purple wall – gracefullhome

Hello there! In case you forgot about me in my absence, my name is Elizabeth and I used to blog here ;). Just kidding, I still blog here but it’s been a little bit. We’ve had a lot going on in my gracefull little home and family. I’ll try to catch you up little by little, but today I want to share with you some before and after pictures of the dining room and kitchen in the house we recently moved into. These rooms {at least the dining room/living area} are far from finished, but there have been some drastic changes recently and I’m not good at waiting so you get a min-reveal today! In addition, I just participated in my first mug swap, which incidentally gave me some inspiration for the rooms I am finishing. So I’ll be sharing a little about that as well.

Let’s just jump right in with a couple pictures.

As you can see, this room was pretty dated and undefined. Here is what we did:

– define a dining space

-replace floors in this room and the kitchen to make it feel like one space

-paint wood paneling

-paint fireplace surround

-paint accent wall in the kitchen

-add comfy and functional seating by the fireplace, along with a rug and coffee table or ottoman

The biggest challenge for me was choosing a color for the accent wall in the kitchen. I have been known to paint every wall in my house some shade of beige, but I wanted a bold color here. Enter Mug Swap 2014. The mug swap is something that I came across on Instagram. A gal named Kim organizes a swap for people who enjoy mugs and enjoy giving. You submit your name and address and a little about yourself and then in a few days Kim will send you the name and info of someone else who signed up. You go find a mug and perhaps some other goodies that you think will bless this person along with a card introducing yourself and ship it to them. All the while, someone somewhere else is doing this for you :). The focus in on giving, not receiving, and blessing, not waiting to see how blessed you are. I got a cute girl in Texas who said she likes vintage and color. This is what I sent her

And a few days later I received my mug swap gift! The mug is so cool and unique!

Okay, now that you know what mug swap is…. back to the wall dilemma. So I was shopping around for a mug for my girl when I came across these in Starbucks.

I’m still kicking myself for not buying them because they were only $4 each…. but I wanted something a little less available than a Starbucks mug. Meaning I didn’t want my partner to just be able to go out and buy the mug I sent her. I wanted it to be hard to find and unique :). Even though I shot down the mugs, I fell in love with the color combo. I have a few sage green accessories in my kitchen, some from IKEA, some homemade, and when I saw the purple and green in the mugs, I knew I had found the color for my wall. So I went to Sherwin Williams and bought a gallon of really dark purple paint. This was such a stretch for me. Not only do I normally gravitate toward neutrals, if I pick a color it is almost always warm.

But I really love the way it turned out. Oh, and I forgot to mention to the Dude that his kitchen wall would be purple when he got home that day. He knew I was going to paint it, but wasn’t clued in on the color until the deed was done. Thankfully he came home, said “What the?!?!” and told me he really liked it! Phew!

Now I have plans to paint the dining room table. I have some antique white milk paint that I’m going to try my hand at. Fingers crossed!

Okay, now that you’ve seen the changes, what do you think? Do you like the purple? Can you help me pick a rug? Here are my top three choices. Leave a comment with yours!