I want the room to feel luxurious and classy. By that I mean the shower curtain (yes, I said shower curtain) on the wall has got to go! It was our quick--and free--fix for getting rid of the excess white in the room. Maybe I'm a little embarrassed by that now, but what was a girl in my situation to do?! Please don't judge me. :)After purchasing some purple lamp shades and making gray pillows, another trip to the fabric market landed me a stack of Chinese silk in green and purple. I just had to figure out what to do with it. A lot of contemplation, some "research," and several hours of sewing resulted in four more pillows.
Still, we had the problem of what to put on the wall. Again after much contemplation, I had an epiphany. We decided to have a custom Chinese painting made, split into three, and gallery wrapped. It needed to be custom, so the colors would go with the new scheme.For anyone in Taiwan or planning to visit Taiwan, I want to give a shout out to our artist. He is a man with a small shop in Snake Alley filled with hand painted scrolls and paintings. After about an hour--maybe an hour and a half--of Cody translating all my requests, suggestions, and preferences to this man, he was still kind enough to actually paint for us AND at a reasonable price. He took notes as we spoke (which I found kind of cool/interesting that he could make a painting out of them):
He also used my decorating folder as a reference, which included color swatches, fabric samples, pictures of the pillows and bedding, Chinese painting examples, etc. I don't know how he wasn't super annoyed with me; my guess is he probably was, but he wanted to earn a buck. A week later (an entire week sooner than promised) the paintings were finished! This [very patient] man did an extraordinary job and I am beyond thrilled with his work. Please use him if you want paintings (warning: he only speaks Chinese or very minimal English)! This is the address and phone # for his shop: #39 Hua Xi Street (go to Snake Alley, pass the guy slicing live snakes, keep walking and his shop is on the right), 09-5571-8942. I think it is open 5 p.m. to 12 a.m. M-S. He is unbelievably talented.
The framer did an awesome job too. His shop is on the corner of DeXing and ZhongCheng, across from the 7-Eleven, just in case you're interested!
The paintings took another week to frame, so our room is now finished with just a week left in Taiwan to enjoy it! I'm so excited about it though that I had to put it all together anyway! I'm absolutely in love. ♥ ♥ ♥
12 comments:
gorgeous!
Ahhhhh!!!!! The pictures look amazing! They tie everything in so perfectly Nicole! It really came together so nicely. Cody is gonna notice :) first of all, and love it I am sure!
On the bright side, with the impending smaller apartment in HK, you won't be battling so many big white walls :)
Those look awesome hon! It was kinda funny trying to explain to the guy what we wanted, but he did it exactly as you asked him to:
-long flowing lines: check
-not too much tiny details: check
-Have it zoomed in a bit on the scene, don't try do do one big huge scene that has lots of mountains, little villages, lots of rivers...: check
-Lots of white space: check
-Not too much color, but where there is color, the color has to be very bright and bold: check
-Lots of shades of green: check
-Lots of shades of purple: check
-Lots of black: check
-Waterfall: check
-Guy fishing (oh wait, that was mine): check
-The flowers: check
-The different types of trees: check
-The bamboo: check...
I still laugh when I think about him saying "Well, it's different, thats not how we normally do it." But I agree, it looks great! I'm excited to look at them for 3 more days before they go in a box until who knows when. Great job hon.
I LOVE that painting, I love what you have done with your place, so pretty! I especially like that you made those pillows yourself!
Awesome job!! I love it! You are so talented!
Love it! You always amaze me Nicole and Cody I give you props for translating that. Hope the move goes well. Nicole, if you get a chance, call me!
Wow! It looks so good! I love it! I'm in love with the bright green color lately and the purple looks perfect with it!
Absolutely a-MA-zing!
I love love love them! Your room is so cute!! And we have that same bed in our guest room! Only it's black and its a full. Haha I like the big one though!! But the paintings are amazing!
Love, love, love it!! Wonderful job Nicole! And thanks Cody for posting what Nicole had requested. How did you know that you wanted all of those details? I'm just sitting here smiling because I love that you are so detail oriented and know what you want! Your room feels so open and bright and inviting. I love it! The picture is amazing and what a great idea to have it wrapped. It's perfect. And amazing pillows. You are the queen.
love it! I wish that talent ran in my side of the family! ahhaah I love it! Nice ideas!!! It looks elegant to me!
The paintings are so nice, but I just love the pillows! You are so talented!! I hope you have a wonderful new adventure back in Hong Kong!
We decided to take Australia off of our list, the school year has it's summer during our winter so the kids would either be behind or ahead a half a year and that's just too hard. Now we're debating between Moscow and Buenos Aires for #5. This waiting part is the hardest for me =). I hope our paths cross again someday!
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