Accent walls, FTW.

When Graham's away, I paint stuff. 

During his deployments over the past few years, I pretty much painted our entire house. And, since we're in an apartment, I'm not wanting to spend the time creating an amazing quatrefoil wall or painting stripes, I can't keep myself from painting accent walls very, very bold colors. 

Like this wall. I'm so.freaking.tired. of this wall. 

The day Graham left for Germany, I bought an Expedit shelving unit from Ikea. It was already assembled and a great price. Unfortunately, I was driving my Civic. 

That day, I learned a very valuable lesson: an assembled 5ish foot tall shelving unit will NOT fit into a Civic. Since it was on sale, I couldn't return it. So what's a girl to do? Go inside, get some tools and sit down on the floor to disassemble it. 

On the way home, I was texting Graham and asked him to pick a color: pink or purple. And the image started together in my head. 

This wall HAD to be painted. Had to. Putting a while shelf in front of an off white wall was just more boring on top of boring. 

So, I went to Home Depot, and picked a bold & bright shade of purple. 

And ta-da! I am SO thrilled with how it turned out! The bold purple is really pretty with every tone in the room. I love the way it looks against the dark cabinets, the off white walls, the dark gray couch, the recycled glass countertops, etc. Its a bit brighter than the navy I usually use, and I love it. 

Accessorizing my book case was challenging... I need more hardcover books with brightly colored spines. Too bad you can't sort books on Amazon based on spine color....

The only thing left do do: take care of the bar stool situation. A certain puppy I know and love chewed these up during her chewing stage. I'm thinking something like this, but in cream & gold. 

I know that painting walls in an apartment isn't everyone's cup of tea. Some apartments don't allow it, and other people don't think that painting is worth it when you have to repaint when you move. But here's the thing- even though you don't own the apartment, it's your home for a specific amount of time. We're going to be in our apartment until next February. So, I want to make it feel like home while we're here.