Colin's Steampunk Rocketship Room

Well my oldest son and I got together came up with a theme from his bedroom. He wants a Steampunk Rocketship Ghostbusters Transformers room, LOL. Well, I haven't been able to incorporate all of it, but here is what I have so far. I have not finished. I'll try to get more pictures later.

Here was his room before:





My oldest son's favorite color is green. When we first moved into our new house, I thought for sure that he'd want everything in his room green. But when we were buying curtains for his room he wanted blue and brown. Since the curtains are only a year old, they are staying in his room. He did however pick green as his wall color:



Here you can see that I taped off spaces for the portholes to look out into space.



This was about 3 days into the project.

The next 2 days I painted the frames for the portholes. I added alot of rivets in the frame. It was my first time mural painting with latex paints.



It took another couple of days to paint the space look in the portholes. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get a good picture of the space scenes.





I also painted large rivets in the corners of the room, but I haven't gotten a picture of them. Most of them are going to be covered by furniture, but I wanted them there incase we decided to move the furniture around.

We have had technical difficulties with the furniture however. We decided to paint it all a deep chocolate brown. Well the paint won't cure. We followed the directions, tried repainting, talking to the paint guy representative, etc. So we still haven't gotten his room back together again. Its frustrating to say the least. I gave up on the bookshelves and just went and bought new black shelves. I'll get a picture of them soon enough. We still have to make the desk. He had a cheap particle board desk in his room. But we plan to build a desk using a sewing machine treadle base that I picked up at a garage sale. I just need to design it first.

Anyway, here is a sneak preview of the room finish. Its the lower porthole, on the bottom bunk.



Other additions:
I found some Golden Compass movie toys to display in his room (2 airships and the carriage).
I found a set of book ends at Goodwill that look like books lying on their side. They have secret compartment drawers.
I found a temperature and barometric pressure gauge at a garage sale for his wall. Score!!

I still have alot to go. But its been fun so far.

Steampunk pots, the yard & garden

I finally got around to downloading the pictures off my camera. I am very slowly starting to steampunk my house. I decided to use blues, greens & teals in the backyard with some terracotta. I'm going to use black furniture with colored pillows for accents but I haven't bought or made any yet except some folding furniture so all I have is some old faded plastic furniture that is about on its last leg. Anyway here are the pots:

I took plain old plastic pots that were faded and revamped them with plastic paint. I used black, blue and dark green to make these.

Pot #1: I started by spray painting the pot black. I then cut out tentacle stencils out of contact paper and put them on the pot. I then lightly sprayed them with blue and green spray paint to give them a watery look. I sprayed them more solidly towards the bottom of the pot and let it fade into black towards the top. This pot is the biggest of the pots I painted.





Pot #2 - I started out painting this pot black and just spray painted the top with the blue and black and let if fade into the black towards the bottom.



Pot #3 - I started out painting this pot black. I taped off areas and then sprayed blue and green. I then pulled off the tape. I found some upholstery tacks and cut off the shanks. I glued them onto the pot with e-6000 to make the pot look studded.



I have also painted some of them with just the blue and green. I didn't get a picture of them before I got them planted. But here is one of them:



Oh and for giggles, here is the before picture:



I haven't painted all of them yet ( I ran out of good weather and paint), but I did paint over half of them. I haven't decided what else I'm going to do to my yard yet to add a touch of steampunk to it, so I'm open to suggestions. I'm actually thinking of painting images on the fence. I want to add an arbor over the deck out of copper pipe but that might get expensive. Here are some pictures of the backyard so far:





Yes I use unusual containers to make my garden beds. I used an ice bucket tote from Target to make a small water garden for my water lotus plants.







Here's the boys outside toybox. Outside toys are huge.


I'm using cement mixing trays to grow my sweet potatoes, jerusaleum artichokes, taro and water celery. I don't know how well this is going to work but I poked drainage holes where needed, so we will see. I'm hoping to make it easier to harvest the root plants. But some of the plants (the Taro and water celery) like boggy conditions.

Steampunk my house

Well we have been in this house for several months now. This is the first house I've moved into that I have tried to decorate as soon as I moved in. Instead I waited a while until I decided how I wanted to proceed. I'm still lost with the majority but I've decided in the abstract to steampunk my house inside and out. I won't be able to do much with the front of the house, but the backyard is fair game. I'm fascinated with steampunk, neovictorian, gothic victorian, type decorating. I'm planning on Steampunking most of the rooms in my house. I'll try to post my progress, crafts and finds. I plan to even steampunk my kids rooms. My oldest will have more of a spaceship theme and my youngest will have more of a pirateship theme. I'll try to get some pictures posted of the rooms I intend to redo. Atleast so I can have some before and after shots.

For My backyard:
* I'm planning on putting oil/alcohol lamps around the fence. I found some really neat wine bottle oil lamp holders that I've been able to replicate for pretty cheap. I'm hoping to get some blue wine bottles and etch designs into them.
* I've already started repainting some of my cheap plastic pots. They were faded and nasty looking anyway, so it was either repaint them or throw them out. I bought some plastic paints and got to work. I made stencils out of contact paper and painted tentacles on one of them.
* We are also planning (hopefully) to put in an aquaponics system. I think that this will lend itself to an industrial look that I can add some victorian touches to.
* We may build a greenhouse or atleast a covered area to house the aquaponics system.
* I'm 'thinking' about painting some scenes on the wooden fence around the yard to give it some interest.
* We've been buying pots in blues/teals/turquoises to add color to the backyard and give a more nautical color without being cheesy or typical (with navy blue, red and white that you see most nautical themed items in).
* We will be refurbishing a wooden kitchen table to go outside. I may do some woodburning on the top to add a bit of interest.
* Maybe a copper pipe pergola over the deck area that we can attach shade to for the dead of summer.

I'm still working on ideas for the backyard. I may do some of these, or all of these ideas. I haven't worked out anything else for the rest of the house. So as I come up with something, I'll try to post it. I do know I need paint, paint, paint. I'm tired of looking at white and off white walls. We only have one room in the whole house that isn't white or off white and that's a tiny half bath off the laundry room.