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When it comes to decorating, I have really great ideas. Really! Luckily, I also have really great friends who gently take the paintbrush from my paint-covered hands (ok, paint-covered arms, all the way to the elbows) while I am up a ladder screaming at a ceiling that got paint on itself and in my hair ON PURPOSE and expertly execute the vision - which has miraculously been transformed into a plan (!) rooted in years of art school and other creative learning experiences (not mine).

This story begins months before that, though, on the day when R and I first walked into Texas Townhome and fell in love with the yard! the kitchen sky-lights! the three separate rooms so different from all the open-concept flips we’d been visiting! and forgave the McDonald’s-yellow entry way. But after a few months of desperately craving an Egg McMuffin every time we left the house something had to be done. And so I began spending hours on Apartment Therapy with a goal other than my usual one (to avoid all more pressing to-do’s). I needed entry way ideas.

R and I liked the idea of wallpapering the area in a colour and pattern that would contrast nicely with the deep blue we planned to paint the living room (as you can see in the photos from the talented Julie below, the entry way can be seen from the living room through a cut out in the wall). Our dreams were crushed when we visited the local paint store where the amiable sales staff (while feeding our dog a biscuit from the behind the counter! Gotta love Leslieville) informed us that most wallpaper costs between $75 and $100 a roll, and most rolls are sold in packs of two.  Having just bought a house, we hadn’t been planning on spending so much on the tiny entry way.

Which brings the story back to our amazing friends (who are also coincidentally our co-blog contributers!) I mentioned our wallpaper woes to our amazing friend who has a background in print-making, and she assured us that she could create a wallpaper style pattern on our wall using (much more affordable) paint! And she did!

See!
(photo credits to Julie, one half of the Designing Neighbours!)

The entry-way primed and ready to go.
Free hand taped by a Designing Neighbour (maybe we should consider a sitcom as well as a blog?)

The next step was to paint the blue in between the yellow tape. Then we let the blue paint dry a bit, but not completely, so that the paint didn't chip when we removed the paint.  So, when the blue paint was almost dry, we peeled back the yellow tape and voila! Project complete :) 


ta-da!


We love how the project turned out, and feel lucky to live near such generous and talented folk.