Operation Oscar's Room: Done! Well...Almost

After finishing all of the painting, molding, etc...some 8 months ago, I'm happy to report that "Operation Oscar's Room" (which was re-badged "The Kanye Guest Room") is about 90% complete! You can revisit its historic timeline, here and here oh and here. But enough of my mumbo-jumbo; lets get on with the show! 

I'd say its darn-tootin close to our original sketch-up idea. 

While some of you may have already spotted the photos of the room over at Apartment Therapy's Room for Color 2010 contest last week, there are still a few things left to do, including: installing floating shelves, doorknobs and new lighting.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

[Photos courtesy of Chris Johnson] 

...The Lines Are Our Friends

Now that the Lego Project is officially crossed off our twenty-ten projects/goals list, we're back to focusing on (fake) Oscar's room.

You are probably wondering why we haven't posted a full room view (and if you're a LOST fan, you're also probably wondering about Richard's permanent eyeliner secret). Well that's because Chris wants to "stage" the room before the reveal... and when I say "stage" I mean moving (all) of our current master bedroom furniture into the room. I bet you dollars to donuts, he just wants another excuse for a workout.

But that doesn't mean I can't show you the vigorous process.

Remember our inspiration?

Well it involved A LOT of tedious (and steady) taping...threefold.

Magenta

Cyan

Yellow

Tomorrow, let's talk about accessories.

Oscar In Disguise

I'm stoked to announce that the paint job in Operation Oscar's Room is officially done! Done. Done. Done! Just a few paint touch ups are in order and then we're (almost) golden. 

In the coming weeks we are getting down to the nitty gritty with some DIY baseboards. Wish us luck!

Much like fake-Locke, this is now definitely fake-Oscar's room.

What's in store for us until then you ask?

The 1,060+++ Lego Project is in the works. 

For reals.

Color Me Badd

I kid you not, we have been slaving over the transit map paint drawing in Operation Oscar's Room every single night. The math is incredibly exhausting. Taping is just as bad. Why do we put ourselves through this? Oh, this is why.

We love color.

You should've seen the faces of the two jabrones working the paint center at Home Depot when I handed them our selected paint swatches. They probably thought I was color blind. I don't care; these colors are awe-some. It didn't occur to me until way later that our trio of paints are akin to the CMKY color model. Great minds think alike...anyone? **tap tap tap**

Now the universe has toyed with my daily web browsing and flooded my google reader with heaps of items of the same colors.

::Diana F+ CMYK::

::Love Birds::

::Anime Flower Ring Set::

::BB Dakota Mia Skirt::

Below is a little teaser.

I have a Joey Lawrence "whoa!" moment every time I enter the room.

Operation Oscar's Room

I feel the first order of business to Operation Oscar's Room is narrowing down some paint selections. I'm not quite sure what color hues to go with as of yet but I have a few paint pattern ideas in mind that may make my heart (and hopefully Chris') go pitter patter.

                                                     ::my first try at google sketchup::

                                   ::not to shabby ^_^::

I know, it's basically a giant paint swatch, but seeing it in a large scale kind of makes me say, "oh la la." I wasn't going for a focal point here (like we did with the family room) but rather, more of a backdrop. I think it might work nicely with all white furniture.

Another idea we have is a bit tricky...trickier than anything we've painted before. Our inspiration? A subway transit map. More specifically the NY city subway map from the 70's. 

Could it be done? Perhaps. Would it look good? Tough to say. In either case, we'll be buying enough 3M painter's tape to make a whole village of Smurf Mummies.  

What are your thoughts? Giant swatch or transit map? 

Family Room: Before and After

It has been two months since I first posted and introduced the Family Room Project and boy oh boy does it feel great to say we're (almost) done. The fact of the matter is, the foundation of the room is prepared for the furnishings. After many distractions and trips to the Home Depot, I can safely roll around in the Family Room with grace and style. 

:: Before ::

The oddly shaped room, atrocious linoleum floor, dreary off-white walls and the gold bulbous wicker/wood ceiling fan.

Entrance

 

To the left...

To the right...

And from behind

The square pattern on the wall was our toughest challenge yet. We made some poor paint choices such as Behr's "Squirrel" which looked like day-old guacamole (sorry Chris) and promptly painted over it.

Our carpet was installed over the weekend and because we chose a pattern design, the process was a lengthy one.  

Drumroll...

:: After ::

 

  

  

 

Now comes the expensive part...

Square Dance

Weekend+pandora+ruler+tape+ladder+paint = square dance

::Goal::

::Dancing::

 

::Taping::

  

::Painting::

 

::Excitement::

The tape adhesive sucked all the moisture out of my fingertips but it was worth it. Two more paint colors to go before the carpet moves in!

Frame! I Wanna Live Forever

This is the last of the Magnet Dapple paint series. I swear. One more brush stroke before its retirement.

The living room and dinning room are all rolled into one giant open layout. This set up is perfect for dinner parties and our bianual UFC fight night soirees. But we still needed to define each space in a segregated yet cohesive manner. 

At first Chris and I had decided not to add any new paint into the space; just throw up some curtains, a large bookcase, suitable sized dinning table and ding! dinner is served. 

Here is a naked snap shot of our dinning room pre-furnishings.

Doesn't it just scream newlyweds?

I Did It All For The Nookie

I'm back with a handful of eye-care medication. Sigh. I was a mad woman at Kaiser yesterday; trying to find a parking space THEN running through the new grounds trying to make it to my appointment. It felt like I was back in college, tailgating students walking to their cars then waiting a gazillion minutes for them to reverse out of their space (CSU Fullerton's parking sucks too). Although I do have to admit, I was kind of hoping I'd spot Octomom since we share the same medical facility. No luck. Come to think of it...we share the same alma mater; am I sensing a trend here? 

In other news, we finally painted a few walls in the family room over the weekend. We busted our butts on Sunday (after the Steeler game, of course) then indulged in a delicious homemade Mexican dinner. Since Sunday is our only day off together, it gets pretty difficult to get our home projects done. But as my silver fox Tim Gunn would say, "make it work."- it's my new motto for this overdue-year-long project. Before the birth of our little blog, I documented before and after pictures of any lil home improvement we completed. Let me take you back to the home archives.

Our kitchen has a super cute corner nook. The nook actually pops out and extends out of the exterior of the home; which gives us a nice wide seating area as a bonus.

Family Room Part III: Behr Necessities

Last week, Chris and I perused the Behr paint swatches at the good ole' Home Depot. We've been pretty lucky with our paint choices in the past; we're not afraid to go bold. It all started with 'Magnet Dapple' back at Lowe's, the summer of 2008 when we closed escrow.

Luckily we didn't need to repaint every room in the house when we first moved in. The walls were just like new after dousing them with TSP. We were babes in beige-land...except for the fireplace wall.  It was a loud 'fire engine' red. We could tell the previous owners were trying to go for a trendy vibe. Mission failed. (I should note that I have seen nice red accent walls...this just wasn't one of them)

When we painted the sample square of Magnet Dapple on the wall, we could tell people were dumbfounded with the color; given they often gave a long pause before commenting on the it. We brushed off the raised eyebrow reaction and went all in. 

Wall of Sound

As I had previously mentioned, in another post, pattern-paint seems to have become a reoccurring and inexpensive design element of our home. Our first foray into the field was a smaller wall at the end of our hallway. We choose this wall for three reasons; time, space…and exit strategy…in the likely case that we had failed miserably, the white-out process would have been a snap!  Another reason why paint is your friend. ^_^

Now I must admit, the initial idea to paint a pattern on our wall did not come to me in some stroke of genius at 2am, or anything of that nature. The idea, or inspiration I guess, actually came from the "House Challenge" episode on season two of Top Design, in which Preston Lee used a gorgeous diamond patterned, textured wallpaper. (Speaking of Top Design, how awesome was Wisit?!)

As soon as we saw the wallpaper, Chris declared, "I can paint that behind the guitars!" Flash forward a couple weeks, the guinea pig wall was chosen, paint colors were selected…and all that was left to do was figure out where the hell to start.