Can anyone say purple wall?
This is where the bed was to go.
And a shot of one of the two cubbies (and my closet - it's huge!)
So you can see why changes were going to be made *cough*purplewall*cough*. But then the difficult part hit - what to do!
And for anyone who knows me well, I can be terrible when it comes to decisions that involve an infinite amount of options, which - come to find out - also include trying to figure out what to do with an empty room.
Luckily, the first thing to do was simple - get rid of the purple wall. The family who sold the house had two girls and a boy. One of the girls lived in the room we have dubbed the "Pink Room" (can you guess why? Let me give you a clue - identical wall...different color), and the other lived in the room that was now becoming mine. I was able to breath a sigh of relief at knowing the first task was an easy decision. Alas, that sigh of relief lasted about a half-a-breath, since the next decision came flying down out of the sky. What was the decision you ask? Anyone know how many colors are in the color spectrum? Thank goodness for an aunt who is an interior decorator and a mom with great ideas.
I think it was actually mom's idea that I do something of an oriental theme in my room. I've love nearly everything Japanese since basically my sophomore year in high school (might have started in freshmen year), thanks to a certain best guy friend and a comic that would be the initial spark to a story that would continue growing for going on ten years. But I digress - anyway, I've wanted to do a room in an oriental theme, but mom is not a fan. So you could say I was more than a tad bit surprised when she gave the suggestion for doing an oriental theme in my room. That started about a million more wheels turning in the head, since there is so much that you can do with that theme (and for those that know me well, I want to do everything!). Needless to say, there were a lot of ideas that were put on the table and then thrown out, since there was no way that I would have the time to do everything.
The three color options for the purple wall came down to white, black, or green. I frowned on the black because I wasn't too keen on having nearly an entire wall be black - little to depressing for me. I wasn't too keen on the white either, since the rest of the room is already a creamy white, and I felt that having that wall be white would be a bit much. And it wouldn't have been the same white, but a more pure white - I think I may have been blinded by the whiteness of it all (reminded me of when mom went through her white phase in California...interesting phase). So I settled on the green. With a small pile of those paint sample thingies and some help from my interior decorator aunt, a green was decided on. One trip to WalMart later, the painting began. That was quite the project, since it took two coats of primer and three coats of the green paint before the wall was covered enough. I slept in the pink room for basically a week because of the paint fumes in my room.
During that week, I started searching around on the internet to get inspiration for what else I was going to do in the room. I decided that I was going to make a noren (the Japanese curtains that hang from door openings - you see them at sushi places a lot) to go over where the bed was going to be, since there was the perfect spot for that. I also decided that I wanted to paint some sort of mural on the walls around the bed. My first idea was a cherry tree in blossom. I tried to figure out some way to paint it so that it would look like you were sleeping underneath the blossoms. Sadly, I am not THAT good of a painter, so I scrapped that idea. Then I though about painting cherry trees around the bed (no, I don't know why I was on the cherry tree mode), but scratched that again when I discovered that it would be pretty hard to paint and a stencil was waaaay to expensive. So after a couple days of searching around on Google images for Japanese bedrooms, I came across this picture:
Turns out this is actually at a hotel called Hotel Fox, located in Denmark.
I really fell in love with the painting and decided to copy it for my bed. I figured it would work out perfectly because my bed was going into basically a oversized window seat, so having the girl and the fan acting as the headboard would actually turn out.
The first think that I did was to paint the part where the bed was to sit on black. Since the bed was going to have white sheets and a white comforter, having it sit on a black pedestal area would make the bed more noticeable. Next was the sketching phase. First off, that picture with the finished design isn't very big, and when you blow it up it starts to pixilate bad. It took me about four days to get the design sketched up onto my wall. Luckily mom and dad bought the new mattress before I started so I was able to place the mural right where I wanted it. My cousin, who is a great artist, came over about day three and helped me with the placement of the branches; I deviated a bit from what the original painting had, since it was a bit complicated, and I wanted to make it "mine". It was during those four days that my best friend Kelley's mom helped me with the colors (thank you, Sue!!!) Once the sketch was up on the wall, the first things to be painted was the sun. It quickly became apparent that this painting was going to take multiple coats and was going to be a pain in the neck. You see, the wall isn't smooth - it's textured. Turns out that is not very fun to work with when you are trying to paint in color. I started painting the main body of the mural when I finished with finals and started Christmas break. I wanted to get my room pulled together before the next semester started, so I didn't have a lot of time. I almost didn't make it, since we were also unpacking and moving everything into the new house - there were quite a few 2 and 3 AM mornings during those few weeks.
Here are some pictures of the progress of the painting:
You get a good view of the sketchwork here. It's really rough, due in large part to the uneven surface that I was working with. The green of her dress is actually the same green that I painted over the purple wall (you'll see it in a later picture). This is probably day two of painting on the main section.
Those lips were a beast to paint! Even harder to sketch! Interesting story - when we were picking out the colors to use for the mural, I found two different containers of black; one was small and the other was large. I had decided to use to large on the branches because it was going to be the most black in the mural. When I painted her eyes, I used the small black, not realizing at the time that it was actually a GLOSSY black. Once it dried and I realized that it was shiny, I loved it. I really loved the fact that it was different that the flat black that was to become the branches. Also realized later that I had painted her ear too small - a mistake that was later corrected.
You can see how I folded the branches around the wall. Same thing that the original design had, just going in the opposite direction. You can also see the second of the cubbies - this one holds scrapbooking supplies.
And here the branched and flowers are starting to appear. I had painted the fan first, knowing that if I painted into where the branches were going I could easily cover it up with the black. When one coat of paint on the fan took me a day to do (lots and lots of outlining), I decided that only one coat was going on the fan. My cousin (the same one who helped me with the sketching) agreed. She said it gave it the appearance of a faux finish.
Starting on the upper flowers and branches. You can see where I had already painted the branches from the earlier picture.
Her hair was the last thing that I painted of the main mural. I was a little paranoid doing the outlining because there was extremely little room for error.
The finished upper branches and petals. There are three different colors used for the petals: red, light pink, and then a more hot pink.
Here is a full picture that includes the sun. When this was taken, the sun only had the first coat of paint on it. Ironically, it was the first thing to be painted and the last thing to be painted.
And here is it with the second coat on the sun. Looks a lot better, no?
Yippee! I finally have a bed! This was taken the day after I finished the painting. Got the bed up and some things put on the corner shelves. The picture on the top is my name in Japanese, and the picture on the middle shelf was a Christmas present painted for me by my cousin.
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So that was the process of the painting. Later would come a movement of desk, shelves, bookcases, stacking shadow boxes, and more. I also wanted to get a low table to put in the middle of the room for friends to sit around when they came over and for me to do my homework on. The major thing was that I wanted it to be big (as in surface area). The day that I decided that I was going to get a table, I went to DI just to look around. No joke, I found the exact table that I was looking for - right height and everything; it even had two little drawers!! Don't you just love it when that happens? Three cans of spray paint later yielded this:
Isn't it great?! And it is the perfect height to do homework on.
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And now, for the end of this extremely long blog post (what can I say - it's my first one!), the final (mostly) product of over a months worth of labor - my room!!!
Here you can see the noren that I made. I was thinking of painting different Japanese characters on the front, but I think that would detract from the mural. I will eventually be making pillows that will go on the bed. The cubbies will also have mini-norens.
This corner turned into the reading corner. Unfortunately, that bookshelf isn't nearly large enough to hold all of my books, so those are the "chosen" books, in a sense.
The green wall. So much better than the purple one, don't you agree? And that beauty of a computer there is known as Sanzo (yes, there is a story behind how he got his name). I can say with a ton of pride that I put him together (with some verbal guidance). Can I just say that I really like building computers?
The shadow boxes and shelves.
Last but not least, a full shot of the room from the door.
It may have taken over a month, but it was a project that left a feeling of accomplishment when it was done. Even though there are still a few more things to do before it is complete, I can look at it with pride and say "that was a job well done."
