Home Improvement Project: The Garden Room

For the past several years I have wanted to paint the den green. I like green – it’s a calm, soothing colour. Pretty and peaceful. I’ve had a paint strip stuck in the bulletin board for the last four years with the colours I liked, and knew exactly what I wanted it to look like, but the task seemed so daunting that neither my mom nor I really wanted to start. For some reason, this year has become THE year, and we’ve actually started this project.

The first step is to clear out and paint the little “dent” – an indented space in the wall that could easily be made into a spare clset if anyone needed it. We don’t, so we’re actually going to move the craft armoir in this space, and hopefully create some more space in this room. My plan has always been to paint this space a darker green, and the rest of the room a light green.

I didn’t get around to taking the “before” picture before my mom cleared off the shelves, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that these now-empty shelves were covered with clutter. 

I thought it would be horrible removing the desk, but it turned out to be really simple and easy. After removing all the shelves, brackets, desk top and file cabinets, mom filled in the holes, then we headed off to Home Depot to pick up our paint, roller, cut-in brush and blue tape.  The colour I chose (years ago!) was luckily still available and we left with a quart of Glidden’s “Garden Path”.

The painting itself was really hard because we have textured walls, and even with a roller specially made for textured walls, it took a lot of muscle to get the paint on the wall. But, we did – I rolled and my mom cut in – and we’re very happy with it. The colour is beautiful and reminds me a lot of the green in a garden (though not necessarily OUR garden which is already drying out), which is why I’m calling this The Garden Room.

The rest of the walls will be a lighter green from the same paint strip – probably “Potpouri Green”, the second colour from the bottom of the strip, but we probably won’t be getting around to that for a while, as it’s about time to start the garden. Next weekend we’re going to move the craft armoir into its new space, then go pick up our veggies for our garden. The rest of this particular project will probably not happen until fall. A little anticlimactic perhaps, but we’re still happy with what we were able to accomplish this weekend, and celebrated with a fancy lunch of cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches (crusts cut off, of course), a basil and herb pasta salad with tomatoes and tuna, and a glass of wine.

Hope you all had a terrific weekend!