Making Pictures Pop

I love white. Sometimes I want to paint everything in my house white. But then, nothing would stand out. It would be kind of blah.

About a year ago, I did a project with board and batten on this wall. I painted it white, and then added three framed black and white pictures of my kiddos above it. The wall behind it is an off white color. I wanted to paint it, but it extends all the way down the stairs into the front entrance, which wouldn't look good in any of the colors I liked, so that option was out.

It looked okay, but it needed a pop of color.

This week, I figured out a way to make the pictures stand out without painting the entire wall. Since my frames are square, I just painted a larger square on the wall behind them.

First, I used a level and a pencil to mark where the edges would be and to make sure my lines were straight:

Then I taped off the wall:

I wanted to use the same color paint as the rest of the room, but I didn't have any of that paint left, so I used my highly technical paint mixing skills (e.g. a little of this and a little of that) to whip up a color that was very similar. It looks very gray here (photo taken at night), but it's actully a blue/gray. 

The paint bled a through the tape a little, so I touched it up with a small painter's brush:

I'm so much happier with the way the pictures pop out now against the white wall. Small project = big improvement!

Linking up with:

Measured by the Heart