I recently moved and now we are in the *nesting* phase, and one huge thing off our list is to make this beautifully tacky wall for our flamingo print. We finally tackled it on Saturday because there was a blizzard on, and I am just pleased as peaches with how this turned out and I wanted to share. Look at this ridiculous thing! It’s in my apartment! I work right next to it can can imagine I live the kind of life where everything I drink is out of a pineapple!
My husband and I did this together with a stencil, and though we’re both creative and artistic, neither of us is particularly crafty, so let that be an inspiration to any of you who feel like having a home full perfectly mismatched china and quirky needlepoints and those chairs that are somehow made of books is out of reach. Get a friend and some paint and go nuts. What sort of paradise do you want your home to look like? Don’t you agree more homes should include flamingoes? Who wants to come over for rum drinks and taking selfies in front of this?
That is perfection in a frame.
THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I WANT MY DOWNSTAIRS LOO TO LOOK. Bring your daiquiris to the powder room – drink umbrellas optional. LOVE IT.
Congrats on your stencilling. You have given me DIY-nspiration.
I love this, and I don’t actually think it’s tacky–or not in an undesirable way, anyway. It looks very au courant and a little nerdy to me, though I may be projecting the nerdiness myself. I love the flamingo from _Birds of America_ because it’s so obvious that he posed the flamingo to fit the page proportions. (Print history/book construction geek over here.)
Double elephant folio boiiiii
YAAAAAAAAAS
I saw this in person!! #libraryschool@UCLA
They have one in the Field Museum Library! So beautiful.
It probably helps that the flamingo was very dead when he drew it. It’s pretty hard to pose animals in lifelike positions sometimes (ex: basically any large sea creature plate).
it’s amazing, I love that.
NOT NERDY, 100% AMAZING, ALL I WANT IN LIFE IS DECO STENCILING AND FLAMINGOS LITERALLY THIS SPEAKS TO MY HEART
(i had a “tropical”-themed dorm room all throughout boarding school and college and my sole adult aspiration is to have palm-leaf wallpaper, so like, really, really to my heart)
Yes, it’s amazing, I love that.
I just read a book which had an entire bedroom done in a jungle theme, with parrots and green furniture, and I wish that were my bedroom. Sort of, because I actually love my bedroom.
I need to put up the rest of my art.
That was my bedroom in real life. It was decorated with green walls, tropical wallpaper, and green carpet by the previous owners. We didn’t bother changing it when we moved in. 10-year-old me was enraptured; 15-year-old me not so much.
Wait I need more details on the stencil! It looks so perfect – how did you manage to make it look so professional? I am a perfectionist and I don’t feel like I could ever do this without fucking up.
Up close it doesn’t look as professional–there is definitely some bleeding that we plan on touching up with white paint down the line. But it was a mylar stencil that we taped on in sections, and used a dry roller with very little paint on it over and over and over until slowly the stencil was saturated. Apparently the key is to use very little paint, and it’s really tedious and time consuming, so I highly suggest having a blizzard so you have literally nothing else to do.
“i highly suggest having a blizzard” is now the pinnacle of unattainable DIY advice and I LOVE it
OK so I first read this entire thing thinking that y’all somehow stenciled the FLAMINGO picture and I was CONFUSED AND AMAZED, so the wall makes much more sense.
That looks amazing! My current rental has a “no painting the walls” rule, else I would go out and copy this immediately.
Even if you can’t paint, you might be able to put up removable wallpaper!
Or decals!
THIS IS BEAUTIFUL. I have this same flamingo print and now hanging it on my boring off-white wall doesn’t seem good enough. It needs a wall like this to really shine.
Who wants to come over for rum drinks and taking selfies in front of this?
*digs out my kitschy beach dresses and cocktail umbrellas*
So all I need is a blizzard and a cooperative husband to achieve this inhuman level of greatness? Plus flamingo print.
I’m beguiled! Well done.
I love everything about this corner of this room.
That’s definitely a great Flamingo Corner, but my similar Sandpiper Corner is my personal paradise.
Excellent inclusion of cat who refuses to be fooled by the stuffed/painted birds and remains vigilant for live birdies.
Yet the second a bird-related documentary comes on the TV, SHE IS ALL ABOUT THOSE FAKE BIRDS. (One time she literally ran into the room when she heard a David Attenborough voiceover begin.)
“They’re live! They’re just not…here.”
(my guy has the same fixation on penguin docs)
Meanwhile, my strange cat only gets interested in the tv when it’s showing… ballerinas.
OMG, Maisy has run off and is in pictures online. Seriously, where are you kitten?
Mine likes hockey players.
(if you want to add to your collection Pier 1 has a cute embroidered sandpiper pillow that I was v tempted by this weekend: http://www.pier1.com/Sandpiper-Embroidered-PIllow…
Wow, that’s a stencil?! Well done!!!
“a home full perfectly mismatched china and quirky needlepoints” I recently inherited and moved into my grandmothers apartment and that sentence sums it up perfectly. Before I started re-arranging there were 15 needlepoints hanging up. FIFTEEN.
Loving the wall, I also re-did my kitchen in a similar way, inspired by the Beverly HIlls Hotel coffee shop, I put up palm fronds wallpaper, green cabinets, pink walls, and yes- a flamingo print! If I knew how to use this commenting system I would post a pic!
so is that a contortionist flamingo, or is it maybe a flamingo exhibiting a mating ritual, or just bowing to Queen Flamingus or what?
To be blunt, twas probably a dead flamingo that was positioned awkwardly.
Ooh, a thing I know because I read it somewhere (possible in one of Stephen Jay Gould’s books?): that’s actually how flamingos feed. They stick their heads upside down in the water and filter-feed on brine shrimp and blue-green algae.
Speaking as someone who owns a pink velvet sofa and quirky needlepoint pillows and perfectly mismatched china…
I approve.
MY DREAM SOFA YOU HAVE IT.
It’s my dream sofa too.
But can we also talk about the fact that there’s a vintage needlepoint pillow with a naked snake goddess on it?
I’m going to start calling him Earnest.
Okay, I don’t know why, but that description makes me imagine you as a neighbor witch lady who lives down the street from Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter-verse and you guys regularly meet up for tea.
Please. Continue thinking this.
I love it! Not tacky at all. Tacky is the way Buzzfeed thinks that putting marble-print contact paper on everything makes it elegant.
Or their obsession with using metallic spray paint/tape/contact paper instead of metal details. Need a jewelry dish? Spray paint that plastic giraffe gold and hotglue it to a plate. Rather not attach real brass brackets to your DIY campaign chest nightstand? Just use metallic tape on the corners. No one will know!
(hypothetically self-referential, as, were I inclined to DIY and in possession of an IKEA chest, I would already have such a nightstand)
That flamingo looks perfect on that wall. Great work!
I am super impressed and pleased for you. That is a most excellent use of a blizzard. Speaking of chairs made of books and shutters and other repurposed things, does anyone else look at those projects and think that it’s pretty but wonder if their fat ass could actually sit in it?
Or those built-in window seat/bookshelf nooks. No one ever makes those “comfy” seats big enough to actually be comfy. You’d just kind of perch awkwardly on them once or twice and then forever after use them as storage for crafts and loose papers and sweaters you aren’t wearing right now.
My mom collects flamingo everything, but for some reason we’ve never bought her the Audubon print! Mother’s Day is officially solved.
JAYA I love it so much!! Are you still in Queens? (I am mostly asking because um YES i do want to take selfie photos in front of that amazing wall, but more importantly we should have another Astoria meet-up.)
My flamingo vase would just like to let you know how much it approves of your decorating style (and these are far from the the only flamingos in my apartment).
that vase!!
It used to be my cousin’s, but then she got married and her husband didn’t appreciate how amazing it was, so she sent it to live with me where it is very loved. (this picture is old, it now also contains a bouquet of unicorns….someday I’ll learn to decorate like an adult)
Can we run a regular feature of ‘How Toasties Do Decor’? Or ‘Cribs, Toasted’? This thread is blowing my mind in great ways; look at all these cats and pillows!
Oooh yes please! We just bought our first house and I’m definitely in need of design ideas that aren’t “maybe put your posters in frames?”
Jaya, there is an Etsy seller that can make wall clocks out of yard flamingos. I’M JUST SAYING.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/237214141/pink-flami…
Flamingo Watching by Kay Ryan:
Wherever the flamingo goes,
she brings a city’s worth
of furbelows. She seems
unnatural by nature—
too vivid and peculiar
a structure to be pretty,
and flexible to the point
of oddity. Perched on
those legs, anything she does
seems like an act. Descending
on her egg or draping her head
along her back, she’s
too exact and sinuous
to convince an audience
she’s serious. The natural elect,
they think, would be less pink,
less able to relax their necks,
less flamboyant in general.
They privately expect that it’s some
poorly jointed bland grey animal
with mitts for hands
whom God protects.
This is beautiful Jaya!
I LOVE IT. It also makes me sad, though, because I just moved to London, where it seems all rentals are neutrally painted and it is In The Lease that I cannot hang anything on the walls (nay, not even with those 3M sticky hooks). I would assume the Queen has decreed it, but I know her Maj likes a saturated colour. My beautiful apartment back home was chartreuse and sunflower yellow and sky blue and it was perfect and then I went and moved across an ocean and LEFT IT BEHIND. This is a true story: my mother caught me weeping while packing and started to cry, saying, I’m going to miss you so much! And I declared, dramatically, “I will see YOU again. BUT I WILL NEVER LIVE IN THIS APARTMENT AGAIN.”
TL;DR: daughter of the year loves dramatic decor choices.
I’m afraid this will be me one day. I am fully aware of the fact that I got damn lucky with my first apartment and now I dread moving and living somewhere without glass fronted kitchen cabinets and quartersawn oak floors and pocket doors and radiators and ridiculously tall ceilings and… And don’t even get me started on the prospect of losing my couch.
Oh man. I can’t even tell you if it’s worth it yet. I did the right thing (I think/hope) career-wise, but the thought of my beautiful home being painted beige and lived in by some stranger hurts. I gave up my favourite thing about my life, and I’m afraid I’ll never live in a place I love like that ever again. I mean, I’m sure I’ll love a home, but right now I live with flatmates (which I hadn’t had to do for nearly 9 years), and knowing London rentals and the fact that I’m at an age when I’ll probably shack up with someone sooner rather than later… I may never again get my own apartment/palace to decorate entirely as I like, with no compromise. Plus it was in the perfect location and shockingly underpriced. In short, cherish your home!!!
But my couch IS waiting for me at my parents’ place if I ever move back. At least I have that!
Does The Lease also say that you’re not allowed to paint elaborate life-sized murals on your walls… ? It can always be repainted when you move out.
The Lease is very thorough and comprehensive. But I did get an ensuite bathroom, which is making this whole thing bearable.
**SCREECHES**
THIS EXACT POSTER WAS IN MY DAD AND STEPMOM’S HOUSE WHEN I WAS GROWING UP!!!
Ahem. Pardon my outburst. But that whole wall is the opposite of tacky. It is elegant.
**SCREECHES**
THIS EXACT POSTER WAS IN MY DAD AND STEPMOM'S HOUSE WHEN I WAS GROWING UP!!!
Ahem. Pardon my outburst. But that whole wall is the opposite of tacky. It is elegant.
That palmetto pattern, though. One of my strongest memories is of Sunday mornings as a wee child, waking up and crawling into bed with my parents who were almost inevitably already awake and reading the paper. I would draw on my dad’s feet with a ball point pen, which he loved, and tell jokes and read the comics, and it was all on a Laura Ashley sheet and blanket set with those pale green palmettos separated by pale peach dots. Mom finally gave me the set when she stopped using them, and though my bed is the wrong size, I use the blanket and the pillowcases constantly.
So basically, your wall gives me a particularly warm and fuzzy. It’s GORGEOUS.
This is glorious. I moved house yesterday and now I know what my decoration goals are.
Growing up, my mom decked out the bathroom with a bold flamingo theme. It was bonkers. Shower curtain, bathmat, wallpaper, soaps, pictures, towels. If it was flamingo, it was in our bathroom. I wish I had photos. One room of glorious-hideous in an otherwise ordinary split level. Definitely inspired my current apartment’s Jaws themed bathroom.
This is wonderful, I now know how I will decorate my home 🙂
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