Summertime and the Living's Easy

I've got some summer-lovin decorations going on in the house and a new-ish finished project to show you. I did it awhile ago, but with work and life being busy (as it usually is in the summer) I haven't been able to post about it til now. That, and I JUST took the pictures - go team lazy :)

When I did our stairwell photo gallery, I showed you in that post a picture of our upstairs hallway, directly at the top of the stairs:

Well today, it looks like this:

I took a cue from the other expanse of wall in that hallway (featured in this post)...

 ...and continued the board and batten treatment so now it continues through the hallway for a cohesive look:

 

(The natural light coming into the hallway here is from the bathroom which directly across from that left wall)



Let's take a look what I have on the wall above the board and batten:

And another angle:

The pictures inside the hanging white frames are (from left to right)...

A pic I snapped in Ocean City, Maryland last summer,

...starfish,

...and driftwood.

Mounted above the pictures (which are hanging on a piece of driftwood with pegs) is an oar:

It's from Mike's grandparents and it used to be a yellowy polyurethaned wood tone. It wasn't bad but it needed some pizazz...so I Amy-fied it :)

First I painted it navy blue and white:


Yep, that's my ironing board with trash bags over it...multipurpose people! :)

 I was able to make vertical lines between the colors by using painters tape for a clean straight line. Then I free-handed the number 9 (as in 2009 - the year of our wedding anniversary) in a light blue. The paints I used were the little craft paint bottles you can get at A.C. Moore or Michaels.

Then I ruined it...on purpose :)  I took medium grit sandpaper and roughed it all up. I wanted that worn look, as if it had actually been used in a canoe race...which, come to think of it, for all I know it just may have  been. I should ask Mike's Nana.

Then I heavily watered down some more of the same white craft paint I originally used, and went over the whole oar for a weathered white-washed look.

Here's a little better close-up of the number after being sanded and white-washed:

So here's the before and after, side-by-side:

Oh yeah, and see the light switch in the middle of the first photo above? I spray-painted the black switch white, then disguised it (hopefully, haha) among the vertical strips of wood so it blends in better and doesn't stick out awkwardly.
Here's a view from the bottom of the staircase:

And speaking of staircase, remember what THAT used to look like?! WHOA.

Needless to say, this area of our house has come a loooooong way and I'm very happy with its progress.

Hope everyone's summer is going swimmingly! Haha, see what I did there? Summer...swimmingly...I kill myself ;)

~Amy