In the age of pinterest, you don’t have an excuse to not try to decorate every nick and cranny with Christmas decor. And with having a chalkboard wall, I figured I’d at least try to do something festive related – especially since we are having people over at our home this Christmas.

I borrowed the idea of this chalkboard tree, but then the chalkboard lights were my own idea. I had been waiting for the perfect thing to add up to the top part of the wall and the post and totally joked to Drew that look at the lights I just hung in our kitchen.

Yay! One project that is done in it’s entirety. It feels like so many projects in our house are unfinished, so it feels really good to check one off the list for good! And it looks way better than what white blinds looked like.

This project spanned over the entire week, but put the finishing touches on this past weekend. On Tuesday, I began cutting out the million little shapes. Somehow when I was first calculating how many I’d need I got 43 – yea way off, there are actually XX on the door now. Each night I would cut more and more out until Saturday when I started applying them to the door.

I then kept cutting more and more until I had just enough, I even got Drew to cut out eight of them, go teamwork! The project overall was pretty easy, my hands just got tired from the scissors and lining them up on the door is a bit tricky, but I eventually realized this is a hand-made project and it’s not going to be perfect and it adds some character not being perfect. Though from a-ways back you can’t even tell, then it looks perfect! Only when you are up close examining it do you see some spaces a bit wider than others.

The best part of this project, it only cost me the amount of a roll or contact paper ($3 ish) – and I have over half a roll left for some other project down the line! The project was inspired from this blog – and she’s got lots of tips and even a template to use (which I did).

Love how this adds a subtle pattern to the space (inside and out) plus its way more attractive than blinds and adds privacy, which is needed for that door! Yay contact paper!

A few weeks ago I came across this article on Apartment Therapy titled, 10 simple things that will make you happier at home. Not that I’m unhappy at our new home – but at that point in time when I read it, our home was a disaster just after moving – and some parts still are. So if I could do a few things to make myself less crazy, I figured it’s worth trying. Some of the ten things on this list are… make your bed everyday, as you leave a room make sure it’s left picked-up, embrace the daily chores such as doing the dishes and laundry, and doing small favors for your spouse and family daily.

So I created a challenge for myself to follow those rules daily….

1. Make your bed daily – I have got in a habit of doing this and it is amazing how great it feels to come home to a clean room and it literally only takes 2 minutes in the morning. However, I do skip weekends (unless we are having company) or days like today where Drew had off and was still sleeping when I left for work.

2. Picking up each room as you leave it – I’m trying hard on this one, but it doesn’t work if the other people you live with don’t follow the rule as well – so this is a work in progress. Doing this daily helps for when you have to clean the entire house, you don’t spend the first part of it putting away clutter.

3. Embrace Daily Chores – Dishes and Laundry. I have got the dishes part down. I usually load it up before bed, hit run and then empty it before I leave in the morning – unless days like today where I completely ran out of time. I also have discovered that if your dishwasher isn’t cleaning well, the to 1. Clean it (look it up on pinterest) and 2. Switch detergent. I recently tried the Mrs. Meyers stuff and it works miracles – my glasses that were so cloudy and gross are now crystal clear everytime – try it! The laundry part I have yet to get down… my goal would be to, put a load in the washer as soon as I get up and then go-thru a full cycle. Then I’d quickly load it into the dryer right before I leave. Then upon getting home at night, quickly fold AND put away the load. Sounds soo easy, huh?

4. Do small favors/acts of kindness for your spouse – I think this one is the most important – not only will you feel better about yourself, you’ll make someone else happy. If I ask Drew if I’m doing this, I’m sure he’ll say no, and that probably is correct. I’m sure there are small things I do that I do out of habit and doesn’t even notice because they are my normal things like…. make coffee for both of us in the morning, make dinner, and go grocery shopping. I’d like to go above and beyond those things I already do though – like I did on Saturday, got him a drink from Starbucks on my way home.

So you could say these are my new years goals… but I’m just starting them early this year!

Unfortunately, the perfect gray paint does not exist…however the right gray does – but it will take you about 10 paint samples in order to find it though, unless you are lucky. Sorry to burst your bubble.

So my search for the right gray for our living room is hopefully over (I just have to compare it to our curtain sample before purchasing). We moved in a little over a month ago, and at the time I slapped a sample on the wall that I thought would be perfect. However as time went on I kept seeing purple (and I am not a purple fan). So that gray (SW Pewter Cast) was out.

Next, I searched on pinterest for grey rooms I liked that provided their paint choice, so I tried Martha Stewarts Flagstone Grey. It was similar in color, however had more browns in it versus a purple undertone. I also tried Benjamin Moore Rockport Gray after I had seen it in Young House Love’s room. Also, once we got the massive Ikea Karlstad sectional in the Sivik dark grey in there we realized we should go lighter on the walls to provide contrast.

Then I pinterest searched some more, got some sample and kept getting them all wrong… too brown or too purple. I honestly thought it would just be swatches of gray on my wall forever. I finally took a look at all my swatches again and came back to one I had picked up a long time ago. Its a lighter gray with a bit of brown too it, but a blue/green undertone as well – it also worked well with the color of the couch and the mustard yellow in our throw pillows.

I got a sample and was so excited to finally find the right grey. I painted it on the walls and it was soo blue and I was sad. Then the lightbulb came on…I realized it was most likely the yellow walls surrounding the swatch and peeking out behind it that was causing this illusion. There is a color theory I learned back in my graphics color class, that colors look different when they are next to other colors. So then, I tried painting in on the white stairway wall that the sellers never painted. It was then perfect…. If only I had realized that before.

So here is the gray we are going with. Sherwin Williams Mindful Gray – however we’ll get it in Behrs Paint + Primer because we’ve had so much success so far with that stuff. Covers in one coat no joke and I know I don’t want to be painting this room’s massive walls more than once!

Also, part of the process included taking a photo of the swatches and painting the wall in photoshop. Here was my quick attempt to visualize it. Though…. I still think it’s not quite right in the photo – it’s much brighter and lighter.

Here is our process of slapping samples on the walls… can’t wait to get rid of all the patchwork!

Update: I just had a genius thought. So on the Sherwin Williams screenshot above of the paint color I picked out, there lists a hexadecimal color value – something you can input into Photoshop. When I inserted the Mindful Gray value number, it gave me this lovely color:

Can you see that yellow undertone?! LOVE – because that is the other main color I’m looking to use. Soo my advice to you… When you find a grey you like, plug the hexadecimal value into photoshop and you’ll see the underlying color that will most likely show up on your wall depending on lights. If its a purple… run for the hills, unless that is your thing.