a surprise

It was a very creative idea. I'm afraid I had the original idea, but the finished product was a collaboration between Annetta, Rachel, and me. And the idea was: paint polka dots in the upstairs bathroom. The surprise part was the not-telling-Jessica about it. (Which means this post is like over a month late...but you know you don't care, right? You're just excited to see a new post and you know it :) )

We decided to have pink, purple, and dark blue polka dots. Once we had decided to go through with this Plan, there were several steps to be taken. First, the bathroom had to be cleaned well. Then, we had to get the paint. Annetta and I braved Walmart to acquire said paint. Jonathon-at-the-paint-counter took our little paper pain strips that we had picked out. He apologetically told us that we'd need to select a different brand of paint, so we located a near match of our first choice. Then we gave the three selections to Jonathon, and stood and talked while he mixed paint and no doubt listened with great amusement. As we stood at the counter, of course we saw someone we knew. She came over, and shortly thereafter, I found myself explaining that we weer buying paint for polka dotting our bathroom. I told her just to smile, as she seemed rather unsure of an appropriate reaction to that tidbit. She is a conservative, school teacher type...not exactly a pink-and-purple-polka-dots type. And Annetta said that subtle glances at Jonathon-the-paint-mixer indicated that he was entertained. I would venture to guess that Jonathon is not the type to put pink polka dots in his bathroom either.

Anyhow, once the paint had been gotten, it was time to do the actual painting. At first, I thought that we could try to do a paper cut-out stencil idea. I also thought we could use toilet paper rolls as a stencil. For future reference, to the budding polka dot artists out there, neither of those ideas work. You need something like a plastic cup with the bottom cut out.

Rachel came up for an afternoon of painting. Naturally, Jessica *had* to skype call us, but I think we were able deflect any suspicions. All in all, we painted hundreds of adorable polka dots all over the walls. Then, as a finishing touch, we decorated the door.

K, here are pictures. They're essentially self-explanatory. First, a "before" shot.











Above: after doing the painting, but before doing the handprints on the door. Below is after doing the door.


I tried to take an "after' shot, but my camera's batteries are having issues. Hence no after picture. But I think you can get a pretty good idea what it looks like. So who wants to hire us as interior decorators?! :)