Drama in the Window

When we moved into our house and painted our master bedroom, we left this window alcove untouched because it had the potential for great drama, but we just didn't know what to do with it then. Truthfully, I'm still not convinced I'm taking it in the right direction....

Yesterday, I spontaneously got the idea to do something about the white trim - take it to a dark brown to tie in with the thick dark wooden baseboards and to mirror the gorgeous double french doors across the room.

It was just so boring:

The windows are original to the house, 80 years old, and when I chipped away paint I found the wood's condition to be really poor. Meaning, it wouldn't be worthwhile to spend all the time stripping the white paint, staining the wood, etc.

Also, I present to you evidence of supreme jackassness. Whoever painted the white trim obviously didn't use painter's tape and have ruined a lot of the trim throughout the house by getting paint on the wood. Ugh, so much white paint on the glass and iron bars of the window:

GRR!

So here is one last "before" shot:

I used my fantastic Scotch painter's tape:

And ta da! Brown.


Already, much better.

But I did not stop there. Using a flat brush and my fingers, I applied black paint to give the wood dimension and to darken it so it would better match the baseboards. Also, think about it this way: when you apply foundation to your face, it makes everything look flat and cartoonish. Only when you contour and brighten things up with blush does the face really seem lifelike. That's kind of what I wanted to do here with the black paint.

Here you can see the just-brown trim on the right. On the left, however, (it's still wet) the black darkens the brown but also provides somewhat the look of wood stain.


I worked with the natural wood texture, too, so this looks like stain:

Okay, the black is still wet but you can at least get an idea of what I mean:

And that little bit of green is from my dad, who thought we were painting the alcove green and got stopped, hehe.

I love it so much. I have to fix a few spots with some black paint, but otherwise, the trim is near complete.
So next, I'll be painting the niche the same green as the other walls. Boring? Maybe. Probably. But WAY better than no paint and white window trim. Stay tuned for that reveal!!