The Story of the Orange Wall

Our living room is shaped like an awkward L. Hard to know where to place the TV...hard to know what to do with the tiny end of the L that doesn't have the couch or the TV in it. There were some bookshelves currently living on the far wall of the L that had been intended by the previous owners to flank a fireplace. If only they'd followed through on that...I'd love a fireplace. I figured out pretty soon that I wanted to take down those bookshelves and line the whole wall with new bookshelves, and figured out exactly the number and sizes I needed to fill the wall. After an emotional trip to Ikea, though, we ended up with an entirely different design than I'd originally intended...which usually creates the best designs anyway. (This I've learned after the emotional trip to Ikea. I didn't see it as clearly at the time.)

Now came the issue of color. The wall had previously been painted a deep purply color by the previous owners and my husband had left it when he bought the house. We both like accent walls, so we agreed we would paint it a different color...but we have slightly different ideas about what the word "color" means. I think in reds and greens and blues and he thinks in beiges and greys and sometimes greens. So when he said out of nowhere one night that he was thinking orange for the accent wall...I didn't argue. I was shocked, and secretly wondered if anyone had ever painted an interior wall orange, but I didn't argue.

This is the part of the post where I encourage you to prime your walls before painting them a new color. That seems pretty basic...but sometimes even the most experienced and intelligent of homeowners make mistakes. We got the primer/paint combo gallon...and the orange simply did not cover the deep purply color until coat #7. This didn't make me super happy at the time, but now that it's approximately three months later I'm laughing about it.

Here are some before, during, and after pics, in chronological order:

 

 

And there you go! The orange wall. We're pretty happy with how it turned out. I had a lot of fun styling the bookshelves and incorporating little nick-knacks from both of our single possessions as well as things I'd made for our wedding. Every little new thing makes it feel more like our home!