Before and After

Just a quick before and after of the newly painted dresser for the nursery. Yay!

Before, Ikea yellow dresser

After, with a few coats of "Houseplant Green" by Sherwin Williams

LOVE how it turned out, it looks great with the bedding. The hubs did a great job...especially since he was busy working on our patio extension in between sanding/ panting. For now I am keeping the drawer pulls as they are, until something jumps out at me to replace them with. I will post more pictures as we start assembling the room, but for now I just had to share this.

I am working on one of my other projects in an effort to wrap everything up (you never know when baby boy is going to make his debut). The next project on my list is to finish the mobile...can't wait to share pictures and hoping that it looks like I am imagining that it is going to look ( : 23 days until my official due date....but who's counting?!?!

The Inspiration

Technically I am not finished with the nursery, or several of my projects, but after talking to my sister about Liv's room, I kinda got side tracked and make an inspiration board for her room instead. Don't get me wrong, the nursery is coming together....slowly. The dresser is painted as is the bookshelf, which was the biggie project for the room. Still left for me to tackle is the mobile (currently in progress!), the half finished lamp shade, making a pillow and getting things put up on the wall. I'd say that is pretty darn close, wouldn't you?

I showed a scary picture of Olivia's bedding literally thrown on the bed so that I could capture the wall color in the nursery, but this is a better idea of my future vision. (with a shout out to my sis for her creative ideas that are always outside of the box that my ideas come from!)



The furniture shown is what we currently have (or something similar to this.) No, the nightstand will not be painted pink, it will also be white (this was the only picture I could find on the design board website.) The orange is a sample color of the paint I would love to use to accent the furniture, possibly with a stencil (shown at the top in the green and white) or knobs/ pulls. The yellow and white chevron fabric is what I would like to use for or to add to plain drapery panels. The "a" and "z" bookends are something that I think my sister and I can mimic on the cheap, and the bed that I will be using is currently a black iron bed (from non other than my sis...are you seeing a pattern here?) that will get a nice fresh coat of white paint as well. Her bedding is SOOO bright, so I am trying to decide how to tone it down a bit, possibly some white on the bed to offset all of that color! I love the idea of the green floor pillows hanging around too, and I know she would LOVE them! The only furniture that I will be on the hunt for is a chair to pull up to the desk. I haven't decided what I am looking for just yet, just hoping something jumps out at me ( : I cannot wait to get started on this project and I am hoping that maybe, just maybe Olivia will be more inclined to sleep in a big girl bed when we get her room looking so cute!

In baby news, well, there is no news, other than only 3 weeks left! Yessssss! I will try to post pictures of the dresser and bookshelf as soon as I am able to get some pictures taken.

"Purry"

We finally have a name for our ginormous yellow lab (stuffed of course)...it's Perry. He is named after Olivias dog (the cartoon pig). Liv has to sleep with him every night (he takes up half of her crib) and she will frequently carry him around the house with her. Yesterday I decided Perry was overdue for a bath, so I had Olivia help me "give him a bath". Apparently she didn't realize that his bath takes exactly 46 minutes (I know because we had to keep checking on him.) She got a little anxious and, as you can see, wanted to wait it out right in front of the washing machine.

She talked him through the entire wash cycle..."It's okay Purry". Ha!

Nursery Progress

Well, It's nothing Earth shattering, but to me we are making strides in the right direction. We painted the nursery walls Network Gray by SW and I LOVE this color. It's masculine without being too dark and it will be a great neutral palette (or at least I hope so.) Greg is outside painting the dresser and bookshelf right now and I am so excited to see the room start to come together (FINALLY!). I have about 4 1/2 weeks until my official due date, but I so sweetly keep reminding the hubs that this baby could come earlier than this date. All I have left to buy is the fun stuff, wall decor, a chair/ ottoman and some storage bins/ baskets.

This is the paint swatch of the greens I was looking at for the dresser next to the crib bedding. No the crib has not been assembled. Yes, it is cozy in the garage and STILL IN THE BOX! Baby steps, and pun intended.
I decided on the color Houseplant (also by SW) for the dresser. (It's the swatch on the bottom left). It looks darker here than it is, but I think it will look really cute! The bedding is Dwell Studio "Owls" and yes, it cost a small fortune, however it was the ONLY bedding that I liked, so I splurged. I also was fortunate to be shopping with a friend who had a 20% off of one item coupon at Buy Buy Baby, so it was really a win-win. When showing the bedding to the hubs, I made sure to emphasize the 20% off savings, as opposed to the total sales price.

This is a halfway decent picture of the wall color. Did I mention that I love it? This wild and crazy bedding will be Olivia's, if we can ever convince her to sleep in her big girl bed. Her room will be my next project and I am looking forward to it...especially since I can make hers girly ( : The bedding is thrown together rather quickly here, but it really is cute in person. I scored it online at anthropologie.com several months ago on sale. I knew I wanted something that wasn't pink, wasn't pastel, and could grow with Olivia for several years. When I saw this, I knew it was a keeper! The white grommet panels are from Tarjay...$24.99 for the set of two. My only regret is not buying the 84" length so that I could hang the curtain rod (also from Tarjay) at the ceiling...oh well.

Finally, the dresser that currently sits in the nursery, collecting odd items that were used in the painting of this room. It is currently undergoing a paint transformation to "Houseplant Green". I like that it has straight lines, is simple, goes with my "modern" theme and is something that we currently own...no buying new furniture! In fact, the only thing that I am buying for the nursery is a new Modern style crib (pictures to follow) and eventually an upholstered chair/ ottoman (purchase to follow!)

Risky Business

I don't know why, but this is so funny to me. Liv LOVES her guitar (pronounced "Ge-tar"...she is so a Texan). She also HATES to wear pants. We are making great strides to get her to wear them occasionally. We are also trying to avoid the "Ge-tar" jammies that she loves to wear so much...as in all day. Oh my! Anyway, today I caught her jammin' plus the guitar, minus the pants and it looked like the scene from Risky Business. You be the judge.

Also, I am changing and re-organizing my house from top to bottom nesting. Here are a few changes that I made in the living room. It was bland and boring, and now it is a little less of both. I am so not a fan of our living room furniture. Yes, it is comfortable and practical with small children, but it is too large and dark for this room. When we bought the set, two houses ago, it fit much better and was in a much larger, lighter room. Not the case in this living room. I hope to find a better replacement, something not so matchy matchy, but until then I am going to try to work around these pieces.

I recently bought these curtain panels at IKEA for around $19.99 for TWO panels. They aren't lined, or hemmed for that matter, but for that price, I couldn't pass them up! The curtain rods were a Target purchase and the rug was a sister purchase. Gotta love a sister who buys things, then weeks later changes her design scheme and wants to get rid of things ( : I probably won't spend money on anything else, just accessories/ pillows/ etc. to try to add some life to my room.

I am working on things to add to my tables, maybe paint the end table, who knows. Also just realized that I (Greg) will need to move my large sofa down a smidge to center under my pictures. Baby steps.

Christmas Morning

Christmas was pretty long and drawn out since Olivia didn't want to open more than one or two gifts at a time. I think we finally wrapped up the gift opening somewhere around 2 in the afternoon. At one point she was looking for her "telescope" (which is actually a kaleidoscope) and Greg tried to tell her it was inside one of the wrapped presents...who does that? She definately loved everything she got, but she would want to check out each gift in detail before she could move on to anything else. Here are a few pictures....it got a little exhausting if I am being honest.

The train table that Santa brought

Hello Kitty

I guess she likes it ( :


Putting together a new puzzle...her favorite thing to do these days!

Longhorn outfit from Grandma June...there are no words for this gift!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Can you believe it is 2011? Lot's of changes going on in our house right now as we prepare for baby boys arrival. Nursery is almost painted, pictures to come!