Weighing in on White

In my absence from consistently blogging in my first and part of my second trimesters, I was also very sporadic in reading many of my favorite blogs.  My apologies to all of you talented ladies . . . but it is I who lost out because I missed so much of your beautiful homes.

There's something magical about reading everyone's blogs and writing my own. 

It inspires me to create -- not just in the form of writing, but also around my home.

There's nothing like a little blog deadline to get a project finished or a room painted.

But while I was absent, projects were fewer and inspiration was down.

Now that I've had a few weeks to catch up . . . I've caught the bug again.  Call it envy, call it nesting, call it whatever you will but I want to re-do so much of my house again.

To pinpoint exactly what I'm talking about, I want to go get gallons and gallons of white paint and take a paint brush to every room and every piece of furniture in my house.

I'm not talking about stock white.
 I want to scour through dozens of those paint swatches at Home Depot until my brain hurts to find the perfect, creamy, warm white that I'm seeing all over everyone's homes and on everyone's furniture.

And then I tell myself, "Stephenie . . . be happy with your home. It's lovely."

And I remember my

 New Year's Resolution.

But then, this arrived in the mail and it was like a bad dream right up in my face.

 

I flipped through the pages in envy.

Lust.

I keep playing this game in my head, trying to tell myself that all this white is
just a decorating phase and it'll pass. 

I look through Pottery Barn catalogues for validation.

But instead, I find this.

Sure, there are some brown woods and some beige textured rugs, but the walls are white, the table is white, the sofa is white.

White

White

White

Despite my denial, it's everywhere I look for inspiration.

And I recall This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff.  Have you read it?   I guess it's a movie too, but I've never seen it. I've only read the book.

The crazy step-father, Dwight,  spray paints the entire house and all of the furniture white.  He even paints the tree outside white. It's categorical OCD . . . and Tobias Wolff's description does not make it sound like what I'm seeing around blog land.

But in the end, I still love the coziness of warm white and I've decided that rather than painting everything in my house white, like Dwight from This Boy's Life, I'll start with our bedroom. 
We will be lightening things up in there first.

The wall behind our bed will likely be white.

And the dressers will either be another shade of white or a very light gray but the
dark cherry will be no more.  I hope we can do this.  This is NOT quality furniture.  This is furniture we bought cheaply when we first bought our house. 

We bought a matching bedroom set because we didn't know any better at the time.

We've since gotten rid of the king size bed (our bedroom was far too small)
and we eliminated the headboard and foot board.  I'll post pictures before we begin the re-design.

We've never tried to refinish or paint lacquered furniture so we'll see.  Got any tips?

Jason has agreed to take on the challenge so I'm off to torture myself
with paint swatch decisions at Home Depot.