Hey y'all. Sorry for the no show yesterday. Turns out this half marathon won't train for itself. Bret's been in China for a bit, and I had to go out yesterday; the race is in three weeks. So Wes and I took a turn around Prospect Park. We ran four miles, and it was every bit as hard and painful as the ten I ran a week ago without Wes. Those jogging strollers are a blessing and a curse, I'm telling you. But anyway. Let's turn to another project that fills me with anxiety and seems like it will never be over: our entryway. I've shared our hall closet with you, and once upon a time we had a little pegboard system in here, but we moved that to Wes' room. The closet is actually functioning really well. The problem is still that we need places to easily dump things when we walk in, or grab them when we're walking out. Allow me to illustrate the problem for you.

First of all, it's high, high time for Lou to be able to hang up her own backpack and jacket. I've got enough crap to dump on the floor without adding hers to the mix. Re that: I'd like a couple hooks for myself, as well. I don't want all of our earthly belongings out here all the time; we do have the luxury of a coat closet, and that's where I wand those things to live. But I really want a spot for quick, but neat, depositing, and a place to put things I don't want to forget as we're leaving. For a long time, there was nothing in the hall at all. (You might remember this bench I made out of a kitchen cabinet, but it was the wrong size so I put it inside the closet to hold shoes). I mentioned last week that we got an Ikea Lack TV console, which is just nailing it in the bench department. But I still need to get some function into this space. And before I do that, I wanted, nay, needed to have an accent wall.

I know. What is it with me and accent walls in this place? No idea. But I lurve them. You guys. I agonized over this stupid thing. I mean tore my hair out about it. As an indication of how long I've been thinking about it, remember this post when I solicited advice on wall treatments? That was almost 11 months ago! And now I was feeling a time crunch because I didn't want to hang up hooks and whatnot until the walls had been dealt with.

I had a bunch of paint on hand, and figured black was the color du jour. I have a plan for the little wall you see when you first walk in - it'll be black chalkboard - so I wanted to have a little black graphic pattern to delineate this space and make it feel more like an area of our home, rather than just an apartment. I looked at complicated patterns and simple patterns and tried some out on a piece of cardboard. Finally, I decided to do a half circle treatment, using a trivet that I cut in half as my guide.

I taped out a series of lines, into which I traced two facing rows of semicircles. Then, using a fairly dry brush, I painted the semicircles black.

From cutting the "stencil" in half to ripping the tape off the wall, it took three and a half hours to bang this out. (That's my glass of whiskey on the toaster. It, and This American Life, made the time fly by). When I finished, I was deeply ambivalent. So I went to bed, and the next morning, I styled the area, using the hooks and mirror and letter holder I plan to use, just tacking them up so I could get a feel for how this wall treatment might marry with those pieces. Here are a couple of mock-ups.

Let's just go ahead and address the elephant in the room. It's ugly. I know it's ugly. But I'm the mother who loves this little face. Every time I catch a glimpse of it from other areas of the house, it affirms that this area really did need something to set it off and make it feel like a real room. I love the black and white, too, and like how the whimsy goes with my preppy (and stained but hard-wearing) plaid rug. In other notes about ugliness, let's discuss the color scheme happening here. It's happy, but too much for me. The mirror and letter organizer are on the to-be-painted pile. Probably gold, because I'm predictable.

So. Let's just consider this a prototype. A beta, if you will. For sure, I'm going to paint these walls something less hideous, but also for sure, I'm going to do some sort of pattern. This pattern has assured me that something a bit more sophisticated - a smidge better executed - would be slamming. For sure I will hang hooks, a mirror and probably a place to stash incoming and outgoing mail. The bench will stay, and I've already added small baskets that I'm treating as cubbies for W and L, and which are working pretty well. More on that when it's all done. There's still a time pressure, of sorts, because I still want to get these walls painted before I start drilling into them. I won't spend any money this month - on paint or stencil supplies or anything - so I'm constrained to what we have on hand and what I can create. With those parameters in mind, any fave patterns you want to see on my walls? I'm game. I've got a bottle of Jack and a nice long post-bedtime period.

Of course, feel free to cast a vote for this treatment, too. It really has grown on me like a fungus. Thanks for reading and talk soon!