Finishing touches to the nursery. Part 4: Final Product!

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves. (almost)
   
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer. (almost)
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom. 

SO.  I was trying to wait until the last 2 pieces for this room were finished.  But its going to be probably Christmas before they are done and I can't wait that long for two shelves.  This post has been written for months and its killing me just sitting here.  I'll write about the shelves if they are ever finished when they are finished.

While I was pregnant, I dreamed up this nursery idea based around the bedding set I had purchased.  The rainbow of colors and blocks on the wall.  Well it never came to fruition in the old house because of the hobo.  So when we moved to the new house, I knew I wanted to make it happen.

We decided when we moved in that painting her room would wait until it was warmer out, so the windows could be open to air the room out a bit.  Well, I decided that March was warm enough.  I wanted her room to be done before her birthday, and that was that.  D.Soup wasn't very happy with my decision, but he wasn't the one doing the work.  It turns out that it was a fantastic idea, because I got so warm while painting that I appreciated the cool air coming in through the window.

When we first moved in, before anything went into the nursery, I started taping.  Lower parts on the walls, door framing, some of the upper edges.  Then it just sat, and sat, and frustrated me beyond belief.  It was a good day when I got to tape the rest of the walls off and could get started painting.

Side note:  L.Soup's name is all over these pictures.  But I'm going to continue to call her L.Soup because I like it.  So there.

Before I finished taping though, we put up this super cute fan we found at Lowe's.  It can be white, or multicolored like we have here:

Finished expert taping job.

I had D.Soup help me measure height of the wall where the squares were going, and then match that distance on the wall width wise so that the squares would be... square!  He then left me to my own devices to take Little Miss somewhere and distract her.  She had not been very happy locked in the nursery with us while we were trying to get the lines taped up.

"Perfect" Square

It took me 2 (maybe 3, I can't remember) coats to get the walls covered.  All in all I'd say it took 2 hours to get the 3 walls done.  I was pretty happy with that.  Especially considering that included times where I had to take a break because L.Soup was banging on the door trying to figure out what I was doing and why I wasn't entertaining her.  Rude.

I let that dry a few days, and headed back in to do some more taping.  Because I'm impatient, in that interim some of the decorative pieces went up on the yellow walls.

Light switch matches the bed set.

Got these beauties at a huge craft show in the area

Mom and I took the coat rack, and turned it into a bow holder!  Obviously she needed it.  She's got too many even for this! The other little guy is hanging on the outside of the door on the handle.

Ridiculous

I again needed D.Soup's assistance for taping.  This time there was a little anger on both our parts, because he didn't understand what I was doing, and I didn't understand why he wouldn't just do what I asked him to.  But we got it figured out, and I got the squares all taped up.  We basically taped a straight line across the wall, then about every 2 feet I would have to tear the tape and start over, so that the corners connected.  It was never one continuous line.  I also had to incorporate vertical lines into this wall.  It sounds fairly confusing (it was) and its hard to describe.  Below are some pictures that should make more sense.  Luckily for me, I left every other square white, so I didn't have to worry about re-taping in order to paint the other squares.

This is how I figured out which color would go where.  I had a general idea in my head, but decided I didn't like it once I set the canisters that way the first time.  So I just moved them all around until I liked the way the colors looked in that order.  The space I was painting wasn't even 3 feet square, and these paint samples hold enough to do about a 4 square foot section, so I had a ton left over.  I used these same samples to paint the boxes so the colors match perfectly.

I've always had a hard time with paint seeping underneath the tape, but I think it did a fairly good job this time around.  I wanted to try using this method, but I didn't have the original color of the wall so I couldn't do it.

I worked as carefully as I could to not drip, and I did a pretty good job.  I had a few mistakes, but I also had a few places where the tape ripped the wall! That was pretty frustrating.  But those are just some minor issues that you really can't see because they are behind the crib and overall I'm so happy with how it turned out.  And like I said before, I'm not the best painter... So I was expecting some of this.

Rude.

Paint drip

Paint drip AND its source

Speckling

Drying

Once the paint was dry and the furniture was moved back, I took some animal vinyl stickers that match the bedroom set and placed them around the room.  The boxes were in here at the time, but didn't match and it was starting to annoy me.  So I fixed it.

Wall with the inspiration for all this

Purple and Gray just barely visible at the bottom

Months ago I made pennant banners, but had yet to do anything with them.  I recruited D.Soup one more time, and he begrudgingly helped me hang two of them in the corner of her room over the dresser.  I made MANY more triangles, intending to hang these all over her room.  But 1. they were too much work and I had a very small very needy infant at the time and 2. I think the two are PERFECT:

The new shelves we are making will give me space to put up a few things that I've been holding onto.  I intend to move the name blocks that I got off Etsy to one shelf, opening the dresser up for some more decorations. 

When I was still pregnant, I spotted these on Etsy.  I immediately decided I wanted to make them myself.  I used my Cricut (since then I've invested in a Silhouette Cameo, and I love it so much more than the Cricut) to cut the letters and graphics out, and glued them to a piece of 8.5x11 card stock paper.  Each page has 4 different shades of each color.

I put them in frames with just glass, so you can see the wall behind the paper.  They are the perfect piece of art to hang above L.Soup's crib.

I also saw this before she was born, and so as soon as she was here I ordered one... it looks like the "Audra" one.  It will go on the second shelf if it ever gets done which is currently in the works.  That shelf was also supposed to hold the iPod and speaker that played L.Soup's music at night time. But that ended up not happening...

I LOVED this little speaker.  I ordered it off Amazon, and wasn't really expecting much from it.  But it was awesome!  And then... It died!  I was so sad.  I didn't order another one to replace it.  Only because she doesn't seem to be dependent on the music to stay asleep anymore.  On my recommendation my sister ordered two of them, but she said her's didn't last long at all.  So I'm not quite sure what the deal is with them.  Ours lasted almost a year.

One last picture of the fan, now that you've seen the whole room finished.

I would love to paint the inside of the closet too, but at the moment I don't have the time or energy to take all of her stuff out of there and paint it, let it dry and then put it all back.  I do have some ideas for better storage in there.  But every time I'm in her room, so is she.  She's a fantastic helper.  For unpacking things.  So I never get anything accomplished.

Hope you enjoyed the tour!