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As I mentioned in my posts about my living room gallery wall and inexpensive bathroom art, I’m a big fan of DIY art. This is mostly because I’m cheap, not because I’m an amazing artist (awesome snowman painting I made when I was 7 years old notwithstanding):

I promise that “Emily T” is me — it’s a long story, but I’m not trying to claim credit for some other child’s painting

With the caveat that my artistic skills pretty much peaked more than 20 years ago, I thought I would share an easy DIY art project that I made way back when for our apartment kitchen.

I really struggle with art in the kitchen, because so much of what’s out there just feels so kitschy or corny. I wanted something that would fit with our retro kitchen aesthetic (pro tip: when you have an old kitchen, pretend you intentionally created a “retro” vibe). Because I am a predictable and trendy blogger, I’ve loved cathrineholm dishware for a long time:

Decorating with cathrineholm -- Plaster & Disaster

From Rachel Whiting, House of Seance, and Fjeldborg

How is this a fix to my art problem? Well I realized that if I liked actual cathrineholm dishware so much, I might also like pictures and drawings of cathrineholm dishware.

Cathrineholm artwork -- Plaster & Disaster

From handz, yumalum, and visualphilosophy

Yup. So then I went out and bought all these adorable prints.

No wait, this is a DIY art project. So this is the part where I decided, “I can totally create something adorable myself!” I grabbed a canvas from Michaels and some paint I already had on hand, and got to work.

First I painted the whole canvas dark gray, because I thought that would make for some nice contrast against our light blue kitchen walls. I decided that I wanted to paint a single pitcher, to keep things as doable as possible for non-artist me. I found a picture of a pitcher that I liked, printed and cut it out, and then traced it onto the canvas. That’s how little I trusted myself to freehand this thing. Then I painted the pitcher white, added some black stripes along the top, and then added the signature cathrineholm lotus pattern in orange along the bottom. Lastly, I painted the edges of the canvas black to give it a little more polish.

I’m still trying to figure out exactly where to put it in our new house — but in the meantime, it’s hanging out on the buffet:

Okay so I probably shouldn’t go opening my own Etsy shop to start selling these. But I think it was worth the $6 canvas to bring some mid-century-inspired art into the kitchen. And since it was so inexpensive, I won’t feel bad if it turns out there really isn’t a long term place for it in our new home.

So…what cathrineholm piece would you paint?

(Sharing at AKA Design, Tip Me Tuesday, Two Uses Tuesday, Whimsy Wednesday, Think and Make Thursday, Remodelaholic, and Link Party Palooza)

If you don’t understand the title of this post, that means you haven’t read Naomi’s recent post on her home color palette. Go do that, and then you may return.

Like Naomi, I also elected to paint my bedroom purple when I was a kid. Unlike Naomi, I am “lucky” enough to still have a purple room in my home — actually a shade of lilac that isn’t too far off from that childhood bedroom of days gone by. As I share my home color palette, keep in mind that we just moved last fall into a house where every room needed to be repainted, and we’ve only made it about halfway through at this point.

So here’s what we’ve got, according to my very scientific recordings:

All of these colors are Benjamin Moore, which we usually have color matched to Olympic ONE paint. And let’s pretend that “mystery color” is the official name of a color, rather than acknowledging that I painted my bathroom a color that looks a whole heck of a lot like this (very dark blue/gray), and totally didn’t record the color (and threw away the can because I used up all the paint). After I had been in this home improvement game for several years. And already had a blog. What was I thinking?

I wish I could say that the palette stops there, but that would be excluding about 50% of the house. Here’s what we still have to contend with (color names are not official, but I think Benjamin Moore should consider adopting them).
So without further ado, let me take you through this wonderfully incomplete and evolving color journey!

Let’s start with the places where we’ve been intentional. The first place we painted when we moved in was the living room, and I knew from the start that I wanted a light gray to replace the dark red that had been there.

On the first day we moved in (while the seller was still slowly removing her belongings from the house, even though we’d already closed on it…), we whipped out our paint brushes and went from this on the walls:To this, “moonshine” by Benjamin Moore:

It’s a very light gray, with blue undertones. I chose it because I wanted a very light neutral for both the main living space and to continue into the hallway and stairwell, and this one fit the bill. I will confess that I bought it before looking at a paint chip on the wall because we needed to buy it before we moved into the house so we could paint immediately upon moving during a very short window before our furniture arrived from storage, which is a total decorating no-no. But I think it worked out, so I’m relieved. Oh also, one day the baseboard radiators will get painted white, but as you saw from the second color palette above, I currently have bigger fish to fry.

The living room attaches to the hallway, which was a big makeover project this winter. We also have moonshine on the walls, plus semi-gloss white on the trim, paneling, and doors (the precise shade is some generic store variety, I confess I’m not on top of my trim color the way Naomi is). Also in the hallway are some more colorful accessorizing colors that I picked out to add some pizzazz: “surf blue” on the back of the built-ins and “spirit in the sky” on the inside of the front door. The surf blue and spirit in the sky are meant to tie into the patterned stair risers I created using fabric and mod podge:

Off of the hallway are the bathroom and master bedroom, both of which we decided to paint darker colors to contrast with the light and airy main living spaces. This is my first time with dark walls, and I absolutely love it in both rooms. We have “black pepper” on the walls of the bedroom, creating what I like to call our “sophisticated cave“:

While black pepper is a dark gray, it has blue undertones so it reads like a very dark blue in a lot of lights.

The bathroom came in a totally lovely shade of lime green:

But that just wasn’t cutting it for us. I had been thinking about a light shade of blue, but Naomi suggested something dark to make the brown tiles look lighter in comparison and she was so right. I considered a bunch of options:

And then picked a color that I forgot to record (and I can’t even sleuth from this photo, because I remember that the color I ultimately picked was on a strip that fell down before I snapped this pic because of the humidity after a shower). It is dark blue/gray, and wonderful — especially with the colorful and inexpensive art we’ve added. I painted both the walls and the ceiling, which I think helps the small space feel more cohesive and draws less attention to the relatively low ceiling.

The last room we’ve painted so far is our home gym, in the basement. We started with dark wood paneling, and wanted to lighten up the space with paint and mirrors. Here’s where we started:

And where things are now with “chantilly lace” on the walls:

I totally copied Naomi on the shade of white — Sam decided on a whim that he wanted to buy paint for the basement while we were at the hardware store one day, and I hadn’t picked out a specific white yet so I just went with what I knew Naomi had used as white throughout her house. When in doubt, copy Naomi.

So that’s where things stand now! I think I want to add some warmer colors as we trudge through the rest of the rooms, though nothing too crazy. And here’s a quick tour of what we’ll be slowly painting over:

In the kitchen, we have this lovely shade I like to call “childhood bedroom”:

It goes especially well with our bright blue counters, wouldn’t you say?

Upstairs we have the watermelon craft room:

And the blue, floral, and wood paneled guest room:

And then we have the sunroom, which is currently a lovely shade I like to describe as “taupe-ish/green-ish.” It’s not terrible, but it’s not my style.