nursery phase I: painting the top

The nursery has been the monkey on my back for the last three weeks (when we found out the baby was an Ethan rather than a Hannah). I had the paint, and much of the decor. We still need to finish the top, possibly add a second coat, buy the beadboard wallpaper and chair rail, as well, but this is a darn good start!

I used tape as a rough marker to remind us not to
paint the entire wall!

My friend Lindsey came to help me get started, and I was/am really thankful because Austin is gone and I had zero motivation to paint, but every motivation to decorate! I started by laying some plastic liner around the edges of the room to protect the carpet (after moving the furniture and clothes toward the middle of the room) and then I taped off the trim and ceiling. I should have put more liner down, because I am, evidently, the messiest painter on the face of the earth. (We're replacing the carpet anyway, right?) Then, I marked how low we need to paint. I don't want to paint any more than I have to!

It would be SO easy to skip the top edge and add crown
moulding instead, don't you think? ;)



Valspar Ultra
Low Odor
No VOC

We decided on navy blue (update: we used Filoli Dark Iris 4009-5. This is one of their historic preservation colors) because neither of us are fans of "typical" baby rooms. We had a lot of ideas for this room, but Austin was really stuck on something ocean related, so we settled on the vintage nautical look. This may seem like a lot of forethought for a baby's room, but he is our first baby, and we don't want to have to "un-baby" the room in two years. The paint we used was Valspar Ultra (my new favorite). It's what we've used all over the other parts of our house. It covers fairly well, but if you did an entire room, I definitely recommend two gallons. They're around $27 here at Lowe's in Houston.

Removable Beadboard Wallapaper | Lowe's

We've also decided to use wallpaper that will be easy to remove, because wallpaper in this house will be a HUGE headache. We want the one from Lowe's because it is significantly cheaper than Home Depot's - we're always price-comparing between the two.

We do plan on reusing this bedroom for our next baby, so since beadboard is a classic look, we think we'll be safe with that. I'm now wondering what I can do with navy blue for a girl's room since I don't want to repaint this, and I really hope we have a girl next... you know, in 4 years ;)

We're also thinking of moving our dining room table to the kitchen/breakfast area, and opening up the dining/kitchen to the living room. The dining room would then be a play room - a perfect place to play so the baby's toys stay out of the main living area, but in sight all the time. His room is so small going to have so much furniture in it that he won't have room for toys anyway. I finally decided on the layout the other day, too... maybe.

Mentally rotate this counter-clockwise 90 degrees -
for some reason my computer shows it that way but it
uploads wrong!

That's it for now! We leave for Tennessee tonight at 9 (it's going to be a late night!) and we can't wait to see all our friends in Clarksville tomorrow and Sunday! I'm hoping to have this completely done in the next month....

love,