One More Sitting Room Post?

This room has had more posts than the entire house put together, I think. Probably because it's taken so damn long to get anywhere with it. Also it's such a huge change that I can't stop looking at it. Or writing about it, apparently.

When we left off, the sitting room looked like this:

I threw a couple of fall pieces into the shelves and hung up the burlap bunting to celebrate the season (very begrudgingly, I tell you, I'm already over winter and it hasn't even arrived yet), but my plan for that middle spot has been to have a giant 2.5' x 5' canvas sitting on the buffet. See photoshopped rendering below from this post:

I found a canvas that exact size listed on Craigslist (kismet!) for $45 - haggled down to $35 - with the plan of painting over it. A blank canvas of that size is WAY more than $35 (I've been looking) so I was super excited to find one the right size.

I picked it up Thursday and even though I'd measured it out, I was a little worried it wouldn't fit. This thing is huge. Here I am standing next to it, with it resting on the floor:

I threw it up into the space just to make sure it was the right size, and it. fit. PERFECTLY. (When it's done, it won't be competing with the banner or the topiaries or the boat thingy, so imagine it alone.)

What a freaking score. I don't know, maybe canvases of those size and at that price are on Craigslist regularly, but I haven't seen them, so I'm all, "IT WAS MEANT TO BE!" over here.

Now my big project is painting it. I really have no idea how to do this, and I haven't painted with acrylics or oil paint since high school, so it will be....interesting. We'll go with interesting just so I don't get too intimidated and give up before I start.

Again, I have no idea what I'm doing, but just to get SOMEWHERE with it, I decided to use some of the leftover primer from painting the trim to take the canvas back to white and give me a blank slate.

Carys is painting a birdhouse she made with the same primer I'm using on the canvas.

I literally just finished the first coat and then came and wrote this (trying to squeeze it in before Em wakes up from nap). I'll let it dry and then.....I guess the next step is go to a paint store? To buy paint? And brushes? Hipefully I can find a sales associate who knows something so they can lead me in the right direction. Or do you know? Tell me what I need if you're secretly (or not so secretly) a great artist!