I'm going grey!

[Heather]

Yup, we bought the paint for the exterior of the house - dark(ish) grey with white trim! Our house is currently all white but we thought we'd have a change so I'm going to paint it!

Problem though - I painted my front door red and the steps grey now the grey steps have to be painted something else as it will clash big time with the grey house. I was thinking burgundy for the steps, as I have extra porch paint left over from my kitchen floor (which is going to be changed SOON too - but that's another story) but then burgundy steps with a red door does NOT go. Now the window inside trim will be painted black so I could do a black door but does burgundy steps go with a black door?

Suggestions?

[CohenCottage]

I would keep the door red and do the steps in a gray that is a few shades darker than the house or black. That door is too pretty to change!:p

[CohenCottage]

Also, i LOVE your sink!! Where did you get it? It looks like the one we want from Ikea...

[ChapterTwo]

I vote for black steps, gray house, red door.

[Heather]

Ok I like either darker grey or black steps... will do a mock up later...

Yup, Cohen - it's Ikea. The sink is, the faucet, cabinets, handles, and countertop too. I love it!

[annielinz]

Love the direction you are going in. I say keep the red door, paint the house grey then decide on the steps. Depending on the shade of grey you decide for the house go a lighter grey or a charcoal grey on the steps.

If you want to funk it up you could paint a harlequin pattern on the porch and diamonds on the stair risers.

I adore the sink too!

[Heather]

Oh Annielinz I'm just LOVIN' that! Do you have a pic of that done?

[CohenCottage]

Heather, is it okay if I pm you to ask you some questions about how the sink fits into your counter top and exactly how it is supported? Your house is adorable!

[annielinz]

Heather, I'm going to try and post this pic of the diamond pattern on the risers that I was talking about.

[cheapdiva]

I agree . . . darker gray on steps. Annie - LOVE those stairs! Are they at your house? And that is a GREAT idea!!!

[annielinz]

Cheapdiva, no, those aren't from my house, but I think it gives so much interest to the stairs.

[yarborough house]

Heather - I agree keep the door red, house grey and then either darker grey or black for steps..

I do like the riser idea that is cool.
And I like the sink too - I saw it when our IKEA had its grand opening in Charlotte...very cool.

[Heather]

I PM'd you Cohen.

[Heather]

Thanks Annelinz for the picture. Wow, that does look great, eh? I could almost see the darker grey steps with white (as in the house trim colour) for the diamonds. Oh yeah!

[Heather]

Wow, look at these!
Must be hard to do - I like the harlequin idea better....

[Danske]

LOVE the red door! I think a darker grey on the steps would be enough of a contrast! I've always wanted one of those farm sinks, had no idea Ikea sells them! I wish we had an Ikea that was not almost 2 hours of white knuckle driving south - we've went to the one in BC more than ours.

[chyna]

Dont think I'd do black for the stairs however. I'm thinking of how hot they'd get in the summer in the sun, would be a built in deicer in the winter though. ;)

[annielinz]

Heres a couple of more pictures of where they used stencils to paint a design on the risers.

[ChapterTwo]

Another thought is to paint the steps a dark gray, and the riser black, for contrast. That way, no "hot steps"! ;)

[Gigi]

Wow! Really nice idea being thrown around---LOVE the diamond steps.

I also like the idea of a grey house, red door, harlquin steps

[yarborough house]

Gotta say Heather when I first saw the title of this thread - I thought - great now those of us with grey hair showing up are going to be asked to post a picture of our greying hair. So, glad it was about a house paint color..haha

[Zuzu's Garden]

He-heeee. I thought the same thing!

[cheapdiva]

Go ahead, look at my head . . . I almost dare you to find grey! (Is it bad if you have to color every other day to hide the grey?) :p

[Lisa S]

We gotta do what we gotta do!

[Breezy]

Gotta say Heather when I first saw the title of this thread - I thought - great now those of us with grey hair showing up are going to be asked to post a picture of our greying hair. So, glad it was about a house paint color..haha

What gray hair?:eek: Gotta love L'Oreal!;)

Heather - I like the idea of the red door & gray house - I'd go with a light gray for the steps or do the stencils.

Annie - you come up with the neatest pics & ideas!

[Suz]

Heather,

I like the red door...not so sure about painting the steps black though. I like the pictures of all the different designs on the stairs...very pretty...something like that would be cool.

That sink is AWESOME by the way!

Susie

[Heather]

Hey, thanks everybody!

I'm going to try a darker shade of grey for the steps and I'm going to either the harlequin (which I'm leaning more towards) or play around with a stencil I have that I was going to use in the kitchen as a backsplash (just with grey undertones, not beige)

[annielinz]

Heather, I love that stencil you used in the kitchen. Now is that blackboard paint you have as a back-splash? I really like that idea and may try that on my back-splash to bring more black over to that side of my kitchen.

I can't wait to see what you come up with for your steps.

Breezy, thanks :o

[Heather]

Hey Annilinz - yes, it's blackboard paint. I really like it but I had to tone it down a wee bit as it really made the room look dark. I wanted corbels anyways...

[annielinz]

Lovin' the corbels Heather!

I really need to get cracking on my Kitchen reno.

[mac78]

I love the red door, the sink too!

[cheapdiva]

I'll be using the corbel idea myself! Love that stencil!!!
Speaking of which . . . I want to stencil my dining room where the walls meet the ceilings but it is so expensive to do "word" stencils - which is what I want. Any ideas for keeping the cost low on this project? Even the sheeting to make the stencils will be costly - I want the wording to be 10 - 12" high and a variety of sayings.

Anybody know where I can find x-rays - that would work as the stencil material?

[ChapterTwo]

Maria,
Have you considered WallWords? They're prepasted letter transfers (in a zillion fonts) that look as if they were painted! My friend had them in her former house and they looked wonderful! I know they do custom orders and custom sizes...http://wallwords.com/index.asp

I've already been thinking about where I can put some in my new-to-me house. :-D

[cheapdiva]

CT -
Got about $500 you want to "loan" me!:p They're wonderful but WOW - pricey. 4" high "wine" saying that I liked was $70 . . . and I want to go around the dining room. Maybe I'll have to reconsider and do it just above the archway.

But you should all check out this site - love the saying about "dad's pancakes".

[ChapterTwo]

OOPS, cheapdiva! I guess WallWords is good for a tiny font of a SMALL quote like, "Wow!" I hadn't looked at the prices....gulp.

It might be an idea to check if there are any art schools nearby. Maybe one of the students is into murals and lettering and could do the job relatively inexpensively for you.

[Heather]

With regards to the stencils, can't you print something off with your computer? Sorta like this stuff:

http://www.epson.ca/cgi-bin/ceStore/ProductMediaSpec.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&infoType=Overview&oid=-8834&category=Paper+%26+Media

I just Googled my printer brand and it showed what types of paper and things you could create.

[Zuzu's Garden]

Hmmmmm, cheap is good.

1) I'd print out the words in a font you like (check out sites like dafont.com (http://dafont.com))
2) grab some tracing paper and trace it onto the paper w/ #2 pencil
3) flip it over and trace it with #2 pencil again
4) transfer it to the wall by tracing the words (again w/ #2 pencil)
5) paint w/ wall paint

[yarborough house]

Do you know anyone with the cricut machine? They are able to make vinyl sayings and then you can adhere them to your wall.

If not then you can just print out what you want from your printer on cardstock - and cut the letters out and then use that as a stencil or you can if it is a pattern you are going to use over and over - take it to an office max or something and have then laminate it then cut out the letters so it will last longer.

They also make paint markers so you could borrow and overhead projector from a school teacher friend or use the tracing paper and just fill in with the paint pen.

My sister does murals and such all the time and uses the overhead alot...

enjoy it..

[Lisa S]

You know, I was going to suggest that too. I have the smaller cricut machine which wouldn't work for that kind of project unless very small letters would be okay. The larger machines are pretty spendy, but look like they'd work great.

I've made my own stencils before by downloading an object from the computer and then cutting the image on a piece of stencil plastic with a straight edge knife.

Sounds like a fun project!

[ChapterTwo]

I've been drooling over that Cricut machine, every time the ad comes on TV.
Walk awaaaaaay from the television! ;)

[Zuzu's Garden]

OK. Lame here with a big L. I don't have a TV, so what is a Cricut machine? :o:o:o

[Lisa S]

It's a small die cut machine. Really neat.
http://www.cricut.com/shopping

[Zuzu's Garden]

Can I post a vote for old-fashioned scissors?

Christmas of 1970, my parents lived in S.F. They flew all us college-age kids (5) in to spend the holidays. We didn't have traditional Christmas decorations, so we bought some construction paper and crayons and made cut-out decorations depicting our visit. We made fish dangling from strings to represent the aquarium we visited, muddy feet with pants legs turned up represented playing in the ocean, Chinese lanterns for the great meal we shared together in Chinatown, Street Cars, and of course seven people in a row to represent our family together. My parents still decorate their tree with these paper decorations. Each one was created by a different family member - each one a unique treasure.

Zu

[Lisa S]

What a neat story, Zu.

[ChapterTwo]

That sounded like so much fun, Zu!

Yup, there's nothing like the memories of hand made Christmas tree decorations. I cherish the ones from my kids (and there are a couple I made with my friend, back in the Sixties, following directions in Seventeen Magazine!)

[Zuzu's Garden]

Hey, C2, what does your Seventeen magazine Christmas decoration look like? That is so fun that you still have it!

[yarborough house]

Isn't it amazing that the Christmas we remember the most is not the one where we got everything we wanted or even some of it - or the one that everything was perfect in the house..?
Mine is when I was 4-5 living in Germany on the Economy. We couldn't get base housing right off so we lived in a 3rd floor walkup. We didn't have much money so we had a tree with no lights. We put on iciciles we cut from aluminum foil, we made sugar cookies decorated them and put them on the tree and then made a construction paper chain out of red and green paper.
That was the coolest tree I can ever remember - even to today.

[ChapterTwo]

Hey, C2, what does your Seventeen magazine Christmas decoration look like? That is so fun that you still have it!

I actually have two of them - They are snowmen, made out of styrofoam balls, with colored pipe cleaner trimming, that sit on the tree branches. I will try to remember at Christmas and post pictures. Trust me...they're nothing outstanding! But every time I take them out, I remember my friend and myself sitting at my parents' dining room table, crafting the snowmen. Heck, they're more than 40 years old now. Gulp...:eek:

Yarborough...I'm smiling, thinking of your tree with the sweet, homemade decorations! :) You're so right about the simplest things being the best.

[Heather]

Ok I looked at that circuit machine - because now I want to do some stenciling too - but it just cuts paper, right? It wouldn't do something like this, would it?

[yarborough house]

Heather it cuts vinyl, chipboard wood...
they have this film that you run through it with paper and it puts adheasive on the back or it has vinyl sheets that it runs through and cuts that. It also will cut stabilized fabric, leather, lightweight chipboard wood...there should be an infomercial to watch all that it does online. I know they run them at all times here..I'd love one but well they are a bit costly....
And right now I am doing an auction online so got alot of bids in there.
hope that helps.

[Breezy]

Tammy - thank you for sharing that sweet story.:)

[Heather]

Tammy what is your online auction?

[Heather]

Sooooo... ... .. I've been really hard at the painting and it's lookin' good. What a job though! It's all good now......

[yarborough house]

Sorry Heather I didn't see the post before on what the online auction is..
It is the auction house that I go to in Berryville, VA. Sometimes he runs it simultaneously online so you see it happening on your computer and you bid right along with them. They can ship smalls for you but if you "win" something big you have to go pick it up. He also shows everything in pictures on his website that is going to be at the auction so you will know if you want to go or not..
here is the link:
hashauctions.com

there is another great one this weekend but no room in the garage and well got a kitchen to fix..dang it. :)