How I Crossed Over to the Dark Side

I know I said I'm a trendsetter, but this is one trend I'm a bit late on. I read a lot of decorating blogs and it seems everyone is grabbing up old furniture and painting it black. Just look how darling black and white can be:

armoire

letters, mirrors and more

chairs

canvases

kitchen cabinets

bathrooms (this might have been where I started sweating b/c I NEED some black in my house!)

I'm loving the black and white.

But here's the thing. My husband sort of thinks there is something really wrong with painting wood. If we found an old table at a yard sale, he would want to sand it down and stain it....NOT paint it. He loves to work with wood and has built me furniture over the years. I agree that wood is beautiful., but how am I gonna get me some black and white in this house?

Plus, it doesn't really GO with my house. I always lean to deep red. Maroon. Ruby. Garnet. It's all over my house and I don't even remember how it got here.

That happened to me at the old house with blue and yellow. One day I looked around and nearly every room had blue and yellow in it.

And then it hit me.

The homeschool room!

When we originally moved in, that room was going to be a home office for my husband, who was part-time youth minister at our church at the time and really needed a place to work. (He still needs a place to work but there are no more places.) I started getting black accessories, mainly inspired by some curtains I had seen in a magazine. I made those curtains out of muslin and black ribbon.

I can't believe that's the best picture I have of them.

And I got my beloved black shelves from IKEA.

And I bought a black trash can. And spray painted some baskets black to go in the shelves.

And THEN.....we turned that room into our classroom. So, you already have black in the homeschool room, right Brenda?

Right.

So what's missing?

FABRIC!!! PATTERN!!!

See, I was making a male office. It was plain. Sterile. (read: boring). But now that it's a classroom, and I find myself in there several hours a day......

...shouldn't it be fabulous?

I think so too. I'll share more of the dark side when I get it done!