraid to do that except for our downstairs bathroom which has an oil robbed bronze ceiling. BTW her room looks huge!

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  5. So, I’m the freak who sat at her computer refreshing the page until 10 am on the dot… and it was worth the wait! I LOVE THE CEILING! I want a painted ceiling soooo bad. I have this vision of a striped, tent like ceiling in our playroom but I got completely burned out on ceiling painting when we finished it down there… in 2010. Oops.

    And go you wit your mad camera skillz! Next stop, bokeh!

    Reply

  12. Her room looks great! I definitely prefer the new, calmer color scheme to the old bright one. And the pink on the ceiling is too cute!

    Your photos look lovely–keep up the practice and you’ll earn that crown in no time. ;)

    Reply

  13. Does envisioning you’re painting count for painting things?

    The house on which our offer was accepted is being inspected tomorrow, and if all goes well we’ll close soon. In the mean time, I’m dreaming of painting and am hoping my hub will be up for a trip to the paint store today to play with colors and possibilities.

    Reply

    • Haha, that totally counts! I remember lying in bed the night before we closed on our first house thinking “if I paint two rooms a day I’ll be done in a week, tops” … cut to us still painting that house a few years in! Haha! Oh how simple it can be in your mind…

      xo
      s

  14. Loving the polka dot curtains in here. Did the curtains Clara picked out for her big girl room get moved to the living room?

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    • They’re currently folded up in the spare room, so we’re not sure where they’ll end up! We think they could work in there someday or in the living room or even in the kitchen or dining room so we’ll have to see!

      xo
      s

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