This week, Jason and I painted my bedroom. It was still mostly this horrible brown color except the one wall we had to fix when we redid the windows a couple years ago. In repainting, we also added a shelf high up on one wall, and rearranged the room so that it could better accommodate some things that I’d just been stuffing into my closet in the meantime. While we did all this, I decided it was time to do a bit of spring cleaning. Everything was off the walls and shelves, tucked into piles, so it was time to sort and decide what I still wanted, and what had outlived its purpose. This went from everything from extra yoga mats to artwork that had been hanging on my wall for five years but no longer really fit my aesthetic.

By the end of the project, this is what my room looked like:

A couple notes: First, on a purely color-based note, the doors/trim will eventually be repainted. They’re still the original almond that was here before, which matched the brown but just looks dirty and dingy against the blue walls. That will be a later project, though. Second, the blank wall behind the armchair has a set of wavy drop mirrors coming from Etsy to reflect the window-light and the accent wall across from them. Third, the blank space above the dresser will soon hold a cascade of scarves from my late grandmother’s collection.

Which leads me to the dark blue accent wall. Right now it is empty and dark and blank, a perfect canvas to decorate! What I would like to do on this wall is fill it with closely-set, framed pieces of art and photography, collected over time, as well as potentially some antique hand-mirrors, hanging skeleton keys, etc. Some might actually be photos that I take, but I mostly want to focus on discovering and supporting small artists and photographers selling locally or online. I have very specific tastes that I’m aiming for, and this collage shows a general idea of that, but the problem is that I’m really no good at finding artists. Mostly, I come across them on the recommendations of friends! Like, I absolutely adore the Jennifer Gordon artwork that accompanied the old RIP challenges (back in the 2009/2010 era!) and used to have several framed pieces from her etsy store, but that store no longer exists there doesn’t seem to be a way to purchase on her website. (Don’t ask why I got rid of my original prints. It’s a long story that had to do with subsuming my personality in 2015, and I still regret it.) I never would have discovered Gordon’s work if not for my online friends, so if you have any artists you love, please send me links! Obvs I won’t be buying an entire wall’s worth of art right away, but my birthday is coming up in March so I’d love to be able to put links out for folks before then! Even if you don’t think the artists you love fit the aesthetic, please leave as many links as you like! I always appreciate discovering new things.