OverHALL

Monday night, during commercial breaks from The Bachelor I added two coats of Whitestone (the same color as our front room) to cover those beige walls.  And then yesterday morning, I decided to add some art work to the space.  Often times people neglect their hallways (us included) and leave the walls in the common area lifeless.  I took it upon myself to be NOT one of those people anymore, and we are on our way to a very spunky hall.

The idea actually sparked when my mom was in town and we went to Ikea.  She bought me this piece of art (that was marked down to $5.99!) when she saw how I couldn't keep my eyes off of it.  And I'm sure all of my "Wow, this would look so good in the hallway!"  may have given her a clue, too.  We brought it home and I love it.  I knew I wanted to pair it with something because it is a very clean, realistic, and crisp piece and a lot of our other art is a little more impressionistic.  Plus, while it is a medium sized canvas, it wasn't large enough to hold the hallway itself.

I found a very VERY old painting of a shark I did that I definitely didn't want anymore.  Wouldn't you know it,  it was the same size as our new pretty flower:

So, I just painted over it.  I actually do this quite a bit.  Whether I paint over thrift store paintings or old canvases that were my own, I love the idea of recycling the canvases or boards and making them something beautiful again.  I always start with a good coat of primer.  I like Kilz oil-based primer.  You can just get this right off the shelf.  It blocks color, stains, and odors (which can actually come in handy with some of those thrift finds) and dries in about an hour.

To make the space a little more personal, I decided to go with our silhouette--the same one that is in our blog header.  The picture is derived from one of our engagments, in case you are curious:

 I knew I would be pairing it with the flower, so I wanted to connect them with a big splash of yellow.  Once I got them next to each other, they really didn't feel that connected.  More like devil and angel, right?   So, if I just added a little more light to the silhouette they would probably feel more like a couple (okay, the ikea pretty is playing third wheel here, but still).

Yup, that did it.  I also added a little more warm oranges into my painting and called it done.  Chris approves and is surprisingly ecstatic to have these two pieces in our hallway.  I love the pairing myself.  It feels personal and beautiful and colorful.  From a distance, we still need at least one more thing, but my treasure find yesterday may be just the thing.  Anyone else decorating their halls with DIY art?