The Blue Paint Special

It was a surpisingly quick project--though it took a long time.



I have been feeling some serious frugal fatique lately. I want to run to Home Sense (Canadian equivalent of Home Goods) and buy pretty Spring-like doodahs. I want something new. Something different.

I thought really hard about how I could get that without spending any money. I had been going to paint some dropcloths and use it as fabric to recover a chair--and I may still do that--but I decided to tackle something a little less imposing, first.

Painting the backs of my bookshelves has been in the back of my mind for years. I could never decide on a colour. I wasn't sure if I should go light or dark. I figured we should also beef up the tops of these Billys with trim and all that: so I let the whole thing lanquish.

When we cleaned out the Chemical Cabinet back in February, I discovered several cans of quite old but useable paint. I put that into the back of my mind, too, but not too far back.

When I decided that I would get my decorating fix by painting the back of the bookshelves, I resolved either to paint them blue (but what blue?) or Kelly green.

I have no Kelly green paint.

But I do have this strange blue-green. I have no idea what I bought it for. It's an old Benjamin Moore paint--a couple of paint lines back, actually.

One late night, (or it could have been early morning) I was coping with my frustration in my usual way --staying up way past my bed time and reading decorating blogs-- when I was reminded of that old decorating trick to repeat similiar colours to achieve coherence and unity. And I knew what to do. It may not have been exactly what I wanted (but who knew exactly what I wanted?) but it would work.

So, I darkened the paint a bit --to make it more like my pillows and less like the rug. I just added about a tablespoon of black to a well filled tray.



I painted two coats. Three would have been perfect, but I ran out of paint and didn't want to mess with mixing more. Being the back of a bookcase, where shadows expect to linger, two coats were more than good enough.



I spent a day putting things back. I removed the dust jackets to all of the books I could and loved the instant calm and old-world feel.



I also took apart and resewed the rocking chair pillow. That was a project and a half! It took me through four disks of the audio recording of The Book Thief.

But I loved it.



Linking to my favourite gathering of the week, the William Morris gang at Pancakes and French Fries.