Baby 3.0 Nursery

I have had this room done for a while but I was waiting to post it until I had taken a few detail pictures. Sorry it took me a while to get around to it. 

Designing this nursery started as a real challenge to me. There were a few things to take into consideration.
 - I try to design these nurseries for my kids to be able to be lived in for a while, or like Miller's room, easily transition to a big kid room. I do not want it to only be a baby room.
- I usually pick a theme but I try to make it more of an inspiration than the theme threw up all over the room.
- This girl was getting lots of hand me down items from her older siblings that I had to make work all together.
- There is a possibility that her and Scarlett will be sharing a room one day so I was trying to keep some things cohesive between the two.

That being said, it is nice to finally own our home and know that I could do whatever I wanted in this nursery, starting with paint. Also, that we will not be moving anytime soon so this will be her room for a while. Miller had 6 months in his original nursery and poor Scarlett only had 4 months.

Before pics. It was just boring but served as our guest room. The guest room has now moved to the basement. 

Lets talk about paint color. When I found out Scarlett was a girl, I was so anti-pink. I was all about purple for her. As soon as we started to think this was another girl, I knew I wanted to paint her room pink. Now finding the right shade was tricky. I did not want bubble gum or baby pink, I wanted a light, vintage looking pink. Pretty much I was looking for a light pink with just the slightest tinge of orange. The color we ended up with is perfect but you will just have to take my word for it that it isn't too pink in person. It is Airy Pink Balloon by Behr. 

On to theme, I really wanted to do an ocean/mermaid inspired room. I tried to just get that across in textures, colors and a few other small touches. The main colors for the room were the vintage light pink, a little coral, aqua blue, gold and a little navy.

Scarlett has gold dots behind her wall and this baby has herringbone. 

This artwork is special to me. Each child has a large monogram on their walls that goes with the theme of their room. Scarlett's room theme was just girly things so I did pearls for her and was stumped about what to do for this room. I made scales with polymer clay and painted it pearl. It is absolutely perfect. As for the canvas, for Scarlett's room, Miller and I painted something for her wall so this time we got Scarlett in on it and painted something for this room.

Each kid has a wreath on their door in their room colors.

I worked so hard on these pillows. There is really no need for most of them but I like how they bring the theme all together. 

I am really happy with this room. It turned out so much better than I was originally expecting it to and I am so excited  to be able to see this little girl grow up in here. 

Kids Bathroom Update

After doing our powder room earlier in the year, we decided that we wanted to do board and batten in the kids bathroom too. It kept floating off and on our to-do list but finally we decided that we should tackle it now before we add another little one to our brood and get distracted. This is a reminder of what it looked like when we moved in.

  

I painted the upper half mint and the bottom white. We did the board and top ledge so we could establish the line to paint but held off on doing the batten. The battens are so time consuming unless you have a nail gun, which we as first time home owners do not. I told Ben though, that it is such an improvement as it is, that I do not care if we ever put up the battens.

We also framed in the mirror and added hooks instead of a towel rack. We figured that will be easier to encourage kids to hang up dirty towels this way.

Kids Bedroom Updates

One of the biggest things this year for us was getting the house all settled before the baby comes. It was like unpacking and nesting times a hundred. The house is in no way all done, but we now have most rooms painted and pictures on the walls and closets organized. It really feels like home!

Both of the kids rooms kind of make me sad because their nurseries were designed for other houses. Whenever we moved, I tried to make it work but it was never the same. I feel like we are finally at a place where their rooms feel perfect for them in this house.

Miller's room evolved into a big boy room in this house. I kind of think of it as Lost Boys Camp from Peter Pan because of the trees on the curtains, the bunk bed (which is not bunked yet) and the banner over his bed from his party last year.

He got really into the solar system this year and I kept trying to think of a way to incorporate it into his room in a non cheesy way. This wall had embroidery hoops with different fabrics from his nursery. It occurred to me that I only had to buy new fabric and I could make the solar system. I was so excited to find a way to make things from his nursery work into a big boy room. It is just a perfect coincidence that this was on a navy wall and really looks like it glows. I surprised him with it and he loved it.

Scarlett's room was mostly done last year, except I wanted to make her curtains. When I was making some for the new baby's nursery, I decided to make the same ones for Scarlett's. I tried to keep things cohesive between their rooms in case they have to share one day.

Aren't those cute curtains?!?! They are little navy pom poms. So simple but so pretty. I ordered 75 yards to do both girls rooms and just sewed them on some ikea curtains.

I bought the M, S and & a few years ago and had always planned on putting them in the hallway between their rooms. Every day, Scarlett has to point to each one of them and say their names. It just marks that wing of our house as theirs. I also have a map of Neverland in the hall and some quotes from Peter Pan in their bathroom. Without thinking, I inadvertently created a whole Neverland theme with their rooms. I kind of love it!

Sprucing up the Powder Room

While I was painting the kitchen, I was brainstorming paint ideas for the other rooms. I got filled with this manic energy to just paint everything so that the house was officially fresh and all ours. The bathroom and the playroom were the first things I had to tackle.

The bathroom was just painted this icky yellowish white that was apparently deemed neutral by someone but just seemed dirty to me, and a bathroom is the one place that you do not want feeling dirtier than it already is. Sorry these before pictures were taken right before I started painting so it is already a bit disheveled.

I did not  take any progress pictures but we did a board and batten on the lower half of the wall. We put up a 1x4 horizontal and then put lattice strips vertically as battens in even intervals and then one on top for a rail. I caulked, primed and painted the whole room. It took a weekend but was not super complicated.

A few days later I used a black paint pen and made the diamonds on top. The color looks a little off but the walls are white.

I still need to put up artwork and something over the window, but every time I go in there, I feel like it is too nice to be my house. We are going to start working on installing board and batten in the kids bathroom with a color on top. I will post pictures when that is done and try to remember to take progress pictures.

Freshening Up the Kitchen

(Sorry for the absence. We came back from the holidays and jumped head first into a few projects around the house.)

 I think Ben and I did a good job of seeing the potential in the house rather than the things that were not exactly our taste. As soon as I looked at the pictures, all I saw was a kitchen covered in wood grain. I am a girl would appreciates the warm texture that wood can give a room but I know that it needs some balance. This is what we moved in to. Ignore the stuff on the counter.

 

I toyed around with getting a new backsplash but the lazy/cheap side of me knew that the one there was alright, so I was going to have to work with what was already there. This would be the perfect excuse for my obsession with the color navy. 

Anytime a navy room pops up on Pinterest, I drool. I have managed to work it in to all the rooms that we have been working on and always find a way to use it but I wanted to paint a room navy. 

After thinking long and hard about it, I decided I wanted it to be the kitchen. The room gets enough light so it would not feel like a cave, especially since I was going to paint the bottom half of the wall white. After searching out samples from every store we went to, I decided to try these three and went with the color on the left. It is called Night Sky by Behr.

I started by painting all the trim so that I could be messy with it, then go back and fill in the walls. Thanks to my dad, he reminded me to caulk all the trim while I was painting it. I am amazed how big of a difference it made and my cramped up hand was all worth it. Here is a shot before I caulked it....

....and after.

I did a coat of primer and three coats of paint. I filled in the bottom half of the wall white to sort of match the molding that we have in the living room and dining room. It was already so much brighter here!

It was terrifying to start painting the navy. TERRIFYING!!! For 5 days I had been up to ears in clean white while painting the trim, now I was getting ready to trust my hands to be steady enough to paint this super dark color next to my new beautiful white trim. I started by trying to use a guard to help get a straight line but the navy just bleed under the guard and I had to resort to using my angled short handled brush and trust myself. I actually got quite good at cutting in by hand and I am so proud of myself.

I think whomever thought this corner was a good idea was a jerk. The previous owners had not done a great job with it but I was determined to get it right. I did not want to tape directly onto the white trim so I taped a piece on the inside of it (since I was not too concerned about someone seeing if any peeled up) to some saran wrap that I then taped to another surface. I used a small brush and hand painted it. I used the same brush to do the white while I was doing the trim.

After two coats of the navy paint, it was done. I LOVE it! It always takes me a few days to warm up to the change but I love the navy. It is dramatic but so classic and elegant. (I was setting up for a Valentine's party so some decorations are out on the table.)

We finally got some artwork on the walls. They are prints and frames from Ikea that we have had for months.  

There were a few other small tweaks we did. One was the curtains. I searched for fabrics to make new ones but never could find one that I was in love with. I actually do not mind the current fabric that was already there but I did not like the style. So rather than rushing into something, I cut off a foot and a half from each panel so that they would hang straight, and pinned down the top so that there was no more bunching. It makes a big difference and while I will keep an eye out for something I like better, I am happy enough with these for now. 

The second tweak was the light. We got a drum shade from Ikea and hung it around the current light. I have always loved the bubble chandeliers that I have seen on-line and decided that I wanted to try it in here. Once we bought the glass bubbles, I started having second thoughts that we needed them in here but I gave it a shot. I could always take them down later. We ended up liking them and so far have kept them. They are a little whimsical but I kind of love that. (And of course I took pictures so you can see the seam on the shade. Sorry!)

Here are the side by side comparisons.

You will notice that I did not paint the doors or windows. Well the windows we are probably getting replaced soon so I decided to save myself the trouble and I figured it would look weird to not do them but do the doors. It may seem weird but I kind of like them this way. It warms it up and gives some texture to the room. I do not care for rooms that have paint as the majority of the texture. I had toyed with painting the cabinets at some point but I am feeling the same way and kind of like them. Sure, they are not what I would have picked but I think it they were painted, they room would look so blah.