Oh Baby!

While the rec room renovation has made some more progress, it's also on hold for a bit right now while we're waiting to install our sink (we're making a vessel sink vanity) and faucet in the room's bathroom.

So while that's on pause for a moment, let's press PLAY! on some changes happening in another room of our house: our future little one's room!

Here's a BEFORE picture of the nursery, which until recently was a catch-all room where we kept my crafting stuff and Mike used the closet for his clothes (since the master closet was too small for both of ours).

You can tell in the pic above that some of the ceiling is partly painted. The panels were a dingy off-white color from when we'd moved in, and so I'd started freshening it up with some bright white ceiling paint.

Here's a BEFORE of the left-hand wall where the crib will go:

Oh, and I should note that all the random nails and stuff hanging from them in this room were all there when we moved in (the nails, not the stuff - the stuff is ours). Apparently the previous folks who lived here were nail happy and drove a bunch into the walls all over the place and at random heights...weird.

And here's the right side of the room with the door to the closet where Mike kept his clothes. We bought a $40 second-hand TV armoire that we converted to a clothing armoire, so now I use that and Mike was able to move his clothes out of the baby's closet and into the mstr. bedroom closet.

So here's what we did- I found an inspiration nursery on the internet. It's from a blog called Joy in the Journey:

I copied Emily's chair rail & wall stripes and applied it in our nursery:

closet door



I just marked where I wanted the chair rail to begin, and measured the space above it to the ceiling. Then I divided that by the number of stripes I wanted (4), taped off those lines, and got to paintin! :)



door leading to hallway


I love the subtle, tone-on-tone stripes. And we went neutral so that we could add pops of color later with accessories like curtains, bedding and art.

Next, we measured and cut the chair rail. Here's an in-progress shot of that:


crib wall before chair rail


We held the chair rail up to the wall, used a level to make sure it was, wait for it...level :) and then used painters tape to keep it up while we nailed it to the wall.



crib wall after chair rail


We don't have a nail gun so we did it the old fashioned way, by hand, and then sunk the nails using another nail, like so:



Then all the holes and gaps got filled with caulk, sanded, and painted out in semi-gloss white (including the wall below the chair rail and the entire room's baseboard molding and window trim).

And here's a finished shot of the painted ceiling and re-vamped celing fan (it was gold with black blades and outdated glass shades). I outfitted it with simple stuff from Lowes: spray paint in oil-rubbed bronze, new espresso wood blades, new white glass shades, and updated fan and light pull chains.

I really wish I had taken a proper before picture (you might be able to catch a glimpse of it in one of the BEFORE room photos above) cuz the difference is night and day! I'm in love with the result.

Well, those are the first steps in the transformation of our extra bedroom into our baby's nursery. We bought a crib and dresser (which will also be the changing table) so stay tuned for pics of those - the room is really coming along! :)

What do you think? Do you like the neutrality so pops of color can come in later? Or do you prefer bold wall colors with neutral accents? Anyone else out there recently make over a room into a nursery? I'm loving every bit of it as we prepare to meet our little one in only 4 months! 

Happy Monday!!