Baby Harvard Nursery...The Sequel

Woody wasn't even out of utero and I was dreaming of doing a nursery again. (Told you.) I can't help it. I have five rooms in my house in desperate need of decorating and TLC, but I love thinking of New Baby's (aka Sparky's) nursery.

And in the Harvard house, we believe in reducing, reusing, and recycling, so Sparky is inheriting Woody's crib, bedding, glider, and window treatments. (Don't fear, Woody is updating to a cool big boy room. He gets to keep his pie safe and gilver dresser.) However, I don't want to recreate Woody's exact nursery (despite how much I loved it.)

What can I change? The wall color. Here are some of my favorites...

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Trying to convince Husband that dark walls are a DO for the nursery. Justification? Woody's walls were light and he was the worst sleeper as a baby. Plus, our bedroom walls are dark, and we have no insomnia.Yes? Yes.

Bah! Can't find a source. I love this nursery so much. But let's get real, my kid can't have nicer wallpaper than me. Nor a mantle.

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Then there is this juicy goodness...

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The bedding is a gold and gray ikat, so I am using this pillow as inspiration to tie in the dark walls in.

So what do you think? Dark walls? Or keep it neutral?

Hall Make-Over

When we closed on the house at the end of June, we were busy little worker bees. All of the cosmetic projects were to be completed by the end of summer. Ha...hahaha. We were able to work really hard for a week and got the den, dining room, bedroom, and Woody's room painted. Then Brooks left for a week, and I finished painting the kitchen. Two days after he got back I took a little pregnancy test and became a zombie who falls asleep at 7:30 every night. True Life.

We still have so much to do on the inside of the house- both bathrooms are PINK and the kitchen cabinets need to be done. Sigh. But this weekend, I kicked it into high gear and got the hallway, trim, and most of the interior doors painted.

Before

The door at the end of the hall wasn't too bad. The previous owners had recently remodeled the bathrooms (including their doors.) However, the doors on the side of the hall were a nice 70s wood (with a three inch gap where the shag carpeting use to be.) The hall was recently painted, but the "neutral" color they went with had gross yellowish undertones with matching trim.

After!

Where most of the time I am a paint snob, I went with cheap paint for the hall. It is Valspar's Woodrow Wilson Putty in eggshell. I am obsessed with the color. It is the perfect greige in my book. The doors are a semi-gloss black paint (something by Behr) and the trim is Benjamin Moore White Dove that I purchased this summer.And keeping it real, if you notice the third door on the left is still brown. That is Woody's room, and I painted the doors during his nap/bedtime. Whom-whom.

True Life: You Called Too Late

Ring Ring

Me: Oh hey Mom!

Mom: Hi Lindsey. Saw your blog. I think it is not a good idea to paint your kitchen cabinets before Jammer comes.

Me: Whoops.

(Taken as I hung up the phone.)

I couldn't help it. Before I knew what was going on, I had removed the doors and was sanding away. I was able to finish all the lower cabinets yesterday. I told you my kitchen was small! The rest of this week I plan on tackling the upper cabinet doors. (Don't worry, I won't be on a ladder doing the upper cabinet bases. I am going to make Husband do that.... and I won't judge his painting.)

This picture shows that the cabinets were. And this is my final (major) project.

The Nursery: Paint

To kick off Spring Break, I gave myself the goal to paint the nursery. I bought the paint a long time ago and had honestly thought that I would have changed my mind by the time it actually came to paint.

This is what the room started out as:

Light Blue Paint. White Trim. What the majority of our house is.

The color I chose was Behr's Canvas Tan. Like I said, I picked the color a long time ago, before I knew what the bedding was going to be. My requirements being that it had to be neutral and something that didn't annoy me. (I am such a decorator.)

So we painted... and got this...

(This picture shows the wall, trim, ceiling from bottom to top)

Hello, sterile insane asylum.

It was too much...too light, too boring, too "I am asking for someone to have an explosive diaper on me" looking. I really did like the color of the walls, but I had to make a change.

On a whim, I grabbed a can of paint that I used to paint the master bathroom cabinets last year. I don't know the color's name, because I got it from the Oops Paint Section. I was going to paint all the trim to warm the room up. And with that, Husband informed me I was on my own. (Thanks for the teamwork.)

Painting trim can me tricky- especially when you just put in new carpet in December. Best and cheapest solution? Put packing tape under the trim/over the carpet. Packing tape is wider and way tougher than painting tape. It keeps the carpet down while you are painting and while it is drying. I would like to take credit for this, but I found the idea here...at 3:40 am on Sunday morning...thank you insomnia.

Also, a big thank you to the kind folks at the local Home Depot for working so hard to give me a second can of my mystery Oops Paint when I ran out of the first can.

Here is the rest of the trim after three days straight of trim painting

(Crown Molding)

Proud Painter

Closet Door

Q & A

1. Yes, I painted while pregnant. I used a mask, safe paint, opened windows, and took frequent breaks. 

2. Like I said, I don't know the name of the trim color. I call it "Tannish-Grey, Kinda Khaki" color. The walls are Canvas Tan. All Behr paint.

3. Painter's Tape is my worst enemy. With all the trim, my enemy and I got very close. However, when painting the walls, I love this thing on edges- much better than tape. 

4. Yes, the blinds are really white compared to the rest of the room. However, our neighborhood covenants require us to have white window treatments. I want to put some fixed roman shades over the blinds and keep the blinds pulled up except for sleepy time. 

5. Husband is the worst painter. Love him so much, but it is not his gift, so he was fired as a painter. He did sit with me and build furniture though. And he only locked me in the room once while he went to ride his bicycle. It was an accident...apparently.

6. Jammer has already told me that shim LOVES this color so much and never expects me to even think about repainting...especially the trim.