It’s almost officially spring. And it’s snowing. Like a real, proper, accumulating in inches, with wet pant legs and muddy dog feet snow. This after Friday was easily 65 degrees, sunny (and windy), where I was outside with only a t-shirt on (and pants, too!). Tis what it is to be a New Englander. I know the it won’t last, but knowing that the yard is pregnant with bulbs makes me want to turn my hair dryer on to melt the snow a little faster, to urge spring along by any means necessary.

But, having spring on the mind also means that the spring cleaning bug has officially hit me. I’m doing laundry like a mad woman, vacuuming two or three times in a week, sweeping daily (ok, so maybe that’s normal cleaning), organizing drawers, and roping friends in to help me put together furniture. You see, since the lovely and delightful J.J. is nearly finished (more on that later this week) I am able to imagine a time when I won’t have a fine powder of dust on every thing I own, and I beginning to imagine a time when I might actually want to have a guest over. You know, to sleep here, shower here, eat in the dining room (that still has furniture for the guest room in it). So I’m tying up loose ends, finishing long-overdue projects (like putting away laundry in the linen closet that was blocked by a shop-vac for the past two months), and finally, finally installing a wall decal I got for the powder room on the first floor.

I originally painted (or rather, had Team Carpentry paint) one of the walls darker than the rest knowing that I’d want to do some sort of treatment to that wall. I would have loved to do a wallpaper, but knowing that we probably won’t live here forever, and that a future owner might not dig our choices, I opted for a more temporary solution. Back when the now powder room was my former hair studio I painted a giant branchy tree on the east wall so that my clients would have something behind them to look at while getting their hair done. As a reminder of that sentiment, I chose a cluster of branchy trees in silhouette to install across from the toilet (something for the ladies to look at) and across from the only mirror (that’s above the toilet and gives something for the gents to gaze at).

I chose a metallic silver since the tones in the room are all shades of grey, white, black, and chrome, and so that the shimmer would add some dimension to a flat wall treatment. I searched for months and months to find just the right one, and finally found one on etsy (though I could have custom ordered my own design I wanted to do this on the cheap in case it didn’t turn out as I hoped). The directions that came with the decal were simple enough, but I would not call the project easy. You definitely need some artistic ability to pull this off well. And it takes time. I think from cleaning the wall, to sweeping up debris it took me a little over 4 hours to install. Less messy than painting a room, but intricate and time consuming. Maybe I’m just a perfectionist. Either way, consider yourself warned.

So, on this snowy, mixed-up weather day, on the eve of spring, amid Jeff’s busiest work weeks ever, and on the heels of an insanely emotional week for world news, some pictures of my little project. Enjoy!

*Lyrics from Grace Potter & The Nocturnals’ Paris (Ooh La La).