Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Classroom Makeover

Maybe this should be called classroom ongoing makeover because it isn't done yet.  I went in to school to work on it yesterday and the air conditioning has now been turned off for the summer!  Now maybe some of you can get by on no air conditioning for an hour or two but in Phoenix it is just impossible!  So needless to say, I stayed for 20 minutes and I was so sweaty I had to stop.  I will have to revisit this post when I am completely finished with my room, which will hopefully be before meet the teacher night!

My main problem with my room is that it is purple.  Actually the whole school was painted purple until last year when they finally painted it a color that won't fade so bad in the Arizona sun.  The inside, however, is still purple.  I was just sick of my color scheme from last year.  I am not even going to show any pictures of it here!  So let's start with purple:





This was the big mess I walked into at the beginning of summer.  I promptly went home and Googled "What goes with purple?"  Of course I got the complementary "yellow,"  but I didn't feel like doing yellow.  Then I came upon a great site:
color scheme designer

The color scheme designer will tell you which kind of monochromatic hues look best, and what the complimentary colors are.  It also gives you a triad and a four color combo that includes an accent color to the triad.  It also gives an analog combination and an accented analog combo.  This really made my day!  Yellow is the complementary color to purple but there are many other unique colors to choose from.  I ended up choosing a blue, a lime green, and purple.  It doesn't sound good at all but it works with the black- purple thing I've got going on in there.  The first thing I did was dump my bookcase and line the back of it with a limey green contact paper:
Let me tell you that contact paper is a pain!  It looks pretty good now though.  I then ripped down all my bulletin boards and replaced my word wall with this:



I got some great tips from a website called School Girl Style.  Her post on how to decorate without upsetting the fire marshal can be found here:
http://www.schoolgirlstyle.com/2012/02/how-to-decorate-without-upsetting-the-fire-marshall/

It is really an excellent tutorial in using color without getting carried away by the cuteness of borders etc.  and overdoing things.  Here is my coordinating bulletin board on the other wall:




See how it's the same color scheme?  It looks much better this way than having a million different patterns and colors in your room.  The little poofy flowers were made by me with Martha Stewart's help!  Here are the pictures of the other paper poofs I want to put up this week or next (whenever the air is back on!)



My kitty Pippen attacked these right after I took this picture!  Let me know what you think so far.  I am by no means finished.  I will have to post the final look when I get it done:-).

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Kimberly...

I don't know how you all do it up in Phoenix. I am in Tucson and I hate the summer heat. Our air is supposed to be back on this week. I will find out tomorrow when I head back into my room too. I try to go in early and leave before the midday heat. Hope you stay cool by the pool afterwards.

Tina

Molly Maloy said...

Kimberly,

I LOVE what you've done with the color scheme!! It looks great!! I like how you used a few different boarders too... I want to try that this year! Well, either that or the "scrunched" borders, I can't decide!! Also, good idea to line the back of the bookshelf with contact paper! It makes it look fun and fit in with the rest of your room!!

Molly
Lessons with Laughter

Mrs. K. said...

My school here in Texas turned the a/c off in July...which was the month I was planning to go back and work in my classroom! So I'm using that as my excuse to only go for teeny tiny amounts of time. :)

I actually LOVE the purple, lime, and blue color scheme. I think it's cheery without being overwhelming. I find blue and purple to be pretty relaxing, and then the lime adds that perfect pop of color. I don't think I've ever seen an entirely purple school before! I can imagine how that would get old!

~Mrs. K. from The Teacher Garden Blog

Kimberly Collingwood said...

Thanks everyone for your compliments. I am so glad we are not the only ones shutting off the air conditioning in the summer!

Rhoda said...

No AC in my Texas school either! I haven't even stepped into my classroom yet-- I dread the day I have to work in that heat!

Good job working around that purple! That would be a tough one!

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