the nook

After years of dreaming and searching, my parents were fortunate enough to find a steal of a deal on a beach house a couple years ago. Since then, we have been working on little projects around the house to make it feel a little more like home. One of the first things that they wanted to do was to add a personal touch with some large scale artwork. Our budget for these big projects was about $100. To save money, we went to the local hardware store and bought backer board, wood for framing, and a few nails to build our own canvases rather than buying them (which can be REALLY expensive). With a couple basic paint brushes from the paint department, some grout for texture and a few paint samples for color we were ready to work! (FYI – paint samples are only $2 – $5 per sample vs. the $5 – $8 price for acrylic paint tubes at the hobby store. Another little tip – most hardware stores have a mark-down area for wrong color or returned paints for only $1-$2 – often times there will be a shade that you need or a neutral tone for a base coat, so look there first!)

My parents wanted a beach scene for above the couch with a touch of red to tie in the pillows on the couch (thankfully, I was able to convince my mom to recover the other patterned pillows because they were, well… UGLY.) So here’s the before photo:

Just started:

Almost finished:

And Done:

New pillows will be a must a some point, but for now these will work!

The artwork above the stairs required a bit more planning. First – we drew a pattern. Then, we traced the pattern and made a stencil from a piece of discarded cardboard. Next, we measured the distance between each stencil so that they would match up once they were on the wall. The pattern itself was inspired by a pineapple, which is a symbol of welcoming people into your home, and my parents really love the color red, so they wanted that to be the primary “pop” color for the pattern. And here’s how it all worked out:

BEFORE (it was Christmas in this photo, so please ignore the stockings and tree):

Handy Men Building the frames:

Prepped and Ready:

Finished Project:

Simple. Simple. Simon. I promise you – anyone can make something like this. Repeat patterns are easy, they just take a little time and planning, but for $100 these custom pieces make a big impact, and it’s FUN!