Tuesday, November 23, 2010

My friend spray paint

Spray paint is my friend. It lets you take something outdated, worn, and just not cool anymore and turn it into something fresh and new that you are proud to display. Set me loose with a can of black spray paint and I'll cover up every brass surface in your home! I don't know why brass is no longer cool. Gold = rich, right? But alas, silver is cool, brass is not. I've given new life to several things in my home with the use of spray paint. An old brass picture stand spray painted matte black = cool! The ugly black floor grate for the cold air return on our furnace looks much nicer now that I painted it copper to match the vent covers. Not to mention how the interior of the opening in the floor beneath that grate almost disappears after I covered up the silver pipes with a coat of black spray paint. Anyhow, you get the point. If you don't like the color of something - spray away! If you don't like it when you're done - spray again!!! It's the easiest and cheapest way to make a change.

Back in the late 90's, I decided to sell Home Interiors. It was a big waste of my time. I'm a terrible salesman. I would sell the hostess only items to people if they really wanted them and not make them host a party. I would give discounts to pretty much anyone. I definitely was not a go-getter. But, I did get a ton of stuff to decorate my own home. This picture was one that I really liked. It has that Thomas Kincade feel with a nice mat and a substantial frame. In the late 90's it was very nice. Even into the early 2000's, I still liked it. But by the time we moved into our last house in 2006, it just never found a home because it didn't really match my style anymore. But, I hated to part with it because it is well made and I could see that it had potential to still be something cool.

About the time that we were getting ready to move to our new house in 2010, I saw a black and white picture of a tree in a local florist shop's window and thought it was super pretty. It got me to thinking that a tree picture would look really cool in my new living room. When I came across this picture again as I was packing, it all came together in my mind! I could just see a spray painted frame and mat with a black and white picture of a nice, fat tree. The only thing I was missing was the tree picture. I am lucky enough to have a friend who is a super talented photographer and when I mentioned what I was wanting to do, she was not only willing to take the picture for me, but she was excited to do it! She texted the picture of a couple of trees to me until she found THE tree. She did some photo mojo on it to make it even more cool and eventually I got around to ordering the print from her.
The print was delivered and it didn't take me long to break out the spray paint! Please learn from my stupidity and do NOT use spray paint outside on a windy day! You will get little particles of grass stuck in your spray paint. DUH!!!! Luckily no major grass pieces got stuck and nothing was ruined. Before I completely messed everything up, I moved my operation into the garage...where I should have been from the get-go. Anyhow, here are the astounding results! This picture is now proudly hung in my living room. Who says I'm not "green"?!

1 comment: