Taming the Flame

Two months ago, we so bravely tackled our basement board and batten project and part of that process involved painting half the basement and the stairway a cheery bright orange (Behr's Flaming Torch).  Since then, our basement decorating has fallen by the wayside.  I blame the arrival of springtime weather that has been drawing us outside more and more.  Plus, we really haven't decided which direction we want to go down there.  We've been kicking around ideas ranging from a wine country theme to honor our tied-for-second favorite places, Sonoma and Napa, to maybe something including vintage movie posters.

While we let those ideas ferment in our mindgrapes, we decided something had to be done about the stairwell.  The whole thing is a mess.  The intersection of the walls and ceiling isn't even, which is glaringly obvious when you see the orange meet white.  Plus, the sole light fixture is very bright and the way the light bounces around and hits the orange walls kinda feels like orange Push-Ups are being smashed into my eyes... but without any delicious sherbet to comfort me. 

To fix this, it was finally time to hang up all the wedding photos that have been sitting in a box since we moved in October.  We thought the addition of some framed photos would help break up the assault of orange and would provide the perfect place for a little collection of wedding memorabilia.  John thinks I'm crazy, but I hate having photos of us strewn about the house.  I know what I look like.  I haven't slipped that far into the deep end yet to need to go all Memento on the house.  And who needs to see my creepy exact same smile in every photo staring at them from all angles?  So, this is what we've come up with so far:

Our only new addition to the group was the "Love" print we picked up a month ago or so from Eastern Market, which John detailed in this post.  I loved the saying on it ("Love... because I like the sunshine in your eyes") because John is the sunlight in my life and it has all sort of bright and happy colors (including orange) to complement our paint.  I'd like to break up the collage frames and do those individually to spread it all out, and intersperse some non-photo elements, like a framed copy of our wedding invitation and program.  *sniff sniff*  Do you smell another trip to IKEA in the works?  I can almost smell the particle board and cinnamon rolls now...

So, a quick, inexpensive project.  We didn't even bother measuring anything since we were dealing with a weird triangle shaped wall (although John's careful use of his level would make Papa Harold proud).  Now our Flaming Torch has slightly been subdued and everyone can admire how cute and in love we were are.  :)