Sunday, May 15, 2011

Foster Care Visitation Room: Painting

The Foster Care Visitation Room Project is making progress. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about you can find all about the project here. This past Saturday, I spent 10 hours painting the room with the paint donated by Sherwin Williams. The room itself has no natural light and one "mirror" which is actually an observation window.  
If you'll recall, I decided to paint the whole back wall with chalkboard paint. This wall will serve as a kind of activity wall for the children. The chalkboard paint itself is supposed to apply much like a satin finish paint but it's a bit more viscous and I had to take a lot of care to smooth out streaks created by the roller.
The other three walls received two coats of Sherwin Williams Open Air. This color is a bit more complex than an average baby blue. Unfortunately, a room with no natural light won't allow for the subtleties of this color to come through, but I was pleased with the result nonetheless. 
I painted the frame around the observation window white. The boring beige was looking a little dull against the blue. White never fails to freshen things up a bit! 
The corners between the chalkboard wall and the light blue were a huge challenge for me. I was able to tape off the chalkboard wall when painting (if you've ever painted with black, you know there is little to no room for mistakes) and I couldn't apply painters tape to the fresh chalkboard paint. I was bound and determined to get the painting done in one day so I free handed the corner as best I could. To smooth the corner where the two colors met, I wet a rag and very carefully smoothed the edge which helped blend the line. If you're ever doing this at home, simply waiting a couple of days for one of the walls to fully set and then use painters tape to get a clean edge. 
This is me after painting for 10 hours straight with no breaks except to scarf down cold pizza. I started painting about 7am which was the best decision I could have made. This photo doesn't do justice to the spatter of painted covering my hair and face. I even had some paint on my contact lens! 
When I got home on Saturday night sore and exhausted, I took a hot epsom salt bath, drank a glass of whiskey and ate dark chocolate simultaneously. It was heaven! Needless to say, I am still very sore but happy that the biggest step in this project is out of the way. Next step is decor and I can't wait! Hopefully everything will be ready to go into the space next weekend. I'm waiting on the last of the donations to arrive and I am so very ready to see this space come together. A few of the social workers stopped by the room while I was painting to let me know how grateful and excited everyone is about the redesign. I have a long list of people to thank for making this happen, but for now, I'm off to frame prints. xo

15 comments:

jessicaraesommer said...

Ah you are making great progress, the chalk was was suchhh a great idea. Perfect for children to interact with the space :)

Hope you're having a nice weekend!
Jessica Rae
Www.lovelyugly.blogspot.com

carly mary said...

you have a heart of gold girl.
i can't wait to see how it turns out!!

Karena said...

You are the best!! Truly a labor of love!

xoxo
Karena
Art by Karena

Come and enter my New Giveaway from Serena & Lily

Katie (Lemon Jitters) said...

love it!! So, what else do you need at this point? Or do you have a paypal account to accept donations?

Kate Lifecell Reviews said...

Oh you are an angel. What an incredible project. It looks wonderful.

Lifecell

TERI REES WANG said...

Oh.. I like you... even so much more.
Cheers!

Christina said...

bigs hugs to all of you. thank you for your sweet comments.

katie- i think all we currently need is hanging supplies for the art wall, side walk chalk and erasers. b is going to buy them this week. thank you for the offer! xo

Unknown said...

The clk wall is such a great idea. So far so good, great choice in color too. Can't wait for the finished results.

Gabbi said...

It looks great gorgeous Cristina! I love the minty shade of blue and the contrasting wall. You make me want to repaint my house...

robayre said...

Looks beautiful! I can't wait to see the progress. Love the chalkboard wall. I plan on painting a wall in chalkboard paint as soon as I have a wall to paint.

Simply Mel {Reverie} said...

the room looks great! you know, there are big rewards in life for people as wonderful as you!!!!

BaTLady said...

You give new meaning to accepting a challenge: singlehanded execution of the plan! Fabulous changes in the room.

Diana said...

The room looks amazing! Very serene and stylish!

jdavissquared said...

Hooray! It looks so good! You're amazing.

Ada @ New York said...

yikes .. paint ON the contact lenses - wow! U r putting heart and soul into the design .. it's looking great! I LOVE the chalkboard paint! I have 1 of my kitchen walls painted with it .. and luv it .. it's where hubby + I chalk messages for each other, are for our grocery list, and our 'can't find a pen' so let's write here instead wall!

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