The beige basment has been banished, ombre.

How about some alliteration and an oh-so-clever play on words for you this evening?  I don't normally post on the weekends, but I just painted the last stroke on the basement and it's not two in the morning!  That my friends, is cause for celebration.  And a blog post.

Slowly but surely, we're checking off the done boxes on the way to a finished playroom.  The first box to be marked 'completed' is my awesome awwww-ning.

Let's have another look, shall we?

However, the biggest project by far was the painting.  The entire basement was one giant beige box and I had to get rid of every single bit, naptime by naptime, late night by late night.  It was exhausting and I desperately wanted a paint fairy to just come and finish it for me.  But since there was no fairy in sight, it was all up to me.

First, I painted the main walls in Krypton by Sherwin Williams.

Then I painted the accent wall in Georgian Bay by Sherwin Williams.

Then came the trim and doors.  They're a high gloss white that matches the trim

and doors in the rest of the house to keep it cohesive.

Also Sherwin Williams.

I wasn't going to paint the fireplace because I was getting tired of painting and one of my genius readers suggested using Scrubbing Bubbles on the brick to clean it.  I told Drew what I was going to do and his response was "You're not going to paint the fireplace?  Oh.............Huh."  Then I was like "What?"  "Nothing.  I just think it should be painted."  I know that tone.  It's the same one when someone is like "You're going to wear that?  Oh...........Ok then."  And you know exactly what the hell that means, but you really don't want to have to change but yeah right, like you're going to wear that outfit now.  

That's how I felt when Drew said that the fireplace should be painted.

But I did it.  I painted the fireplace.  It was the least I could do; 

the man built me an awning.

And he's going to build me a water table.

 The door to the other side of the basement got some chalkboard paint.

I wanted to do a magnetic primer or paint of some sort, but all the reviews

said it was super fumey and with virtually no ventilation down here, I had to pass.

Sofia plays down here almost every day and I couldn't have a fume issue.

That brings us to this guy.  The bookcase.

My only rule was that it had to be fun and happy.

Initially, I was leaning towards the rainbow colors on the back.  However, I really didn't want to buy six different colors of paint, even if they were only going to be test pots.  I'm on a strict budget and every penny counts, which is why I leaned toward an ombre effect.  You know I love me a good ombre.

  One year later, and I'm still insanely proud of the cake I made for Sofia's birthday.

I bought some cool fabric from JoAnn's and found a good 

paint swatch from, you guessed it, Sherwin Williams.

I bought a test pot in the darkest color, a gorgeous cherry red called Poinsettia.

We played around with it:  Light to dark?  Dark to light?

Mix up the shades for an ombre-ish effect?

We settled on light to dark, reasoning that the lighter color on top 

would brighten the corner.

So far, so good.

Now here's where I tell you that I followed no specific plan and I had no method.  And no one is surprised by that, right?  I poured some of the red into the paint cup and then some white and I mixed it up, eyeballing the paint chip to get as close as possible.

The next shade was Coral Bells and while it wasn't an exact match,

it was good enough for me.

Although sometimes, I was pretty spot on.

One at a time, I painted each back section of the bookcase.  I had to do two coats before I could move on to the next section and doing that during evenings and naptimes took forever.  But I kept at it, eyeballing, adding more white paint and stirring until it looked about right.

Until finally, it was done!

I ran out of paint just as I was doing the final top section, which is why there isn't that much difference between it and the one just below it.  I'm going to go back to Sherwin Williams and have them make me some more white paint and I may go back and make the difference more noticeable, but I'm pretty darn pleased with how it came out.

It's such an improvement from where I started!

I am beyond thrilled that the painting is D-U-N.  From here forward, the rest of the projects I can anticipate should be able to be finished in a single naptime or just one late night.

• Make a hanging rack for her dress-up clothes.  It's already assembled; I just have to prime and paint, and add hooks.
• Hang a mirror on the door next to the bookcase so Sofia has a place to practice her princess wave.
• Drew is going to build the water table.
• Make an art display area on the doors next to the fireplace.
• Make some art to hang above the fireplace.
• Make a gallery wall to the right of the chalkboard door.
• Fill the Lack shelf and Expedit with toys and games.
• Fill the bookcase with arts and crafts supplies and other learning-type stuff.
• Dye the flowered rug in front of the sofas.
• Do something about the rust-colored trim on the other rugs.
• Sew new pillows.
• Sew a floor cushion or two.
• Finish her activity table.

With the painting done, I can feel my momentum returning.  Who knows, I may even get this done before Sofia goes to college!