De-nursery (tear)

I knew this day would come, but it still hurts. It's time to start saying my goodbyes to Audrey's nursery.

Last month, while I was putting Audrey to bed, she told me that her room needed more pink and asked me why I chose green picture frames above her bed.

That night, I started browsing the internet for ideas.

And I fell in love with a duvet (and may have already acquired it).

It's last year's Pottery Barn Kids Paisley Pop line, and I found a great deal for it on eBay.

Now that I have an amazing color palette of pink, teal, green and orange to work with – it's time to start having some fun. I'm hoping to have her room done later this year.

The nursery

My goal was to have Audrey's nursery complete by the end of the year. While it's still missing a few elements, I'm excited to say that if I go in labor today – she will come home to a room that looks done and is now finally clean.

I didn't do a mood board for this room. I'm not sure if this hurt or helped me in the long run. I tried to use Pinterest, but I was even way to indecisive for even that and didn't make it too far. I can't even count how many times I changed my mind on fabrics. Really, the only piece of the nursery I was positive on was my argyle wall – so I based all of my decisions off of that.

The other deciding factor was budget. Baby items are a lot like wedding items – tack the word baby in front of it and the price sky rockets. So, I had my one splurge item – the glider and ottoman set, and then actually repurposed a lot of items for this space.


The crib is actually from Wal-Mart. It wasn't our original first choice (we were actually wanting the Somnat crib in green from Ikea and even made the 7-hour journey to Minneapolis for it. Of course, this was during Ikea's massive crib recall, so that idea fell through). When I saw the Baby Mod crib at Wal-Mart though, I came up with a new plan. Keep the crib white, and paint the wood base at the bottom green. I like this look so much more, and I still have a crib with some green on it.

I actually received this star in 2005 as a graduation present from my parents. It's been in a lot of rooms, but I think it going in a nursery is rather perfect. It's from a fabulous decor store in Lawrence, KS, that sadly closed several years ago.

Audrey's first Picasso's:

The glider and ottoman set are from BuyBuy Baby and were the big splurge, coming in at $600. The houndstooth quilt pattern was $7.50, and I had that made (this girl does not sew). The pillow is something I got off Etsy for my family room several years ago. The lamp is from Target, and the table is from a Craigslist flip I did in 2010.

The dresser was a $40 purchase off of Craigslist that I repainted. The painting is a DIY project I did several weekends ago.

The Expedit shelf was another must for the nursery:

An art fair purchase from 5 years ago:

The closet:

Drawer organization:

I started the nursery at 15 weeks. And at 34 weeks and 6 days, I can happily say "done!"

Fabric is cool

Now that the crib is in and assembled (!!!), I decided it was time to quite dragging my feet about picking my fabrics for the crib skirt and curtain panels.

I ordered 10 different fabric samples, and Brent and I quickly narrowed it down to the 2 winners.

The crib skirt (Dwell Studio Dotscape Jet):

The curtain panels (Waverly Scribble Meadow):

Brent and I both fell in love with this fabric right away, and were extremely happy it was the correct shade of green once the sample arrived.

Me: It's just so great. It's modern yet playful at the same time. I just love it.

Brent: I wouldn't describe it that way, but I love it too.

Me: How would you describe it?

Brent: It's cool.

Right.

I ordered everything yesterday, so now I get to impatiently wait for them to be shipped, delivered and made.

The "slide in" shelf

The one thing I hated about the nursery was the attic access (aka: cabinet door) on the wall.

I mean, how is this not noticeable:

So, I started debating my options, because, well, this was just not acceptable. I toyed with the idea of a large picture or other ways to hide it. Then one day I realized I was going about it the wrong way – don't hide it, embrace it. And that's where the concept of my "slide-in" shelf came from.

While we currently don't use our attic, we didn't want to block off access to it. So I came up with the concept of a built-in looking shelf that could slide out when necessary, and then put Brent to work.

The first order of business was to go through the cabinet, which was super exciting because I found my houndstooth stencil (so I can finally repair the hole).

Then we cleared it out:

Now it was time for measurements. We still managed to have scraps leftover from the man cave built-ins, so this was another free project. Brent didn't want to deal with the angle at the top – so we put a permit board there, and had the shelving unit below that.


Once it was built, the painting began:

The end result:

I am so happy with how it turned out!

I grew up in a 1920s cape code. There was detail everywhere and built-ins in every room. While this no nowhere close to that 1920s craftmanship, it does remind me of the house I grew up in and that makes me smile.

From eyesore to wow feature:

Closet preparations

I bought goodies for Audrey's closet...several weeks ago (yes, I know I currently suck at this thing called blogging).


The closet dividers are from Amazon. And the storage stuff is actually from JoAnns. I feel like I hit the jackpot with it. This collection was in the office section and was 50% off. So, I scored 3 large baskets, 1 small basket, 2 "photo" boxes, a stack of 3 circular containers, a white organizer, and a backdoor organizer for $80.

Argyle accomplished!

It's done! The argyle wall is done!

Honestly, I'm still in a state of shock that I was able to finish it as quickly as I did. I started painting that wall white 3 weeks ago, and from there just worked on the wall off and on. Totally worth it:


Sorry, for the darkish photo. I finished all the touch-ups late last night – so this room was kind of on the dark side. I plan on taking new photos, once phase 2 of the wall is complete (but more on that later).

Here's how we made argyle happen.

1. Paint your wall your base color – this would be the color used the most. For the sack of your sanity, also have this color be the lightest color you're using.

2. Figure out how many diamonds you want (I wanted mine big, so I picked 5x8) and then make a grid. This goes super fast if you have one of those long levels. Brent measured/drew everything out in 5 minutes.

3. Now it's time to make some diamonds! Brent measured the size of one of the rectangles, and then divided the width and height in half. With those measurements he made a "mini rectangle template" on a sheet of computer paper, which was the fourth of the size of the ones on the wall. With that template, he was able to mark the halfway point in each rectangle (aka: where the diamond points go).

4. Start taping for color #2 (color #1 is your base color).

5. Paint color #2.

6. Peel tape and start taping for color #3.

7. Paint color #3.

8. Now it's time for some dashed line "fun." This was the part of the project I was dreading, but Brent and I found a way to cheat the system and make this task go by fast. Brent and I had some 6-foot edging for our closet project that was .75" in width. So, using the pencil intersections in the white diamonds as our guides – Brent held the piece of wood to the wall, while I taped everything off. For the length or each dashed line, I actually just used the length of a paint chip, that way I wouldn't have to measure anything.

9. Do touch-ups and then you're done!

I'm so happy with how it turned out. I'm especially happy that it's done, and I can move on to other projects like the nursery closet and turning the "door" on the argyle wall into a feature instead of an eyesore.

This weekend

Nesting is a funny thing. For me, it's like drinking a lot of Red Bull and having an extreme amount of focus on the tasks at hand. All I wanted to do this weekend was start getting things ready for Audrey, and that's exactly what we did.

What I worked on this weekend:
That's right, aside from touch ups – the argyle wall is now done. A lot of touch-up work will be needed (thanks to my husband making his pencil lines as dark as possible), but I hope to do all touch ups next weekend.

What Brent worked on this weekend:

Yep, what you're seeing is not only a super gross closet, but Brent's and my super gross closet. I'd been wanting an organizational system in our closet for awhile, and I figured this was the perfect time to make it happen. The paint finished drying over night, so hopefully our clothes will be back hanging tonight, and ready for a reveal soon!

In other Audrey news: We're buying our glider and finishing off our registry tonight. I'm so excited!

The nursery palette

While I toyed around with many color schemes, I kept coming back to this one – green, yellow, gray and white. I love the playfulness of these color together, and I love even more that it doesn't scream baby. Because this is the most gender-neutral palette ever, I decided to add in pops of magenta throughout the room, with some black to help balance out the pink.

The argyle wall though will stick with only the dominate colors, which we narrowed down to Behr's Japanese Fern and Sun Shower (the yellow on the right).


As for the gray, we'll be sticking with the gray used elsewhere in our house – Valspar's Granite Dust.

It fills good to be finally making some decisions.

Going white

My second guest bedroom used to look like this:
Well, it's not so welcoming anymore. Audrey is taking over.

My first nursery project involved painting the focal wall white. And let me tell you, it was the weirdest experience ever. I never thought I would ever paint a wall white. I kept reminding myself, that eventually it'd be an argyle wall, but it was still just odd.


But it was definitiely nice to finally make some sort of progress in the future nursery.