Armoire Painted and Some Curtains Hung!
July 24th, 2007 by ariana
We’ll start with the armoire/linen closet.. the first refugee from The Porch of Projects has been painted and relocated to its new home in the upstairs hall!
First the before, with the much too faux navy blue crackle:
Armoire before painting
And now, the after:
Linen Closet Armoire after Painting
Sorry the picture is so blurry.. so of course you can’t tell but in person, there is still a nice distressed look with the navy blue peaking through in places looking almost like blue and white china.
I ended up watering down my BM pearl finish White Heron paint and painting on a couple of layers. This worked really well for two reasons. One is that paint with any level of gloss is pretty hard to work with. If you go over it even just a little bit it gunks up the finish. But watered down its a breeze to work with. Secondly, the opacity of the watered down paint allowed me to have just the right amount of the old faux crackled finish come through.
I’m quite happy with the results, I think it came out looking a bit more elegant and less rustic and “fake faux. ”
On to the curtain hanging…
Things didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.
In the living room, I only have two panels of the blue/gold brocade, but I had solid blueish panels I had bought at target that are a pretty good color match. Originally, I had planned on putting the brocade ones on the bay of windows and the solid ones on the single windows (one of which is behind the couch). That looked terrible, so I switched them. It seems to work better with the brocade on the single panels, probably because the gold in them looks better against the gold colored walls. But I’m still not happy with how the brocade and solids are working together…
Single panel curtain behind couch
Perhaps I need to take down the width of the panel? (Yes, I think that’s part of the problem.. with all those gathers they look frumpy!)
Back right corner of living room
Here you can kind of see the print and the solid curtains together.. not loving it. Suggestions would be appreciated!
Moving on to the guest room..
Here things worked better. Or at least they did once morning came and the light coming through illuminated the curtains and brightened up the whole look. At night its a bit much.. Jeff said it was a little “Welcome to the Falerni Funeral Parlor!” Not exactly the look I had in mind.. but as I said, the daylight did much to improve the situation:
Guest Room Curtains Hung.
I’ll be looking forward to getting my sister’s opinion tonight, particularly on the Living Room situation, but of course I’d love your input as well!
Confession. I soooo hated that armoire when you showed it to us last week. I wanted to say “throw it back on Craigslist”. I actually almost typed something along those lines a few times, but I never hit “submit comment”. I couldn’t add to your angst about it. BUT NOW…
I love the armoire! It looks great! You rescued it!
I’ve got no helpful comments on the curtains. I’m famous around my house for changing out curtains quarterly…
LOL, I’m glad you don’t think it should be thrown back on craigslist anymore :)
RE the curtains.. I’m half tempted to just take them down in the living room! That reoom is turning out to be the most challenging. There’s not much going on in there that I’m liking at all :(
Is there enough fabric in the brocade curtain to split it and have a narrow “outside” curtain on both windows and use the solid as a sheer on the “inside”????
The armoire is looking GREAT!!!
the armoire is looking good!!! you are so fast! you just got it and now it repainted!
i think the curtains look good, i couldn’t make too much of either the color or the look of the solid curtains by the picture… but i do like how the brocade gold one looks… BUT i think it would look best if you installed a double rod so you could hang a sheer curtain first and the brocade curtain on top… and then arrange the brocade one like you did the solid ones, you know?? with some sort of tied up on the middle, so the upper part bubbles up a little bit… very marie antoinette, and i think that would give it a nice touch to the living room…
I think you could maybe pull the living room together with the right pillows – something that tied together the curtains and the ottoman? But I am horrible with colors, so that’s about all the advice I can give!
Kristen, you’re so right – the pillows definitely need attention!
Antibride, I thought about sheers.. I may experiment and see how that looks. Damn though, bying and hanging the hardware again (with double rods) would suck :(
I agree with Antibride on adding another panel behind the damask, the panel looks more sheer than in your last post. Another layer will add opacity and give the panel more of a presence.
To avoid the double rod, you could open up the rod pockets of both drapes, put one on top of the other, re-sew along the stitching line, and treat them as one double-layered panel.
Jaybird’s suggestion is also great. Since you want the brocade panel to be less full, cut off one of the sides and attach it to one edge (or two) of the solid colored ones.
hmmm…don’t know why my blog was down. But the Armoire looks fantastic!
I LOVE the armoire used as a linen closet. I think things like that, dressers in bathrooms and hallways, really make a house. Everything is looking great, but I cant give any advice on the curtains. I still have plain white ones hanging that were supposed to be ‘temporary’ over a year ago.
I think you’re absolutely right about the gathers on the brocade being the issue. Here’s a thought: rework the fabric (which is quite fabulous) as a roman shade? I always think they look more like fabric art than window treatments, and do show off a fabric. Kits make it do-able, now, too. (Great job on saving that armoire, by the way!)