Boys bunk room makeover with ACE.

This is a Sponsored Post by ACE Hardware.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Every year the decorating Gods come out with a color of the year.
This year it’s Marsala…which, by the way, I thought was some sort of fancy cocktail drink…little did I know it was actually a color.
It’s lovely and all but it’s trendy. Next year Marsala is going to be “so 2015” and totally out. That’s just what trends do.
Which is why I say skip the trends and go with colors you love, not just the colors that have been deemed to be the color to use if you want to be hip.

As you may know I am a part of the Ace Hardware blogger panel. This month we get to feature the Clark+Kensington paint line, as a part of Ace’s 31 Days of Color event. Our assignment was to use a shade of their paint to give an accessory, wall or entire room a re-fresh. I decided to challenge myself to give my boy’s bunk room a little more personality and life.

(Photo by Allison Bills).

Last year, we went vertical in there in order to make more room for them and their stuff.  The room has been pretty monochromatic with its use of white, black and gray.  I love me a simple color scheme but the two men who bunk here are larger than life and needed their room to reflect that.  What better color to introduce life and energy than yellow?!  And hey, let’s just say I know my way around the yellow block.  It was pretty much the primary accent color in our Arizona home.

For this project Clark+Kensington Etruscan Gold was my chosen color. Etruscan Gold is today’s 31 Days of Color “Color of the Day.”

A little yellow goes a long way.  Fortunately, Ace sells color sample pints for only $4.99.  You’d be amazed how far you can stretch a 14.5 ounce can.  Now I have to be honest, I had actually never heard of Clark+Kensington until I familiarized myself with Ace’s paint selection. To my surprise the paint was very thick, I mean uber thick, and it applied very smoothly. All of this means good coverage and fewer coats of paint.

The first project I tackled was adding some Etruscan Gold to some baskets I found at Home Goods.  Every kids room could do with ample toy storage and these baskets fit the bill.  But, the plain-Jane baskets needed more personality than their original state.

I simply taped a line where I want to section off the color and used a paint brush to add the paint.  Because the paint is quite thick, one coat did the trick.  Here’s a tip for assuring good coverage in all the nooks and crannies of the basket weave…use a circular swirling motion when applying the paint.

Next project, adding color to some framed objects.  I spotted these wooden feather darts on Dot & Bo and knew they would look great framed.  I found the frame at Home Goods, took it apart and painted the mdf backer board with my Etruscan Gold to really make the darts pop.

As you can tell from the first picture, my paint brush left some heavy brush marks. I didn’t want to invest in a little roller just to paint a few frames but I became worried after I saw the brush marks that I may have ruined it right out of the gate. Fortunately, the paint self-leveled and I was left with a smooth surface. After the paint dried I used a hot glue gun to adhere the darts to the painted backer board.

I did a similar process with these vintage arrows I found on Etsy. I shared the tutorial in a previous post.

  I didn’t want to paint the back yellow again so instead I used some yellow Frog tape, which I picked up at Ace, to incorporate a touch of my yellow theme.

The last project I did was simply painting some old frames with my Etruscan Gold…

Voila! A gallery wall of desert themed items we’ve collected over time.  You can take us out of the desert but you can’t take the desert out of our hearts.

 Now this room is no longer mundane monochromatic…

To learn more about Clark + Kensington’s paint line at ACE click here. You can also learn more about Ace’s 31 Days of Color – running throughout the entire month of March – by clicking here. Ace will reveal a new Color of the Day there every day (you can even enter for a free sample of that day’s color!), and if you visit you can enter for a chance to win a $10,000 paint makeover or daily $50 gift cards.

 To see more of my fellow ACE Bloggers creative projects, follow us on Social Media.
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Hop on over the ACE’s 31 Days of Color page to see my other fellow blogger’s projects using paint.