NAFASI THE BLOG

A few of you have been asking about the "imigongo" style mural behind the bed in The Art House Airbnb space. I thought I'd take this opportunity to go back and show a detailed look at that painting and how I did it! Take a look: I started with my chosen paint colors... Then I nailed canvas into the wall, in case I'd want to keep the "mural" when I was all done! ;) The whole Art House was pretty bare. All I knew is I wanted to make that mural first. The rest would follow! I pressed into the canvas to adhere it to the wall and I was all set to paint! I started off drawing the design on a small piece of paper, and then free-handed it onto the wall, making any additions or edits I wanted as I went. I colored it in, from the top to the bottom, color by color. By the end of the night, I had the color blocking done! There she was, greeting me the next morning!  Then I detailed by adding the black edges, starti

Hey everyone! I'm SO excited to finally share the finished product photos for The Art House , our small backyard house-turned- Airbnb !! ( Click here to see the live listing on Airbnb! ) We chose the house we're in, almost solely because of this small separated house in the back. We asked if we could renovate it- like REALLY renovate it- and the landlords seemed positive. But it was a risk! (Read how we decided here on the blog .) We tore down the interior walls and renovated the space in May 2018. (You can see the photos of the the whole process, and all the before photos in this blog entry. ) Since then, I have been designing and filling it in to be the comfortable rental studio (equipped with a kitchen, bathroom, living room, work area, and bedroom) that it is today! ;) What a process! Please enjoy the big reveal of The Art House and all the love we put into it!  Bedroom Living Room  Kitchen  Work Area  Bathroom The Art House Exterior

Having all the space in the world now with our Kigali house has been wonderful for me getting back into painting. And luckily our new house needed artwork on the walls too!  While furniture had mostly all been ordered and renovations were done, now was the phase of thinking about art. We had a big blank wall in our kitchen, and a big open space above that apothecary in the entry too. So what better way to fix it than with a Sip 'N Paint date night at home for me and Patrick!  Now he is a very patient man. Not my painting style however. So he tackled the measuring, taping, and meticulous painting of lines in the pattern on the kitchen wall.  He had this vision of a very light faded pattern on that wall, almost unnoticeable. He then also came up with the idea to make it a strip of detail, instead of a whole cliche accent wall... Creative too! Meanwhile I had been dreaming up this painting of a woman with windblown hair covering her face, using neutra

In the following months, new furniture was arriving in the house every week! How fun! Patrick would come home every day wondering what he'd find. I was drawing up designs with different carpenters, and essentially testing out who I would like to continue working with through NAFASI as a business for future clients as well! I found some great people to work with, and of course some hiccups along the way too... You saw my pretty apothecary being made on last week's blog . They delivered it without finishing, as I requested, and just leveled everything out and added my apothecary pulls. I was thrilled with how it turned out!!  Then I shopped around for the best wood stains, and tried a few out. This stain is great, and I think it turned out really beautifully, but it was a hugeeeee pain to work with. It stains everything. EVERYTHING immediately. Including my hands and nails for 2 weeks. :/ My own fault for not using gloves. But that's pretty difficult to do to