Chalk Paint Tutorials and The Importance of Making Your Bed
I’m sure you’ve heard of Annie Sloan Chalk paint. I’d been seeing it all around home design blogs and was itching to try it. (It’s not chalk board paint, just FYI.) So, before Rebekah and Emily came home for the summer, I decided to refinish an old bureau in their bedroom. I used this plaster of paris tutorial. I used flat Benjamin Moore Sail Cloth. It was a creamy linen color that wasn’t too yellow or too tan. Lovely.
I added some touches from Wal-mart: a little natural basket, a robin’s egg blue spindle lamp and some fake flowers, sold by the stem. I am fussy about fake flowers, so I was pleasantly surprised to see Walmart selling a line that passed muster. The peonies and ranunculus were $2 each. I used them for a pop of color.
I’m really looking forward to diving into The Nesting Place: It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful
Do you have strong feeling about making your bed as soon as you get up? This navy seal does. He told graduates at a commencement speech at the University of Texas:
“If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed…If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. And by the end of the day that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you’ll never be able to do the big things right. And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made — that you made. And a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.”
In my favorite home care book, Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House
I agree with Gretchin Rubin who asserts that making your bed is a quick way to make a big difference. It promotes a peaceful environment.
It’s also the largest object in your bedroom, so when it’s neat, the majority of the room looks neat. Plus, you can’t see pretty throw pillows when they are under the blankets or on the floor. 😉 I’ve taught my kids to get up, turn around and make their beds. Also, if you make your bed well, you get the pleasure of sleeping in a crisp, neat bed that night.
So, if you want to feel accomplished, go make your bed! 🙂 Easy peasy.
Did your mom have strict bed making rules in your house? Do you make your kids make their beds right away? Have you tried refinishing anything with chalk paint? IF NOT, yard sale season is coming! Keep your eye out for something inexpensive to paint! 🙂
I have been wanting to paint something with chalk paint. My opportunity has finally arrived! We just repainted and added wainscot to our bedroom and I have an old table that I use as a nightstand that I want to paint. But first I have to strip two layers of regular paint so I can get down to the wood. I didn’t know you could make your own chalk paint, but I am excited to try it. 🙂
I am a firm believer in bed making. I make my bed as soon as I get up and I expect my children to do the same. It takes two minutes and makes such a difference in a room.
I was not a bedmaker when i was a kid (despite my parents’ best efforts) but I am the one who makes our bed now. Any man who insists this is women’s work must not realize that he’s as much responsible for its morning condition as she is. 😉
What a guy! 🙂 Actually, the last one out of bed makes it around here. THAT’s usually me. Peter is an extremely early riser, and me–not so much.
So, I teach my kids to make their beds but after breakfast when they do their morning routine. Now I’m wondering if I should get them in the habit of doing it immediately…hmmmm…..
Your kids are young and habits are just forming. I wouldn’t stress about it. 🙂 Sometimes, when they are young, just getting it made is a small victory. 🙂
We ALWAYS had to make out beds growing up. Both my mom and my husband’s mom were nurses so they made us make our beds the way hospital beds used to be made. Jonas makes the teens on our missions’ trips make their beds every day too! Haha! Some of them look at him like he’s crazy!
SO, my mom was a nurse. Not only were we taught to make our beds, but with “hospital corners.” 🙂 I tell Matt that if he goes into the military, they’ll be so strict about his bed making that it would make our house look like a carnival. 🙂
Great post Sarsh, I laugh because we were taught to make our bed every day first thing. Now my kids also make there beds after breakfast. Reid does love sheet day( the day I wash the sheets) because it is his one day off from making his bed. I think a made bed makes the room feel in order.
Yes, so were we. AND we have the sheets day issues, too. 🙂 I also fold my laundry on my bed, so that I’m forced to put it away each night before we go to bed.