Media Makeover

This title makes me giggle. I'm an elementary school Media Specialist. My school Media Center is currently undergoing an exciting makeover and on Tuesday of this past week, I jumped in to help our muralist paint a large section of the project... in my unicorn Carly dress (if you're like "huh? What's that?" Just know that I shouldn't have been painting in that dress). I was being extra careful for multiple reasons, but mainly because I didn't want to get paint on my dress OR ruin the mural. And I did great! The dress came out unscathed and I did a great job doing what the muralist needed! My "cleanliness" during the project inspired me. I've HATED the color of the Media Room in our home. In 2007, peanut butter tan was all the rage. In 2017, I just wasn't feeling it. See what I mean? 

It also didn't help that the black up against the tan really helped to date the space. And that the sofa (that will remain until my children aren't messy little monsters) is brown. When we moved in, this room was WAY far down my priority list. We live in this space. The carpet already has acquired multiple stains in the 7 months since we moved in. We eat here. We drop syrup here. (For real... HOW do you get syrup out of a sofa?!! Better yet, what crazy person gives their kid syrup on a sofa? Ha!) So when I said "I'm not doing anything to this room"... I meant it. Except for the color. I HAD to change the color. 

The last time we painted a room on our own, it was our previous Media Room. We loved the colors and hated seeing all the flaws in our paint job. It's hard to paint dark colors. Ivan and I are messy painters. We drip. We rush. We basically suck at painting. Therefore, we decided we wouldn't paint any room in our new home ourselves. And then I painted at school... and wasn't messy... and did a good job... and then I found out Ivan was going to be out of town the next night... and I already had the day off of work to take the Praxis which would be only 2 hours of my morning... and my nanny would be around to watch Ellington... and Ridge would be at school... and... I found myself at Sherwin Williams. 

And I bought black paint.

  

To be exact, the color is called Inkwell. It has a strong navy undertone. In fact, when Ivan first saw the finished room, he thought it was navy. But it's black. Don't pick this color if you're wanting navy. A blogger I follow (Brittany Hayes with Addison's Wonderland) used Inkwell on some of her ceilings and in her master bedroom. I knew from the moment I saw her spaces that I wanted to use this color in our Media Room. I mentioned it to Ivan when we moved in and he wasn't opposed to a black room. The rest is history... a really wonderful history. I'm obsessed with the black walls! The contrast between the black and all of the white in the room is so fresh and clean. 

See what I mean?

What makes the room perfect are these massive b&w prints of my kiddos. 

Here's Ellington crashing my photo session... but you can see that the prints are larger than life. 

Everything about this room is massive- the pictures, the sofa, the screen... but somehow it works.

Like I said earlier, I'm not re-doing this room. I just painted the walls. Everything else is something that was picked for a different space over a million years ago. (Okay, well... 9 years ago.) One day I'll have either a light grey linen sectional or some cool brown leather tufted sectional that works with black. I'm envisioning some sort of textured berber carpet for the floor that trends more grey than the creamish tan that we have now. BUT those things are in the WAAAAAAY distant future. Like kids in middle school future. Like, I'll probably want to repaint the room or sell the house before this happens future. But a girl can have a vision, right? And for now, it totally works. And it's syrup friendly.

I picked a matte/ flat finish for our paint. I didn't want any sheen in order to make the walls look as rich and deep as possible. I love the look! I also have to give a huge shout out to Ashley, Elle's amazing nanny. She helped me from start to finish with this project. I'm 100% certain I would have failed miserably at this without an awesome partner in crime. 

This by far is the side of the room that needs the most work decor-wise. I'm thinking I'll find some metal letters and a different sofa table at some point.

But no matter what we wind up doing here, it'll always be our room for watching football... which means we'll HAVE to keep our Bama flair. Roll Tide!

 And if by some chance you're wondering, "How many remotes does a Media Room require?" The answer is six. For real. But that tall remote, the one that makes me hate it daily... it's the Lord of the Remotes. One remote to rule them all... But if hobbits (or in reality, children) do something to destroy  the Lord of the Remotes, we have the backups. 

No post would be complete without some sort of disaster. Because black and white is so incredibly contrasting, I used a white paint pen to help correct some of the spots where the black paint got under my tape and onto the white trim. I obviously didn't put the white paint pen high enough on the counters.

Next project... new cabinets and appliances? One can dream... Until then, always keep a magic eraser handy! And paint a room black. I dare you! (Don't worry... you'll love it!)