A few nights ago I finished the artwork I was planning for my parents’ new living room. And they like it! Phew!
My parents live in an old farmhouse built in the 1820’s. They bought it when I was one, and have completely refurbished and refinished the whole thing, many times over. It has a huge barn (where they’ve graciously let me keep all the posessions I haven’t been able to bring to Dublin!) and old, slanty wooden floors where all the matchbox cars would end up when we were little.
My mother has filled the house with old pieces she found in junk stores and antique places over the years. I have vivid (if not fond) memories of summer days spent waiting at an old warehouse while she looked through hundreds of old wooden chairs. She has a great eye for finding pieces to refinish, paint, or reupholster. One day she proclaimed she would make a great criminal because, in the course of stripping the latest piece of furniture, she’d also managed to strip her fingerprints off!
My mom has also made every curtain, pillow case and duvet cover in their house. She caned the dining room chairs, and, with the help of my dad, tiled the bathroom floor and built a beautiful wooden bathroom counter when they couldn’t find exactly what they were looking for. My mother is a wonder woman when it comes to DIY and decorating.
That said, she is also a tiny bit particular. She painted the new living room three times before she was happy with the color. So when I offered to make a piece of artwork for one of the walls, I was a tiny bit nervous about finding the right color.
The room, mostly greys and silvers and neutrals, needed a color to brighten it up. But that color was proving difficult to find. We eventually landed on kind of a cinnamon/terra cotta. But not too orange, because it would clash with the pine floors, and not too pink because that would be too sweet.
You can understand why I was nervous.
But it all worked out, just in time for Thanksgiving!
Doesn’t it warm up the room? I’m thrilled they’re thrilled!
I’m off to enjoy the winter wonderland outside, but I’ll be back later to share a few things I learned while making the project. Overall lesson: It’s not as hard as it looks!
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