Nursery Progress: Paint!

I know I said that I was going to wait until I got everything into the nursery before I decided whether to paint the walls, but . . . I lied.

Nursery Progress: Paint!

( I know, I look gross.  And I’m hoping my hair normally looks better than that.  And in case any of my college peeps are reading this, yes – I’m wearing the “Wake Forest University…where fun comes to die” T-shirt. Hehe. )

This past Saturday, during an epic Ikea run, my mom and I were talking about my plans for the nursery and it was decided that the original tan walls just wouldn’t do – even if it was a perfect, professional paint job done less than two years ago after our “adventure” with the wood floors.

So even though we were exhausted from our shopping extravaganza (life is tough), we went back to my house to flip through my fan decks and find a color, then we hoofed it to Home Depot to pick up two gallons of pink paint.  Once we got back and started putting it on the walls . . . I may have had a minor heart attack.

Several major heart attacks might be more accurate.

My patient, patient mother – she talked me down off the ledge when I started freaking out that the pink was too “pink” (you see, I had been envisioning a “barely there” pink, like white with a hint of color).  How could this happen?!?  I had picked the lightest shade on the card!

When we had just part of the first coat up and the original tan paint was still peeking through it looked pretty scary.  After assuring me that we could always change the color if I truly hated it, she advised me to power through and finish the paint job before I gave my final verdict.

We called it a night when most of the first coat was finished.  I went to bed completely stressed that the nursery I had envisioned for months was going to look insane.  (Do you think I might have been getting a little dramatic?!?)  I woke up and painted the second coat, and guess what?

I loved it.

And I still love it.  And Jason loves it.  And even though our little girl probably won’t give a fig about the paint color I imagine that she’s going to love it, too.  :)

Nursery Progress: Paint!

This picture really doesn’t do the paint justice – it’s the perfect shade of pink, despite my initial freak-out.  Sweet and light, not purple-y at all (if anything it leans towards coral), and it’s just a beautiful and crisp color.  Hopefully it will look great once everything is in the room!

And in case you’re curious, the paint color is Silk Sheets by Behr (I know, it sounds a little scandalous for a baby’s room) in a flat finish in the no-VOC formula.

Nursery Progress: Paint!

What about you guys?  Had any paint freak-outs lately?  :)

Plans For The Nursery

I know I promised you guys a design board but my Photoshop skills were not up to the challenge today – so instead I’ll just give you a tour of what I (currently) have planned!

The baby’s room will be the bedroom that is closest to our room – about 7 steps door to door.  Until Sunday, it looked like this:

Plans For The Nursery

Plans For The Nursery

Mmm, lovely.

After we cleared out the room (I’m thinking about possibly a garage sale?) it looked like this:

Plans For The Nursery

(By the way, I love the crib in person – so pretty! And it came with the toddler rail that you can see in the corner, score!)

Much better!!  And now the curtains are gone, so you can mentally erase those.  :)

Here’s the general layout that I have planned (ignore the colors in the floor plan):

Plans For The Nursery

And to shed some light on what you’re looking at . .  .

  • the door to the hallway is on the bottom right, the door to the jack ‘n jill bathroom is on the right-hand wall, the window is on the wall across from the hallway door, and the closet is on the left-hand wall
  • the crib will be directly across from the door and under the window (we will have cordless blinds so don’t fret)
  • the dresser / changing table is on the right-hand wall
  • the glider and ottoman are in the bottom left-hand corner
  • a low bookcase is on the left-hand wall

But now onto the fun stuff!!  I’m in love with chevrons and somehow they are nowhere to be found in my entire house – but no more.  Check out this fabric, which will be floor to ceiling curtains on either side of the window / crib:

Plans For The Nursery

LOVE!  I’ve received a fabric sample and the pink is a lovely coral-y pink that will look fab.

I’m thinking of having a plain or very simple fitted crib sheet with a crib skirt similar to this one with the pompom fringe in solid colors – either pink with orange pompoms or vice versa.

Plans For The Nursery

I’m going to use my childhood dresser (that you saw in a photo at the beginning of this post) as the changing table, and I’ve been wanting to paint it a fun tangerine shade like this:

Plans For The Nursery

My dresser also has raised detailing but I’m not sure whether I’ll highlight it.  And I’m debating between snazzy pink knobs from Anthropologie, ring pulls or an array of mismatched knobs.

I would love to do a setup similar to this for the wall above the changing table:

Plans For The Nursery

And remember that animal print fabric I showed you last week?

Plans For The Nursery

It’s going to make several appearances around the room – maybe some pillows, as a background in artwork, and in these fun little baskets that I couldn’t resist buying last night:

Plans For The Nursery

Aren’t they so cute??  I’m thinking they’ll be good for organizing the top of the changing table.

As for a rug, I was originally wanting to go for a crazy pattern, or lots of color, but lately I’ve been thinking that a simple white or off-white shag rug might be just the ticket:

Plans For The Nursery

And now onto the glider.  I was adamantly opposed to the traditional looking glider and wanting something more modern and chic-looking . . . but in the end I fell in love with the comfort and practicality of this glider / recliner combo (in a slightly different, non-textured fabric!).  What pushed me over the edge into buying this one was the fact that the back was actually tall enough for me to lean my head against the back cushion – I’m apparently too tall for all the cute gliders and my head just dangled in the air instead of leaning against the cushion and that simply would not do.  And this baby reclines!!  Sold.  This glider may not win any awards for looks but I cannot wait to test it out with our little girl!

Plans For The Nursery

I’m a pouf-lover and I knew I wanted poufs somewhere in the room.  I originally thought of hanging them above the crib (exactly like the photo below) but I think that might look too busy/crazy with the curtains we’ll have going on, so now I’m thinking of hanging them in the corner above the glider.  I love the way these are clustered together and the varying shades of pink – I hope to be able to replicate the look pretty closely!

Plans For The Nursery

When I was a kid I had a ridiculous amount of stuff that I wanted to display – and while I know that an infant won’t really collect things and need oodles of display space I like the idea of having a bookcase for books (duh), stuffed animals, and whatever other random things might start to pile up.  This Ikea Expedit bookcase will go on its side next to the glider and will have a great surface for a lamp or book for those late nights that I know are in my future.

Plans For The Nursery

Ooh, and I recently saw these and thought it might be fun to paint a pair of them some fun color and attach them to the bottom of the bookcase – both for looks and functionality.

Plans For The Nursery

And last but not least, I saw this photo on Pinterest this morning and just about died.  The nursery itself is gorgeous but what really caught my eye was the animal artwork above the crib (which turns out to be Marimekko fabric!).  I had originally planned on making some artwork out of the animal fabric, but now I’m dying to paint an oversized graphic of the animals from the fabric on this giant scrap piece of plywood that I’ve had lying around, and then lean it (secured to the wall, of course) above the bookcase.  Wouldn’t that be awesome??  Here’s to hoping I can pull it off.

Plans For The Nursery

So that’s the plan for our baby girl’s nursery!!  I’ve gone through about a zillion design plans before getting to this one so who knows how many more times it will change before it’s finished – but that’s part of the fun, right?  :)

P.S.  I’m currently planning on keeping the walls tan, but I might wind up painting them a pale pink once I get everything else into place and get an idea of how it’s going to look – we’ll just have to see how it goes!

Dining Room In Transition

Ha – An alternative title to this post could also be “Spot What Changed In My House During My Pregnancy-Induced Blog Hiatus!”

Anyhoo, happy New Year, peeps!  Is yours off to a great start so far?!?

I have high hopes that I will finally get off my rear and start completing some of the projects that I’ve had lying around for, oh, months.  Like these dining chairs that I picked up last summer for a steal at a local consignment shop ($175 for 7!!).  Not too shabby, right?

Dining Room In Transition

( As for the changes we made during my blog break, we bought a dining table from West Elm – looks like it’s now been discontinued, added the bench from the latest flip, removed the iron bars over the windows and replaced all the windows, and switched out our tired chandelier for the one we talked about here.  All good changes in my book! )

The new-to-me chairs need some serious love, but I think they have the potential to look like the high-end chairs used in this Bonesteel Trout Hall design once they’re all gussied up:

Dining Room In Transition

As you can see, we have a ways to go.  The fabric is just nasty and stained, the wood is an icky color, and the seats need to have some serious padding added.

Dining Room In Transition

If I’m being honest I’ve been dreading this project, even though I’m really excited about how I think they’ll look once they’re all finished.  The thought of breaking down the chairs, sanding the legs, staining the legs, adding new padding, and recovering the chairs with new fabric sounds a little daunting!  Luckily my awesome hubby decided to help me out and tackled dismantling the chairs on New Year’s Day – yay!!

Dining Room In Transition

( We also changed out the light fixture in the entryway, which you can see in the background, for this one. )

Here’s the plan for the chairs.  I’m going to stain the legs a dark walnut color and then recover them in this awesome fabric (that I may or may not have had sitting in my office since August… ).

Dining Room In Transition

Wish me luck!  Hopefully I’ll have this project finished by the time the baby arrives on May 9th, ha!  :)

So what’s on your to-do list?

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