Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Decorating the Nursery - Part 1

We made some nice progress on the 'not so pink' nursery for our granddaughter.  But despite the request to tone down the pink, you probably won't be surprised to hear that we ended up with far more pink than Beth ever dreamed possible!


We thought it might be helpful to share some of the 'how to' instructions in this post.

Here was our starting point - a dark beige room with a double window and closet.  Not exciting to start with.....but it has nice hardwood floors.  And lots of wall space for furniture placement.


Pottery Barn Kids - Hayley Quilt

Step 1 - The inspiration - Pottery Barn Kids - Hayley Quilt.  Beth loves that it has so many different colors to work into the design scheme.  The pastels are great and to keep the 'pinkness' toned down, we decided to go with blue, white & yellow for our color scheme on the walls.










Step 2 - Painting the walls.  We wanted a striped focal wall and after much debate, we chose Behr Monaco Blue and Decorator White.  For the other three walls, we went with Behr Summer Moon, a very pale yellow.
We agonized over which blue went best with the calico in the quilt

The stripes were pretty straightforward.  First, we painted the entire wall Decorator White.  We let is 'cure' overnight, so the paint had a chance to adhere to the wall.  The next day,  we pulled out our calculator and divided the height of the room by 8, to get the spacing for evenly sized stripes.  We got out the tape measure and level and were able to quickly tape them up (Suggestion: use the tape for sensitive surfaces to protect the base coat).


Then we used a trick that I find really helpful.  Paint the edges with the color that you've taped over.  That way any initial 'bleed' will be the same color.

We had Mom and Dad 'to be' painting and after two coats of blue, we pulled off the tape (I always pull it off while still wet, to minimize any chance of the base coat coming off).  Love those horizontal stripes!






















Step 3 - Creating the baby's name.  I ordered the letters from PaperSource (very reasonably priced at $3.75 each!).   Then we picked out scrapbook paper to match the colors in the baby quilt.  Covering the letters was easy.  I started with a coat of spray paint, followed by a coat of spray adhesive.  The paper went on easily and I cut it with a sharp x-acto blade.









Hint:  Try embossing the edges with your fingernail prior to cutting - particularly for the inside of letters like A and e.  It makes it much easier.


We still have lots more to do - but we're happy with the results so far.  What do you think?

Want to see the completed nursery?  Click here






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4 comments:

  1. I love it....great job! It's hard to get around "some" pink for a girl. Maybe Beth will grow to find it's not too girly after all. You did a great job on the painted stripes and I love the trick to avoid bleeding. I wonder how you could use that for painting trim (or next to trim)? I'm always bleeding onto one surface or the other with the wrong color. Have you decided what "name" you'll be using as a Grandma, Laurel? I'm Grandma with two of my grandkids because the other set of grandparents are called Oma and Opa. Less confusing for all of us.

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    1. I used that trick when I was painting stair treads and it worked beautifully!!!

      I'm growing fond of the name 'Grammy' - although I've been warned Adelyn won't be able to pronounce her r's for a long time and I'll be Gammy for awhile :-) My husband, on the other hand, hasn't come up with something yet. Thankfully, he still has time!

      Thanks for checking in!
      Laurel

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  2. I want to be Adelyn's roomie -- her nursery is the BEST! Can you please make me *Rachel* to hang on the other wall! Thanks. :-)

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    Replies
    1. We could do it in coordinating colors!!!! It would look great!

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