Chapter 10: Whitewashed

I think I’m in love. With whitewashing. Let me show you why…

That picture might make more sense if I show you what it looked like before:

Ahhhh, so.much.better. All throughout our office project, I felt like the bamboo blinds were not the right color. They seemed too dark, too heavy, too brown. I didn’t want to return them and get new ones (aka. I lost the receipt), but I thought I could alter the color with a bit of watered down white paint and I am stoked with how they turned out!

This is really not a hard process… so if you feel nervous about DIYing things, this is totally something manageable to tackle! The first thing I did was take the blinds down and do a test patch on the part that no one sees.

After we confirmed we liked the look, I felt confident enough to go for it. I removed the blinds and stretched them as far out as they would go, laying them on top of a few pieces of cardboard.

To make the whitewash, I mixed some white craft paint with water. I have no idea the measurements- just add some of each until you think you have a mixture that will go on lighter than paint, but not so light that you won’t be able to tell there’s color. After making a couple batches, I began to recognize when I had the right ratios. Mine looked a lot like whole milk, if you need a reference point. 🙂

From there, I just painted it on there. Normally, I think you’re supposed to wipe the excess off, but the blinds were just soaking up the paint so well that wiping any off pretty much took it all off. So I nixed that step. Here it is getting the first coat (you can see on the right that the paint had been applied and then soaked in):

And part way through two coats:

I think I ended up doing 3-4 coats before it was the color I was going for. Now check out the difference between the first set of blinds that I whitewashed, compared to the original…

Like night and day, huh?! I used the same process for the second set of blinds and now we have ourselves a much lighter and stylish covering for that upper storage!

Side Note: I’m finding that this little office corner is a challenge to photograph. Something about the angle of the light coming through the window, mixed with the dark shadows that take over the left side leave my pictures looking off color in comparison with what it actually looks like in person. Sometimes it feels yellow-y in the pictures. Here’s a good shot of what the actual whitewashed tone looks like:

Sometimes I just go in there to stare at them. I’m obsessed. And the timing of this project could not have been better… I was losing steam with the office progress, but getting this completed gave me a kick in the pants to finish the last few details. In fact, the other day I stopped at Target and got some cuuuuuute desk accessories. Can’t wait to show you them! But for now, this is where I leave you, friends. Happy Friday!

Psst! Want to see the full office transformation process? Check out Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ,6, 7, 8, and 9.