Nursery Decorating Chapter 2: When in Rome

And by "in Rome", I mean when you are living with an upstairs that is completely in pieces, and there are paint rollers and brushes everywhere - you might as well paint dressers!

First, a little history. The two dressers and mirror we're using in this room are part of a five-bedroom set I inherited from my great grandmother when I was ten (the other two pieces are a nightstand, which I currently use, and a twin sized brass headboard - which could be great little girl bedroom material someday shall we need it).

She had purchased them a few years before when she moved into a senior living apartment, and when she passed away she left them to me, which was a pretty mind-blowing thing for a ten-year-old! So, they have very precious history to me, but are not precious antiques - making them fair game for a fresh coat of paint and some new hardware!

Although, I do think Nino preferred them before . . . .

The dressers had great, embellished shapes, but the feathery hardware and gold painted highlights really dated them and made them feel heavy. Plus, the ivory painted finish on them had taken a bit of a beating over the years and was in need of a refresh anyway.

So they all got a light sanding, some wood putty and a fresh coat of paint. From there, the putty/sand/putty/sand process began to get the fronts of the drawers perfectly smooth over the old hardware holes. While I haven't selected new hardware yet, I am confident the old holes will not work (they had numerous different sizes and would be impossible to match). 

We use Sherwin Williams ProClassic Interior Oil-Based paint for all our woodwork - trim, cabinets and furniture - and used the color Creamy for these pieces. It's funny paint to use - very sticky, prone to drips and incredibly slow to dry - but once it's done the finish is incredibly smooth and durable, so it's worth the extra work.

Once the painting process was finished, here's what we ended up with.

I love how the embellishments on the furniture drawers and legs show up so much more now that they have a uniform finish. The ivory feels clean and fresh, and really helps the pieces feel nursery-appropriate.

So, hardware is the next step. I have been planning on using blue milk glass knobs for the drawers - something like this:

And while I love the look, I'm feeling like it's not quite what these dressers need. I ordered some samples to play with, both of the milk glass knobs and a simpler, crystal and bronze option like this:

The crystal is still whimsical, but a bit cleaner and less "baby-y" than the milk glass - so I'm anxious to get both options in and see what we like. Either way, these dressers have come a long way from the gold and beaten up yellow-cream they were a week ago.

And speaking of When in Rome, here's a little more to add some excitement to your Wednesday. Because every day is better with a little Will Ferrell.

Nursery Decorating Chapter 1: Sometimes Progress Isn't Pretty

 For the past several months, our nursery has looked something like this.

Very soon after finding out I was pregnant and (before we were even telling people), we came across this crib for sale on Craigslist. I knew I wanted a Jenny Lind style spindle crib in dark wood, and this one, which was only two years old, was an amazing deal at only $60. So we removed our old guest bed and moved in the crib.

Then, in May after my grandfather passed away, were were in his hometown of Perry, Iowa for the funeral, and happened upon a wonderful little antique store. We purchased the rocker, whose arms you can just see in the bottom right corner of the photo. More photos of him to come, but with this purchase we had all the furniture pieces selected for the room - crib, wide dresser, old living room chaise (bottom left) rocker and tall dresser (which can't be see but is next to the rocker). We figured out the general furniture layout we liked and things have sat since then.

Until last week! I decided it was time to attack. Chris was planning on being out of town for the weekend, so I called in some help in the form of my sister and her six-year-old daughter Annabel to get some painting going. Before we could get started though, I had some prep to do.

Chris and I weighed the options of replacing baseboards in the room vs. refinishing them like we did in our own room two and a half years ago. While we like to preserve as much of the house's original materials as much as possible, we decided it made more sense to just start new with these boards for several reasons:

• They were ROUGH. I don't have photographic evidence, but believe me - these ones were in way worse shape than any of the other trim in the house.
• We would have to sand down a lot to get them paintable, risking scattering lead paint dust around our child's future room - not an idea we love.
• The aren't the "nice original wood" we love in the house. Don't get me wrong - fixed up they'll look like a million bucks, but they are low grade pine - not stain grade oak like we have on our main level.
• We can match the style in new boards for about $100 in materials - saving a lot of time and eliminating nearly all of the mess. 

So out the baseboards came! Painting without the baseboards meant that we wouldn't have to worry about edging the bottom of the wall (yay!) and that any damage done in removing them could be repaired prior to painting and putting the new boards in. They came out very easily - I did it by myself in about an hour.

After clearing out the room and purchasing some supplies, we were left with the below scene. See those scratches on the walls? Those are no accident. After I removed the baseboards, Chris and I took a paint scraper and sanding block to the walls to knock off some texture.

We love smooth walls, and while this step still left them far from perfectly smooth, it did take off some of the bumpier spots and goobly-goshes, as we call them. So yes - sometimes progress looks like this.  

Chris also did some light sanding on the window trim, so that it would be ready for a fresh coat of paint while we had the room apart. 

And one important piece to note - the closet in this room contains some of the very last of the original paint from when we moved into the house. That's right - it's crazy turquoise! And you can't tell in the photo, but it's also high gloss paint. If you every wanted to see your reflection in turquoise, this closet was the place to do it. 

I weighed grey paint options, and landed on Sherwin Williams Argos. But when I painted a test patch, it looked blue. And with our robin egg blue curtains, I immediately knew it wouldn't work. 

So Chris suggested I mix in some black paint we had on hand, from painting the back of our fireplace a few years back. Since this experiment would cost us exactly $0 and might make the paint I had purchased for the walls usable, I decided to give it a try. 

So I mixed it in and rolled our new and improved paint onto the walls. As it dried I brought in my fabrics, to test it out. And unfortunately while it was definitely darker, it was still more blue than grey, and clashed with my aqua curtains.

So I bit the bullet and selected new paint - this time Sherwin Williams Dorian Grey (4th down on the swatch). A quick errand and $45 later, we were ready to roll again. Pun intended. 

And while I was a bit bummed about the dollars wasted on my first paint color, it did still work as a first coat, so only one coat of our second grey was required to cover the walls. The photo above shows the difference between the colors - my darkened Argos above our final color of Dorian Grey on the bottom (with our old room color along the top trim - Sherwin Williams Baguette).

And so we painted. We're still re-assembling so more photos are coming soon with the final wall color and a few other updates we made while we were at it.

Oh, and about that closet. It benefited from some extremely enthusiastic child labor. Thanks, Annabel! 

Our Current To Do List

It turns out there's nothing like pregnancy to motivate you to finish those lingering house tasks you've been putting off! Soon after discovering we'd be expecting Baby Jones in November, we made something of a master to-do list to help us evaluate and prioritize the things we need to complete, and the things we want to complete before our little bundle of joy tries his/her best to slow us down!

We've been working on several of the items already, but as you'll see below there is still a lot ahead of us!

Nursery:

• Get rid of stuff we don't need (bed, bookshelf, books, stuff stored under bed, in drawers, in closet)
• Refinish woodwork - We have actually decided we will replace the old baseboards to keep dust to a minimum. Coming soon!
• Paint walls
• Fix closet (paint, add light, refigure shelves/rods)
• Paint dressers, replace hardware
• New veneer on side table
• Make curtains (decorative and sheers) - Decorative curtains are finished - we just need to add some sheers to finish them out. Details coming soon.
• Reupholster chaise lounge
• Build book ledges like this one in our living room.
• Finish accessorizing (lamps, wall hangings, new rug, etc.)

Other household projects:

• Upgrade my closet to be as nice as C's since we updated it last winter (expand it, add cedar lining to the walls, add light, refigure shelves/rods) - Sadly, this one might get pushed to a post-baby project. A girl can hope though!
• Upstairs hall closet (adjust/add shelves, replace shelf paper, clean and maybe repaint)
• Upstairs window coverings - Upgrade window coverings in our bedroom and the guest room with sheers for privacy and light, and heavy curtains for decoration and sleeping
• Paint 3rd bedroom/trim (This is a nice-to-do project, and the more I think about it the more I think we might wait until after the baby is born)
• Add a cabinet and hanging area to the laundry room
• Make new living room curtains

Organize:

• Nursery closet
• Chris' closet
• My closet
• Hall closet
  
• Kitchen cabinets and closet 
• Basement storage

Outside Projects:

• Outside house painting project - We're halfway done with side three, and on our way to finishing this nearly 2 year project before the fall!
• Build a deck - Yay!
• Finish front yard landscaping - This one is partially done, and will be ongoing over the next few sprints until things fill in well. Progress update coming soon. 

As you can see, there's LOTS we'd like to accomplish before Baby Jones comes home in November. We're working through everything item by item, and will keep you updated as we go! 

New Corner Seat

As I alluded in our recent post about our nursery, we recently upgraded the chaise in our living room for a newer and improved model. This has been on our list for a while. Our old chaise was fine for our first few years, but it was a lesson for us that microfiber and Wrigley are not meant to be. It wore very badly, and was nearly impossible to clean. In addition, while it was a nice shape and very comfortable, it was always a hair too big for the corner.

To tell the truth I was so excited to have it out of the room I forgot to take a before photo. Oh well! You can get an idea here. And see how we have a red quilt on the seat of the chaise? Yup, that was shameless Wrigley-proofing. He loved to lie on that chaise while we were at work and look out the front window, and at a certain point we just had to give in and keep it as protected as we could.

But there's no more quilt for us! The new chaise has a slight curve which is just enough to keep Wrigley away. The color is similar to our original one - just a neutral cream. The fabric is a ribbed velvet though, which feels great and so far seems to wear much better. And the tufting adds a really nice classic, tailored look.

Shortly after purchasing the chaise, we happened upon the perfect little side table for it at a small town antique mall in Harrisonville, Missouri. Its marble top and intricate, aged brass base fit perfectly onto our main floor, and give a nice spot to set a glass of wine (or these days, a glass of iced tea in my case) down while reading on the chaise. 

And at just $20, we couldn't pass it up!

Don't worry about that old chaise though! We're not done with her yet. When the new one arrived we stashed it away with a few thoughts about future uses, and just a few short weeks later, when we found out I was pregnant. Since it is so comfortable, and a perfect size for my very tall husband, we decided it would be the perfect place to pass out from sheer exhaustion snuggle our new baby to sleep in the nursery. I see a major facelift in this chaise's future . . . .

Nursery Planning

In case you missed it, Chris and I made a little announcement earlier this month:

That's right - Baby Jones is scheduled to arrive around Thanksgiving of this year, which means we're busy planning for a lot of changes in our lives, one if which is . . . our nursery! I've been slowly collecting ideas over the last few months, and have recently begun purchasing a few of the staple items that will set the tone for our room.

A quick note - we decided before even becoming pregnant that we want to wait to find out the gender until the baby arrives. We think this is a really personal choice for each expecting parent, but to us it meant a fun surprise after a long wait and the labor process, and we really like that idea. So, this means a gender-neutral nursery (which I am pretty sure we would have opted for anyway).

So, the first step for me was choosing our colors. Fortunately, falling in love with this fabric made it easy for me:

I bought several yards a few weeks ago, and hope to begin making lined curtains out of it very soon. The windows are on the far wall in the room (directly across from the door) so you will see it immediately when you walk in. I love the nice aqua, dark orange, light green, gray and white, as well as the nice long, curvy vertical lines the birch trees on it will make up the wall.

I then chose this fabric to cover our old chaise lounge, which we moved into the room (more information on its replacement in the living room coming soon), and I hope to not completely screw up plan to tackle my first major furniture reupholstering project this summer, covering it with this fabric:

If any of you out there have done reupholstering - feel free to send tips my way! 

We're thinking gray walls and white painted furniture (more on that to come as well), but we probably won't get to that for several months, as Chris is still pretty tied up in his current painting job, and his help will be required since I'm no longer able to sand old trim or use oil-based paints, which we use on all of our trim. In the meantime, though, we've had fun collecting some other items to get us started:

Paper crane mobile made from driftwood and old maps, from Etsy.
 

  Orange and white changing pad cover, from Land of Nod.

 

Porcelain hedgehog nightlight, from Land of Nod.
  

  National parks poster, from Etsy.

Stuffed squirrel from Anthropologie, courtesy of Aunt Steph.
 

And there are still lots of other ideas I find every day that I think will help us keep adding the little touches we want to make this room feel like the cozy, comfortable space we want to create. We'll keep you updated as we go! 

Shingle Refurbish - South Wall (Side 3 of 4)

Before and after Mount Etna blue Duration Paint from Sherwin Williams.

The weather finally turned to spectacular this weekend. Our March and April were unusually rainy and cold, so we've held off on typical outdoor stuff.

I'm about 70% done with this project. The last 30% might be the most difficult, as my motivation seems to taper with house projects as they span in time. Thankfully, I've found a new source of motivation in a pregnant wife. I've got about 6 months to put this project in the books.

If you're keeping score, I started the south side last Fall. After this past weekend, I'm happy to say the bottom half of this side is done. I'd love to put up a new post in June with the entire South wall complete. Fingers crossed.

Looking up, you can see what work I have ahead of me.

We'd like to replace the middle window asap. You can see it's pretty beat up. The paint in this section of shingles were really blistered and came off swimmingly.

Some shingles just aren't worth the effort of stripping. The old paint is secure and smooth, so I've learned to embrace a little bit of irregularity. 

Walkway Garden - Go!

Ever since installing our walkway arch last fall, I've been waiting for the ground to thaw (and the feet of snow we got in Kansas City to melt) so I could begin the front walkway garden I'd been dreaming of. I just so happened to be off work on Friday, and it just so happened to be sunny and beautiful, so I got to work.

Like many projects, the first step was the least fun, involving digging out all the sod that C has worked so hard on (don't worry, I had his blessing) and filling in the trench with mulch. It was total grunt work, so I was grateful to have a beautiful spring day (and a serious case of spring fever) to motivate me to get it over with.

  

We planned the shape of the beds to duplicate the shape of our walkway - which we have named "The Wine Bottle." The beds also maintain the strong symmetry of our home. The new lines add some nice drama to our sloping front yard, with the dark mulch accentuating the nice green grass.

C even said it looked like a baseball field. Whether he was just being sweet because I was so tired, or really meant it, it's pretty much the ultimate compliment from a former baseball pitcher.

I managed to wait two whole days, admiring my mulch, before I couldn't stand it anymore and picked up a few plants to get the garden started. It was Easter Sunday and my favorite local nursery was closed, so we did a quick Home Depot run and got a few staples to start adding shape to the walkway.

Enter four small sedge varieties, two blue fescue balls and two ranunculus, and things were starting to take shape. I laid them out carefully, alternating the sedge so that they won't crowd the walkway from both sides.

Everything is perennial except for the ranunculus, which is an annual in our area. I don't often put annuals in the ground, but these tiny plants with huge round blooms were just too cute to resist, and it's a bit too early for some of the other perennials I'm planning on adding.

I think as I add more plants I'll keep adding more sedge and fescue - I love the texture they provide, and they are nice tough plants to stand up to the intense sun of our west-facing front yard. 

So, here's the yard before the arch and flowerbeds:

And here it is now.

It's just a start, but a very satisfying one to me. As the weather continues to warm, I'll keep filling in the walkway at the top of the steps, get some climbers planted by the arch, and - most dramatically - plant the wide triangle portions of the beds that go down the hill.

Over the next few weeks, as the weather continues to warm, I'll add some topiary shrubs near the bottom of the hill:



Surrounded by more grasses, as well as some low-growing, tough flowers and ornamental cabbage.

 

And perhaps most importantly, some climbing english roses and clematis to grow up over the arch - adding beautiful blooms and fragrance to welcome visitors into the yard.  

I can't wait to get the rest of the space filled in and growing, but for now my few little grasses and flowers will have to hold me over. As well as some viola I packed into the window boxes on our front porch - I just couldn't resist!