Our Christmas was wonderful and simple, as threatened. We opened our home to any locals who were without concrete plans on Christmas Eve, and we had a happy, chaotic crowd who brought and then consumed lots of food. On Christmas Day we exchanged gifts, went to church, ate a big ham with my folks, opened more gifts, and had lots of relaxation and time in front of the fireplace. Everything was totally awesome.
And my husband fulfilled all of my wildest dreams and got me this book:
Things have really come full circle with this one. The Professor was a big fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation when it first ran in the 90s; I was pretty clueless about its existence at the time. When we got married in 2005 we moved to Mississippi, and I had an entire summer to myself before my teaching job started. He introduced me to TNG in syndication, and we started at the very beginning of the series. I have happy memories of setting up house, hanging things on the walls in the middle of the afternoon, while simultaneously watching the entirety of the adventures of the crew on The U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701-D). Basically a fairly big fan of TNG created a monster fan, and he may slightly regret his decision to welcome me to the fold. For our first Christmas I bought him the entire sixth season on DVD, and his reaction was basically to roll his eyes, say 'thanks,' and then hand the boxed set back to my hot little hands.
I LOVE THAT SHOW, YOU GUYS.
(Right here I should note that I get to see Patrick Stewart in person at the Lyric Opera in Chicago in just over a week. SQUEEEEEEEE.)
Just before Christmas itself, my mom and dad busted their buns to get our bedroom whipped into shape. I gave a good overview in this post, but basically they made good on their promise to finish out the walls in our bedroom. I'm not going to show you the final, final product, since I have a few small details I'd like to finish, but I'll show you the walls that my mom worked so hard on right before Christmas.
Okay, so she started out with this:
Pea-green walls with a huge white space where my dad had taken out and then filled in our creeper window. She then primed that wall and painted it a semi-gloss white, while the other three walls were painted a satin gray called Hazy Stratus by Valspar.
I can't possibly communicate this with my meager photography skills, but the Hazy Stratus is a winner, folks. It's a steely silver gray with lots of blue as its backbone, and it looks slightly different in every light. Definitely a cool gray.
We then turned our attention back to the white wall, which is the wall our bed rests against and is the focal wall of the room. I had picked out this allover stencil after deciding I liked the idea of gray walls, and when I saw the example pictures of the stencil using white trees with a gray background, I was sold. It was just the stencil we needed for a wobbly plaster wall with potential divots from drywall work: busy and organic.
I won't lie: this stencil was not nearly as easy as advertised. Because I wanted a very heavy paint look for the gray part (as opposed to light amounts of paint that is rubbed off of the walls, which is what you typically do with stencils), the latex paint had a tendency to coat the stencil, making it really heavy and hard to keep taped to the wall. Mom had to do the stenciling in stages with a few trips to wash the stencil itself off in the bathtub. Time consuming. Plus the corners were SO VERY DIFFICULT. My mom is a saint.
First stencil:
Kind of a nervy time, what with the pristine white wall and all!
First row done, minus the top:
Finally, FINALLY, after a coffee break, some scary moments, some held-in swears, and much niggly detail work (including me standing with a small paint brush and filling in spots that didn't transfer well or had bled over), the wall was done!
YOU GUYS, IT LOOKS SO GREAT. Really, even just at this stage, with the room in shambles, drawers everywhere (because, naturally, I decided to add to our troubles and paint the dresser--I kept trilling, "In for a penny, in for a pound!"), we couldn't stop wandering in and marveling at how great it made the room look. Even though the birch forest makes for an incredible amount of detail on one wall, it doesn't make the room seem claustrophobic. We picked just the right combination of colors for our small space, and the busyness actually does that wall some tremendous favors. Like I said, the plaster is wobbly, as plaster is wont to be, and though my dad did a great job with the drywall and plaster work for the window, there are a few small imperfections. Again, expected. The busy, chaotic pattern is perfect for this wall.
I can't wait to show you the rest of the room, but be patient with me! In true Christine Case style, I've committed myself to another big project next week (Christmas and summer breaks are when we get stuff done--three years ago we were living without a working shower) and so might be going missing for a little while.
But don't worry, I'll let you know about seeing Patrick Stewart. That sort of thing canNOT go undocumented over here.
You guys. I love that show so much.
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