Home Decor Horror

When we moved into our current apartment the uh, "decor", was "OMG! I want to vomit!" BAD. It may have been the work of one previous tenant with extremely poor taste. Or it could have been the result of many tenants over many years adding their own little touches here and there to the existing mess, resulting in the overall "done by color blind monkeys on acid" effect. I don't know, but it was BAD.

The bedroom and main hall was gray-green. I've encountered this color in several of the places we've rented over the years and my upstairs neighbor reports the same gray-green in her unit, too. I think all landlords must buy this color in bulk at a Cheap Stuff For Rental Properties supply shop. Trim in both butter-yellow and white complimented the gray-green walls.

The kitchen and end hall was peach color paint on the upper walls with a green & white checkered wallpaper on the lower walls. The tiny checks had the unsettling effect of making the walls seem to move in and out if you looked to long. Topping this off was a birdhouse patterned wall paper border. As if the checks weren't busy enough.

The bathroom with standard tan fixtures (bought I'm sure at same Landlord Supply Store as the green-gray paint) had two types of pinkish-white wall paper, one patterned and one textured, and pink-mauve trim.

The living room. Oh my. Pepto-bismal pink walls with splatter paint and sponging in white, yellow, and two shades of blue. Topped of with a busy teacups & flowers wall paper border and the same awful butter-yellow trim found in the bedroom and hall. Did I mention color-blind monkeys on acid?


Not too long after we moved in, I painted the bathroom. Being the smallest room in the apartment and there being nothing in it to move, it was the logical and easiest place to start. Unfortunately, that was as far as I got. The rest of the place remained un-made-over for, well, too long. I think the "decor" just sucked the life out of me

But this Spring I decided that to save my own sanity I would have to take action and decided to start with the kitchen as it has the least amount of stuff that needs to be moved to paint. The kitchen is now near-complete and I have finished painting over the splatter painted mess in the living room. The LR is now all white. Boring and sterile, but the paint was cheap (and it took LOTS of it) and I see it now as a blank canvas as I wait for inspiration to strike.

So, as I make progress, I'll be posting before & after pictures. (Well, maybe just "afters" as the befores are just too awful to show in any more detail than seen in this post. ;) )