The CLASH

When I left you yesterday, I was bemoaning the fact that the new, deep aquamarine-colored bedskirt was going to be horrendous against what I've always called a "kelly green" carpet.  Now to me, kelly green is a pretty specific and universally recognized/identified color.  It's a clear, deep, bright and "true" green - my definition of "true" in this case meaning it's balanced between its blue and yellow components.  I knew my carpet wasn't really a true kelly green, but I thought it was darned close and since the term is pretty universally recognized that's just what I always called it.

All of that aside, when I got home with the bedding and pulled everything out and laid it out in the room, the main thing that jumped out at me, in a very-not-so-good way, was that bedskirt against my carpet.  Ugh.  That's not going to work, I thought.  Knowing I simply couldn't afford to replace the carpet in the room, I jumped to the next best option: An area rug.  I figured if I could find one in an approximately 6' x 8' size, I could place it under the bed and extending around the edges enough that the bedskirt would play against it instead of the green carpet.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Well... not really, because my budget also doesn't allow for the expense of most area rugs; they can get even pricier than replacing carpeting.  Next thought:  Find a carpet remnant, cut it to the size I want and bind it.  How hard could that be?

Actually, not as hard as you might think.  I found this video and felt empowered...


Hmmm.  The embed link is broken, but you can see the video here:  Instabind

However, (every day it seems there's gotta be a "however"), while you're at that site, check out the prices on the stuff.  It would cost me between three and four hundred bucks to bind a 6'x8' remnant.  I may as well buy a 'real' area rug.   I do still really like the general idea - using duct tape and fabric store trim to keep the price down - and it's one I may yet use...in another room.  Because in between convincing myself that I simply had to put something between the bed and the carpet, the bed was delivered and I put all the bedding on just to see how bad it was going to look, and....

It's not so bad! 

 (I mean the carpet, not the walls!  That's a topic for tomorrow, though they certainly make this post's title apropos. Oh, and I do realize the bedding needs to be ironed, but I like leaving those super fun tasks for last.)

Turns out my "kelly green" carpet has a lot more blue in it than I realized...

The carpet falls somewhere between "Greenbelt" and "Billiard Room" on the Behr paint deck, which you can see both fall in the blue-green spectrum.   It's not the color I'd first pick for the room if I were a princess whose every wish could be granted, but it's definitely going to be okay.   I think there are a couple of reasons I had convinced myself it wasn't going to work:  1) When I laid the bedskirt against the carpet, the carpet hadn't yet been cleaned and the color wasn't true, and 2) I wasn't seeing it with the bedspread spread out above it.  I think all the white in the bedspread helps to relieve the darkness going on below.   

Before I move on, for those of you in Northern Colorado who like the idea of bound carpet remnants as area rugs, you really need to check out Carpet Exchange on South College.  While pretty much any carpeting store will take a remnant and bind the edges for you, they charge upwards of a buck a foot - or roughly what you'd spend on the Instabind to do it yourself.  Carpet Exchange has a slew of already-bound remnants in various sizes.  I found a beautiful 7'x10' bound remnant in a natural sisal-look that would have worked in this room and it was only $79.99.  That's a serious bargain, folks.  Lastly, keep watching this space, because now that I have a (much cheaper) plan to do my own carpet binding, I'm itching to try it out on something.  

Tomorrow:  Paint colors!  I love, love, LOVE to paint and I've got some seriously delectable colors to work with.  Yay! 

NOTE:  I was told by a reader that she wasn't able to leave a comment on yesterday's blog post.  Ooops, I goofed, but it's fixed now and open to all commenters.  It's so fun to read people's comments, so please take a minute to say "Hi!"