Paint in drywall mud

A lot has happened in the nine months since we moved to the new place. For three months I based my office in the trailer I wrote about a while back until my home office could be completed. Pale yellow walls with a burnt umber glaze. Idea desk and cabinetry. The all-important white boards. This section of the house has a very cold cement slab foundation. So we put 1" thick styrofoam sheets down on top of the cement. Rather than installing flooring (at the time we had very little money) we put thin boards of cedar down, adhered at each end by baseboard nailed to the wall. It's all totally removable and extremely cozy. We purchase the cedar as scraps from a mill for $100 for a trailerload.


We had Christmas in the unfinished space. Without a good place for a tree we painted on on the wall. We like it so much we think we may do it again next year. It's craft paint ($1/oz) from Walmart applied directly to the sheetrock. We glittered paper and glued the shapes to the wall. I got the cool multi-dimensional color by doing a base coat of brown for a trunk and branches, with neon green applied as needles while the brown was still wet, so it had some streaks. I then applied two different, darker colors of green as needles going out from the branches and trunk, again using the wet 1" flat brush and on top of the wet paint. It made the streaks resembling needles again.




Greta's room was next. We tried something really super cool I've never seen done before...It's paint mixed directly into the drywall texture and applied to the wall. We have to texture anyway and this saves a step. By using different amounts of paint with the texture we come up with different tones of the same color. It's topped in this room with glaze to keep the texture from shedding.

The same thin cedar planks are used as baseboard and trim here.




Aaand...Elia's room was finished yesterday. The same thin cedar is used as trim. She wanted pink and turquoise on her walls. We used plain red tempera paint and some "oops" turquoise wall paint from the store. It's topped with a clear coat into which I mixed three tubes of pink, turquoise and white glitter. Instead of putting clothes in the closet we put her bed! So she has a secret, curtained hideaway. If you look in the last picture you see a hole in the wall...it's a piece of 8" pvc pipe stuck in the drywall and insulation as a porthole between Greta and Elia's room so they have a secret passage. John made Elia's bed (we only had a mattress) out of those same cedar thins, laid on edge about 2" apart to be a breathable box on stilts. It's comfy and sturdy. I'll take pics of it someday...