Day 22

My Little MVP

Well things have been at a standstill as far as physical work to do in the room. This week I will be buying the last few things I need in the room such as blinds, a light fixture, chaning table and a mattress so I will have more work to do there. In the meantime I've been "shopping" (aka pinning things on Pintrest) for decorations to bring the room together. The design concept is a sports theme Which D picked based off the bedding set "My little MVP" by Nojo.

We got the bedding set used on craigslist for just $50 which is a great savings since it's like $180 new. The bumper and crib skirt are in perfect condition and the quilt is pretty good. The only problem is that after it got washed some of the appliques pulled away from the stitching which I read in the reviews has happened to others. Im not really worried about it, the set has a rustic feel about it anyway so I think it looks fine. I am going to buy some fabric tape to keep it from pulling up and fraying any more.

One in a set of 4 pieces of art from Etsy

Since this set is still current I have all the extra accessories on my registry like the valances, the hamper, and the light but I've found a lot of other decorations for the room that I would love to put in there. The problem is they are on Etsy so I can't just throw them on my babies r us registry and so far I don't have the funds to buy them myself. I think I am going to try to find some stuff around the house that I can sell on craigslist for starters and raise some money that way and I am going to try to put together a universal registry if I can find one I like working with. Amazon's is okay but it doesn't really categorize things well and doesn't always transfer pictures. I wish I could just use Pintrest as a registry everything I like is on there lol but not everyone has an account.

Blocks from Etsy

So anyway that's what I've been up to and where I am at. Hopefully I will make some progress this week with the blinds and light at least.










Links
My Pintrest Page
My BabiesRUs Registry
Etsy

Day 16

Before

What do you get when you combine a scraper, pine-sol, elbow grease, and 4 hours on hands and knees? A CLEAN floor! Hooray!!

After 

Yes it was painful at times and yes it was hard work and yes it took most of my day and no it's not perfect, but it was worth it. It looks so much better and besides the crib it's the one thing I've done in there that I am completely happy with. Maybe I'm neurotic and nobody else would care (clearly no one else did before me) but having nice floors is just important to me.

                   

Before

So how did I do it? Obviously not the professional way but it worked. Since the floors are already old and damaged I wasn't too worried about bringing up the finish a little bit, but clearly it would not have been a good idea to strip the whole floor so the first round of battle was waged against the big globs. You might think the globs would be the hardest but actually they are the easiest because I can get the edge of your scraper under them and just pop them off, no solvent required. So I took all of those up. Next it was the smaller and more spread out splotches. They don't all have as defined an edge so I had to scrape a little harder and a couple times I had to put some pine-sol on a rag and hold it over the spot for a minute to loosen it. Now all of this should equal a major improvement. However, if   you think about it those dont really draw your eye,  not like those big ole smears.

After

You know what I mean where someone tracked
paint with their barefeet or sat down with some on their butt and especially those spots where they noticed they spilled and cared just enough to do a crappy job wiping it up. Now it's full blown war. These lovely smears are snug against the grain of the wood scraping is only going to lead to scratching and you can scrub with a cloth as much as you want these babies ain't budging. So I pour a small amount  of pine-sol directly on the smear and spread it out to coat the area evenly. I let it sit a few minutes and then attack with a stiff bristle cleaning brush followed by the scraper for any stubborn spots then wipe up with a rag. All in all it's not that difficult of a process as in anyone who's willing to put in a little effort can do it. Just keep in mind there are probably better ways to do this if the integrity of your floor finish is very important to you but if you are careful this method doesn't really hurt an already less than perfect floor.

Day 15

Finished

I finally got back in the room today and put on the second coat. It looks pretty good but it was not an easy room to paint, the walls are in really bad shape and of course I'm limited by finances so I cant really do everything I want.

EEEW

One thing I still have a problem with is where the walls meet the ceiling, it's in terrible shape and the paint is still messy even after taping it, and using an edger. It really needs a crown molding but that's not happening so I hope that once there is more in the room it wont be so noticeable. It's okay at a distance but up close, yuck. I also dont like that all the trim is white but it has a ton of paint on it and the white is a gloss so to do it right I would need to sand it down and I just don't have the time, energy, or resources to do that, so it stays white and again I hope that when all is said and done it won't stand out as much.



Tomorrow will start the biggest and hardest task which is to get all the old paint up off the floors. Yay.

Day 5

Working hard 

One of the challenges with an old house is that the walls aren't flat and there's a lot of dents, cracks, nicks, and holes which makes painting very tricky, particularly around the ceiling. So that was my challenge today and I'm not going to lie, it was a little frustrating. This is definitely a paint job that needs two coats. It's to be expected even with a "one coat" paint though as Im going to a much darker color and it has red in it.

You can see the uneven paint 

However, I don't like doing two I always feel like I'm just putting too much paint on the wall and there must already be like 8 colors on them haha.    
In fact, I know from places where it was chipping that there is definitely at least four. White, pink, green, and now brown. Oh well you do what you have to do. For now I'm going to let the paint set up for a few days as we are traveling to my parents house. It will give me a good break from the fumes, and a chance to get in painting mode again because I don't think I would have the energy to go right back to it again tomorrow.

One coat down, one to go. 

Seeing the whole room painted, I am glad I changed my color choice. This one is even still a little pink at times, but the lighting makes all the difference. I think it's going to come together very nicely especially once we start adding in the splashes of color like curtains and bedding and art. We have a long way to go before we are ready for that though.

Day 4

Yesterday I spent the day making Stampin Up cards for our church ministry caring crafts so the room was on the back burner.






But today I got the paint! In the end I did change my mind as I predicted and I ended up moving over one swatch to Sands of Time. It's a little less red than sensational sand and I decided that would be a better choice to balance everything out. I was really excited and as soon as I got home I started painting around all the trim with my edger. I was a little disappointed that my edger wasn't getting as close as I wanted it to so Ill have to go back in with a very small brush and touch it up later, but the paint went on beautifully.

I only had time to paint around the windows and doors before it got dark but it was a good start.
Tomorrow I will work around the ceiling and baseboards but I can only work in the morning so I doubt I will get to fill in the walls until Sunday afternoon. I can't wait to see how the color dried and how it looks in full daylight.

Day 2

How many browns are out there? 

Today I probably won't be doing much work because there's not much I can do until I get some supplies this weekend. I did however already spend the morning choosing a paint color. I put them all up on the wall near the crib and eliminated the palettes one by one. In person the first 4 choices on the left clearly pulled green and did not go well with the crib. I then placed the remaining 3 right on the crib and was able to eliminate one more. The last two were hard, I moved them all over the room and studied them in every light at every angle and finally narrowed my choice down to 4 colors. I gave it a break and when I came back I kept gravitating toward one. Now I know me and I could easily keep agonizing over this choice for days and chances are I might still change my mind but for now it is made up. The walls will be painted Sherwin Williams 6094 Sensational Sand. I have a coupon that I think I will use to buy a sample just to make sure though. Who knew it could be so hard to commit to a paint color?  At least I know what paint I like and that is Sherwin Williams SuperPaint. Last year I was painting a room and I did a lot of research on what paint I wanted to use before deciding on SW and I was so glad I did. The difference between a good paint and a cheap paint is huge! Superpaint went on so nicely, the color was even, and it covered with one coat. Even though it is a little more expensive, they have frequent sales and you can sign up for a free savings program. The customer service is always good and they even provide the services of a decorator who will come to your house for free to help you design your room and pick your colors. I will never go back I am a customer for life.

Links
Sherwin Williams
SuperPaint

Day 1

D putting the crib together

Well day one started off most interestingly as the nesting bug apparently hit D while I was trying to clear out the room from it's previous life as a guest room. He decided that since he has always hated the ceiling fan stating his complaints as "too low, ugly, and white" he would just take it down and be done with it. This was fairly easily accomplished however it has left the room without a light and now I can only work in there durring daylight hours and we have to shop for a new fixture. The good news was we still had a lot of daylight left so we finished clearing, and cleaning and left for Walmart to pick up our crib. We ordered the Graco Charleston in classic cherry. After looking at cribs in person at Burlington we found this one to be a good fit for our style and for me as I am only 5ft tall and this is a shorter style. It was $159 plus tax. We got site to store shipping so it would be free and it's arrival would be guaranteed. It was an easy process although it does take up to 10 days for the order to come in. The box was pretty beat up and it just barely fit in our van so I will admit I was a little nervous. Once we got it home and upstairs we had a few minutes of figuring out what we were really supposed to be doing and what went where, but it went together easily once we got situated and Im very happy with it. The color is nice, there were no flaws, and it feels very sturdy.


Links
Walmart: Graco Charleston

Introduction

I decided to start a blog to chronicle the creation of our nursery because I'm always looking for inspiration when it comes to decorating and because I really enjoy decorating and want to be able to share the process with friends and family as well.

For anyone looking for inspiration I will be documenting all the processes and products we use as well as my thoughts about them. I will provide relevant links at the bottom of each entry.

Our House 
We currently live in a house owned by the church my husband serves. It is an American foursquare built sometime around 1898 I believe. We have lived here a year and a half and we expect to be here at least another year and a half. As the house has always belonged to the church I can't even begin to guess how many families have lived here in the past 100 years. I do know that in the last 30 years there have been 8 families and at least a few babies were born durring their family's time here. I think it is amazing to be a part of that much history. Unfortunately this history has taken a toll on the house and there is only so much I can do to repair it, although if I could I would love to restore the whole thing. I will be doing my best to add to the beauty and character of the house, repair what is within my power, and employ a style that will hopefully appeal to future families. Im not a professional by any means I just love houses and putting together a style that captures the character of our family and the house.

Links
American Foursquare