Given my love of thrifting and crafty endeavors (as long as they’re easy), I am quite late to the upcycled-thrift-store-art-project party. Thanks to a fellow thrifter on Instagram, I have now arrived at said party and I am HERE FOR IT. This is the inspo photo that got me hooked:

I love the whimsy and it’s no secret that I am obsessed with colour; the more sedate my wardrobe becomes (which feels right), the more I want to surround myself with colour in every other area of my life (which also feels right). This sort of “art project” is right up my alley; naturally, I decided to tackle one myself.

The first step was finding the right art piece at the thrift store. It’s a sign of how thrift-spoiled I have become that I actually experienced some impatience with this part of the process; it seemed like it was taking a really long time, but in reality, we are talking about 3 weeks, tops. And I found the perfect piece:

You can kinda gauge the proportions of it from the surrounding bookshelves – this thing is huge. It’s a repro of a painting by (as best as I can tell) Arno Lemke, probably from the 70s or 80s. It’s totally kitschy, but at the same time, not displeasing to the eye. And it cost a whopping $7.50 at Goodwill. The best part, though? My husband didn’t immediately nix it. In fact, he was surprisingly receptive to my idea for upcycling it:

We had a good talk about the various other things we could do with it – decoupage a Godzilla or Super Mario in the middle of the lake, add a rainbow effect like the top inspo photo, transpose a sticker drawing from my “paint by sticker” book, graffiti it up, etc. – but ultimately came back to the colour block idea. My husband like the “mystery” of the solid block of paint and I liked … well, the simplicity of it all.

The next step was picking a paint colour. I toyed with several options (pink lilac, dark teal, eggplant), but ended up selecting the first choice: a muted, green-tinged blue. The specific paint we got was Sherwin Williams Blue Tourmaline; a sample sized pot set us back about $7 (including tax). The quantity was more than ample; after 3 coats, I have enough left over for another 3-4 similar projects. The other supplies (masking tape and paint brushes) we had around the house, so they didn’t cost anything extra.

Here’s a peek at the process:

As I mentioned above, I did 3 coats of paint in total, over the course of about 6 hours, which was sufficient to achieve perfect opacity. [Lesson learned from subsequent project: the wood frame here was untreated so it took the paint well with no sanding, primer, etc. A treated frame would probably need some extra prep work or more coats of paint.] The paint dried very fast, and had no discernible smell; I worked inside the house the whole time. Because the original piece was a repro (on a flat surface), I did zero prep work on the surface and frame before I started painting. The trickiest bit was applying the masking tape in a straight line, and peeling it off without taking the paint with it. I did have my husband project managing the whole way (he can’t help it), but it was pretty easy from beginning to end.

Here’s the finished product:

We have found it a great home, but the wall will need a bit of extra prep, so we haven’t hung it yet. In the meantime, I also tried another version of the same project:

I loved this repro too much to cover any of it (plus, this frame came with a glass cover) but I wasn’t thrilled with the blah frame so decided to jazz it up. Like so:

This took a bit of extra work – 6 coats of paint instead of 3 (and still plenty of leofover paint in the sample pot, FYI) – but I love it.

Counting these as a success, I have been emboldened to try something different:

Too ambitious? It remains to be seen …

Like everyone and their sister, I binge-watched Netflix’ The Haunting of Hill House this past week. I hate scary movies, so this would not normally be something I’d line up to watch, but I was told that it was not super frightening/gory and I was intrigued by the reviews. I would say that it’s more emotionally devastating than psychologically scary. Some of the jump scares were easy to anticipate – and the ability to quickly fast forward came in handy for those – and those that were not, weren’t too terrible. I thought the execution of the show was excellent, and I definitely got sucked into the story big time. However, my overall reaction is somewhat ambivalent.

The storyline that resonated the most with me was Olivia Crain’s. I think it has to do with the fact that my kids are roughly the same age as Luke and Nell in the flashback scenes. [Also, their names are Luka and Teodora, which is an even bigger coincidence when you think about it.] When, at one point, Olivia says that she wishes she could keep the kids small forever … daaamn, that pulled at my heartstrings because, yeah, SAME. But by the end of the show, I didn’t know how to feel about Olivia’s storyline. What was its ultimate moral or message? Was there supposed to be one? Unlike the other characters, Olivia never got a true resolution as far as I’m concerned, and that really bugged me.

SPOILER WARNING

So, the house preyed on Olivia’s love for her kids and her possible (never quite clarified) preexisting mental illness and drove her to do something terrible. She was clearly horrified by the sight of Abigail’s dead body, and killed herself shortly thereafter. But unlike Nell years later, she remained under the “evil influence” of the house afterwards. Why? Later, Hugh volunteers to be the sacrificial victim to appease the “mad woman” to whom he used to be married, and with whom he will now (presumably) spend eternity, all the while apologizing for, you know, not letting her kill their kids. Again, why? The rest of the show’s ending was positively upbeat – the bit with the Dudleys was over the top, IMO – so it would not have been tonally dissonant for Olivia and Hugh to reunite on a different footing; Olivia could have acknowledged that Hugh had done the right thing in taking the kids away all those years ago (while Olivia posed an immediate danger to them), and Hugh could have decided to remain with Olivia at Hill House not as part of some devil’s bargain but as a matter of choice – true lovers reunited, blah, blah, blah.

And let’s not even get started on the notion that Olivia’s “possession” is a metaphor for mental illness, because her storyline is even more problematic under that lens.

I have, umm, clearly spent way too much time thinking about this. And I still don’t really know if I loved the show or merely enjoyed watching (most of) it.

If you’ve seen The Haunting of Hill House, what did you think? Who was your favourite character and what did you like and/or dislike about their storyline? And what do you think about the theory that each of the Crain kids represents one of the stages of grief?

Sleeve Drama

I had a whole post prepared for this week’s outfits, but it sadly disappeared into the ether. That’s the kind of week I’m having, you guys. In lieu of anything substantive, here’s a simple rundown of what I’m wearing. Blazer is YSL and was a hit at the office, with some people anyway. I don’t expect it to be a piece that everyone loves, which is in line with my aesthetic as a whole. Light grey can be hit and miss for me, but the fabric here has a heathered finish, so it works. I like pairing grey with black and white – it’s instant chic, as far as I’m concerned. Or, put differently, hard to mess up. The blouse and pants are old standbys, both thrifted naturally. I still love these crepe pants from Aritzia; they sit/drape so nicely. The shoes are Hispanitas, which my boss gave to me because they didn’t work for her. Boss of the year? Quite possibly.

Comfort Zone

Drapey sack dresses are it: comfortable and right in my sartorial comfort zone. Add leather, and you’ve got a bit of edge. Leather is always a little bit edgy, okay? Dress is Ayrtight and I’m still madly in love with it. I would happily wear it every day. Because of the deep neckline, it requires an extra layer which is no problem because my Club Monaco thin wool turtleneck is perfect for that. (Sadly, it needs to be retired soon. I’ve been wearing it for coming up on 3 winters, and it’s starting to show its age.) The leather vest is Sarah Pacini and it’s truly incredible. A one-of-a-kind piece I am so grateful to have found at a local consignment store. I don’t want to think about what it would have cost me otherwise. I can throw this over any outfit and feel instantly cooler by at least 25%. The shoes are Jeffrey Campbell and they’re definitely a lewk. I kinda dig the squared toe, which I haven’t worn in years.

Comfort Zone, part 2

A comfort zone of a whole other kind: this is my typical weekend outfit. I’ve worn a hundred iterations of this, but it’s easy and fun to update with new pieces. In this case, the new piece is this scarf I recently thrifted. I love the blue and brown colour palette, and used it to put together the rest of the outfit. The sweater is Oak & Fort (old and thrifted) and the jeans are AG (new-ish and swapped). My other favourite piece are the SoftMoc boots; I’m loving cognac accessories at the moment, and these are comfortable and stylish to boot. Zing! Did I just make a bad shoe pun? Yes, yes, I did.