Family Room Revamping: the prep work.

Since last May when we purchased this new couch I have been dreaming of updating our family room. The wall color is so dark and the kids have put the room through some hard times. Its a great big L-shaped room but the wall color makes it very dark and yucky. The room includes many activities: tv, scrapbooking, kids computer station, toy room. The room is in desperate need of some help.

I've picked my colors and window treatments. Have thought out furniture placement and am now beginning to tackle spray painting projects that I won't be able to do once its cold outside. My plan is to have all accessories rounded up and update before I paint the walls. Sewing, spray painting, and updating will all happen first. This is a new approach for me. I'm hoping it will work out.

I plan to have one wall contain a casual grouping of framed year in review scrapbook pages and family photos. Gathering up all the spare photo frames I set out to paint them all black.

THEN..... I changed my mind.....painted them white.

After drying I took out the sand paper and roughed them up A LOT making the black show through and chipping big chunks of the paint off. I love how they turned out. (did you know that if you mist the paint with water while it is still wet you get a great crackly effect! Maybe that is old news to some of you but new to me. I have to thank my kids and their love of playing with the garden hose!)

Here is one of the frames I picked up at a garage sale: Before
And after. I love how they turned out, the small one most of all. It doesn't show up in the photos' very well but it has just the right amount of black showing through to make it look like it's been around awhile. The large frame is one I had sitting around for ages. It didn't take to painting very well, but the turned out OK in the end. Big chunks of paint chipped off and I think it is perfect. Hubby is going to think I've lost it once again - -but I can live with that.

Whew! that was a lot of words just to say I painted some frames. Wow, I must be talkative today. Hope you enjoyed.