Finishing up the nursery

You know, I gotta laugh at how different our parenting is between our first child and second child.  With my first, I read all the books, crossed items off my list in a timely fashion, and stood back in awe at 8 months pregnant at my completed nursery.  This time around, I have't seen the inside of any book, let alone a baby book, in 6 months.  I don't even have the time to create a task list anymore.  I feel like I just wander around my house with the intent of doing something, only to get distracted by a pile of dirty laundry that needs to be washed or yet another blow out diaper that needs changing.  Lastly, my daughter is almost 3 months old and I am finally putting the finishing touches in her room.

That's cool.  I'll roll with it.  I think that's the only way I can survive being a mother to a toddler and an infant.  And I feel better that I at least had the excuse of moving when she was only a few weeks old.  And it isn't like she holds it against me that I didn't have the crib displayed with all the bedding that you buy but then realize is not even safe for her for a long long while.  She doesn't care that I just now unpacked all her clothes or that her windows weren't displaying a beautiful curtain the day she came home from the hospital.

So here we are.  She is almost 3 months old now, and my husband worked hard to assemble her crib last night.  The hope is to have her in her room soon so we're almost ready for that.  And what is pretty great is that she is our second daughter.  Our first was blessed with a lot of beautiful clothes and nursery decor that we held onto.  This not only helps my money stay put, but also ensure that I can splurge on something that I perhaps couldn't justify purchasing the first time around.

As said before, my nursery items are a classic Winnie the Pooh theme.  And I feel they work well with the purple and the chevron.

We put the crib against the accent wall and I LOVE it there!  My daughter seems to enjoy the contrasting colors to look at too.  I will probably make something crafty to put on the wall some time down the road too.

These are cute art with Winnie the Pooh on it.  I was rocking my daughter in the glider yesterday, and she enjoyed looking at them.  I will keep in mind to always have something behind my glider from now on!

I am a little unsure on what to put on here still, but right above it on the wall will be a black chandelier wall decal.

When we purchased the home, this room had the Rubbermaid closet system already installed.  It is an awesome idea for a nursery, since their clothes are so little and allows for more storage.

So hopefully we gather the remaining items needed soon.  We still need a hamper and a rug!  

The Chevron Wall

Well, he did it!  It turned out amazing.  The theme of putting in good preparation work in the beginning to execute these tasks easily is working well.  He started off putting nails in strategic places and making lines with string to make a big grid on the wall.

After, he went through with a pencil to mark where the lines met.

Using Frog Tape again, he began to tape the Chevron pattern.  

And began painting!  It took two coats again and it came out really clean!  

So today will be spent setting up the room, decorating it and hopefully by tomorrow, the crib will be assembled!  Hopefully, with the nursery Winnie the Pooh items, it goes well with the colors of the room.  I would very much like to reuse and therefore save money by using all the nursery items I already have.

The Nursery Part 1

Today, my husband is working on the paint work of our daughter's nursery.  Since the 2 year old's room is pink, we decided to make this room purple!  First, he started with the frog tape again.  We love this stuff.  It puts regular painter's tape to shame.  We (again, by we, I mean my husband) started by doing the trim areas first.

Next, he rolled the paint.  Here is what one coat looked like last night:

We noticed this morning that a second coat was needed.  It took the entire gallon of paint for this room.  And with the second coat, he focused on the areas you eyes would typically go.  Here is after the second coat today:

To ensure all the spots were covered, he used a flashlight and a sponge brush.

Once the paint dries, he is going to attempt a Chevron accent wall!  He got his instructions from here.

From there to here

After completing our 2 year old daughter's room, it had occurred to me through talking with others, that bringing people along for our journey would be helpful for everyone!  Helpful for you all to get ideas on creating a beautiful home and helpful for us, to hold us accountable in staying on track!

I'd like to share with you how our daughter's room is now.  I wish I had started this before doing her room, so you could see the before and after.  However, I'll do my best to explain what we did!

We moved into this house in September, just after our newest daughter was born.  This house is allowing both girls to get their own bedrooms which made me very happy.  In our previous home, we had 3 bedrooms: ours, the office, and my daughter's nursery.  We loved the hard work we put into it and we are so sad we don't have it anymore:

While pregnant with #2, I tried my best to get all the girls' stuff to fit in the 10x10 room.  It wasn't working.  So when we found a 4 bedroom, we were excited to work on the girls' bedrooms first.

The baby is still in our room, so we started with our 2 year old's room.  All of the house has a very neutral color on the walls and we want to keep it that way in the rest of the house, but I loved the idea of bright colors in the bedrooms for the kids.  My hope is that these walls can grow with the girls as they do, modifying the decor and/or furniture to fit their needs.

If you know my 2 year old, you know she has a sassy and bright personality.  And her room, I think, reflects that.

Pink!  What girl doesn't love pink!?  I got the idea from Pinterest.  A lot of my furniture is from Ikea in that black/brown color and I think that combined with the pink makes her room pop!



My husband had really enjoyed this paint job above any of the previous ones we did in our other house for a few reasons.  1) I promised to not help.  See, I have a tendency of getting really excited to paint a room in the beginning.  I drag the Mr. to Home Depot, grab all the brushes, colors and drag him back home and set it all up.  And usually, about 5 minutes into it, I'm done.  I'm like the worst about it.  This leaves him to do all the work and since we would start painting when it was good for me, he would reluctantly and quickly try to finish.  2) Frog tape!  If you've ever tried painted a textured wall without it and hope to get clean lines, forget it!  When I told my husband I wanted stripes on the wall, he got the 'deer-in-headlights' look.  We found the frog tape, and it made very clean lines!

One thing we did notice, it that the wall we picked for the stripes isn't exactly straight!  But you can't even tell!

The mirror is also from Ikea and because I have a 2 year old who loves to see herself, I decided to make it a full length next to her chest of drawers at this time.  I normally like having the mirror across the chest of drawers but I knew she would try to climb to see herself and that was not a safe situation at all.  So, when she is older, we will move the mirror, but for now it stays here.

 Instead, we put this sign from Hobby Lobby that says "It isn't easy being a princess, but if the crown fits..."  Very fitting for my daughter.

And she picked out the butterflies!  They are from Target and are 3-D and brings more bold accents to her room.

Her other wall continues with the butterflies.  There is also her dry erase calendar that has her chores for the day, and the activities.  The shelves and shadow boxes bring her breakables out of reach and the hair accessory holder was a gorgeous gift made by her aunt.  

She loves her room.  She loves the color, and I'm glad she does!  All that is left is to update my old bed from when I was a child for her and completing the floor in her closet!