Why have I not tried painting a floor before now? Have any of you lovelies done it? How did it work out? Because we have, in our house, what is essentially an unfinished room. No walls, just beams. Sub-floor. Bare insulation. Windows that are older than my mom. And as much as it pains me to admit, we don’t have the means to finish it any time soon. Currently, it’s storage space, which is nothing to complain about. Unless, that is, your husband wants an office and you want a craft room and a little more family-oriented space. Point being, I can’t do anything about the room structurally, but I’ve been toying with the idea of sanding and painting the sub-floor and when I see these things… well, how could I not want to do it?

No trick, just stencils - heavy duty ones.

Think they did it freehand?

Yellow! *dies*

Am I totally crazy? Or could painting the sub-floor actually work? Why can’t I go out and buy a copy of this book and go to town?

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Today I’m loving the idea of painted silverware as easy DIY decor in the kitchen or dining room or wherever. Because sure, it’s a little hokey, but it certainly fits in with the themes of cooking, eating, and drinking. If you have blank walls in the food prep or food consumption zones of your home, you could do worse. Or not – what do you think of these?

Pretty pastels spoonage via suburban bohemia

Adore the color combo chosen by Crap I've Made

No time to DIY; find these at Ladies and Gentleman Studio

A fun flatware display from The Starter Home (with step-by-step instructions)

I should say first of all that this particular sunburst mirror was a cheap and relatively easy DIY project undertaken by Monica Ewing, Sunset Home senior designer. Okay, okay, so she’s got some home decorating cred that most of us don’t have, but the posted instructions seem pretty simple. And it obviously came out gorgeous, so there’s no reason we can’t try it.

Amazing what a little paint can do, no?

But this totally fun play on the traditional starburst mirror started out its life in plain white, and that wasn’t thrilling Ms. Ewing. A few coats of a trip of blues by Benjamin Moore, and this was the end result. Love it! Isn’t it cool what just a little paint (and a steady hand) can do?

When it’s time to paint and choose colors, who thinks of interior doors? Not many people, that’s who. Up until my new bedroom project, the last time I even considered painting a door was when I painted my bedroom door black in high school to make a point about how deep and complex I was. I’m not saying you should run out and paint all your interior doors black – unless you really want to – but rather that your interior doors (and the insides of your exterior doors) don’t have to be whiiiiiite or creeeeaaaam or some color that falls in between white and cream and does not have any personality at all.

Painted interior doors aren’t for everyone, of course – it’s just something to think about. If you’ve considered it and it isn’t for you, okay. But if you’ve never even imagined what your home might look like with more colorful doors, it’s time to start dreaming! Here are some visuals to get you started:

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Once upon a time, I helped a pair of friends paint an apartment in a cool industrial part of Brooklyn. This particular apartment had charming exposed brick in both bedrooms (along with less charming exposed pipes everywhere else) and I was absolutely stunned when said friends informed me that painting the walls white also meant painting the brick white. Quelle horreur! But looking back now, I think maybe I was in the wrong and they were in the right, because a painted brick wall in an interior space looks a lot fresher and more inviting than brick that looks like it belongs on the outside of a building. Don’t you think?

via UXUS Design

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Ceilings can be pretty boring. More often than not, they are your basic white, regardless of how colorful the rest of the space may be, and even bold decorators who have no qualms about painting with super bright or extra dark colors fear doing anything to the ceiling outside of putting a funky light fixture thereon. Painted ceilings are, in my experience, something one encounters only now and then, and usually only in pictures. As for decorated ceilings, those are even rarer outside of certain old churches and palaces. And it really is a shame.

Think you can’t rock a patterned ceiling because your house doesn’t feature large soaring ceilings plus lots and lots of space? Think again! Standard height ceilings in smaller rooms actually look better with a pattern than standard height ceilings in very large rooms. For example, how lovely is the room above, designed by David Cafiero and seen in Lonny? And while one’s first instinct – that patterned ceilings look best on high ceilings – a basic pattern like stripes or a dark border can look totally sweet on just about any ceiling when you use the right colors and coordinate with the right decor.

Not that there’s anything wrong with your basic white ceiling. In fact, if you’re planning on moving soon, I’d recommend waiting to experiment with patterned ceilings simply because renters or buyers may not want to tackle the job of painting over your experiment. While is still the most popular ceiling option, and doing the ceiling is the biggest pain in the butt when it comes to painting.

When I was searching for pictures of rooms painted with a single horizontal stripe for yesterday’s post, I came across this picture of a really standout staircase. Most of the time, when I think of standout staircases, my mind imagines strange staircases or staircases with storage built in. What I usually don’t think of is decorated staircases.

I love how the orange stripe really emphasizes the beautiful curve in the staircase and draws your eyes up and around, making you wonder just what’s going on upstairs. You’ll notice that the wall itself still has a standard angle in it – the stairs are curved, not the wall around it – but the stripe hides the discrepancy between the stairs and the wall. The stripe makes it look like one beautiful curve and I love how that works.

There are lots of things a person can do with paint. There are so many illusions, for example, that can be created on walls and floors and ceilings with a few coats of paint. Paint can give the appearance of depth and texture where there is none. Paint can make a wall feel more complex than it is. And paint can hide features you don’t like, from wood paneling to old floors to ugly brick.

I love paint! Almost all of my room designs have started with an inspirational paint chip because I love to play around with colors. And play around I do! The best part about using paint (as opposed to wallpaper or wainscoting) is that it’s easy to slap on a few coats of paint when you need a change. There are so many different colors and ways to use it. Spray it on, stencil it on, sponge it on… stripe it on? One thing I am not sold on is the whole one horizontal stripe of color in the middle of a wall.

To me, it feels artificial and heavy, like it’s in danger of sliding off the wall. Or I expect there to be an arrow on the end of the stripe if I follow it long enough. I like a lot of things, but I don’ think I’m a fan of the thick single wall stripe. How about you? Love it or hate it?

First came chalkboard paint, then came whiteboard (dry erase) paint. And I think both are super cool! We already put up an amazing magnetic chalkboard in my daughter’s room – and I’m almost all set to do the surface of our kitchen table in chalkboard. Next stop, whiteboard in the office!

But it never even occurred to me to use dry erase paint on surfaces! You can get a whiteboard table from Powells, for example. Or you do what someone did in the space pictured above and cover your boring kitchen counter tops with whiteboard paint. While I don’t know how the finish would, ahem, stick around, I can say for sure that it would be fun while it lasted!

The short answer: Just do it.

The Beard was initially skeptical when I suggested that we paint our kitchen purple, and a fairly intense purple, at that. But he’s gotten used to it, and when he happened to see some photos of how our kitchen used to look, he couldn’t believe how much the purple improved the space. Literally, I get nothing but compliments – though sometimes these are paired with comments like “I really didn’t think it would be as great as it is.” Uh, thanks?

And hey, if you told me you were thinking of painting your kitchen cabinets a pretty wild shade of pink, I might balk just a little bit. But if this kitchen from Sweden.se is any indication, painting a kitchen pink can be totally delicious. While there are some projects that don’t lend themselves to a quick do-over, why not go bright and bold when it comes to paint? You can always repaint the following weekend!