nursery reveal

Here is what it looked like before, right after we moved in:

And this was from when I was trying out a totally different theme of 50's vintage cowboy:

This is what we ended up with:

After realizing that that the cowboy theme wasn't working for me (despite the cute stuff I already had on hand, thanks to my mother) we decided to paint.  And by 'we' I mean that I decided that I was going to have David paint the room.

We brought home about 30 paint swatches and bought six samples of paint until we found the right combo.  It's amazing how many shades of gray there are.  We finally found that the taupe-based shades worked best in the room.  Then of course I decided that we should have two colors for an accent wall, since we liked the dark gray but knew that the entire room couldn't be that shade.

Funny side note, Josh came in when we were testing the samples and he said in a very serious tone "ooohhh, you color on the walls."  He was pretty sure we were going to be in trouble.

Here are the walls after we were done.  David did a great job.  We then had to wait about two months for the paint smell to finally dissipate (and yes, we used the low VOC environmentally friendly paint).  I never would have thought it would take that long, and that was with having the window constantly open.  That's a good thing to remember for the next time we paint a room.

Next step was putting up the crown moulding.  Luckily my father was able to come in and tackle the project with David.  This and the paint represented most of where our money went for the re-do.

We're very pleased with how the moulding turned out, but we totally see why they charge so much money to install this stuff.  It was not the easiest project, despite how simple it seems.

Now that all the handyman projects were done, the ball was now in my court to get decorating.  The daybed was actually my old bed from my parents' house.  We've had the crib and changing table since Josh was born.  The rocking chair and white cabinet are from Ikea, along with the textiles.

This chair and the owl were my decorating inspiration.  I won some fabric in a drawing and with the scraps of what my mother had, she made me the pennants, which were also part of my original inspiration.

The other thing my mother provided me with was the pillow menagerie that now lives on the day bed.

Yes, that is a pink frilly pillow in my son's nursery.  I am totally outnumbered here, so that's my own special bit of feminine in this house full of boys.

Thanks to Pinterest, I had lots of ideas on how I wanted to decorate.  This is pretty much a direct copy of what I found online.  The two smaller frames are what I had on hand that I painted white.  The shelf, owl, bottle and square frame came from a cheap second hand store and we painted them all.  The art I found by doing a google image search for free printable nursery art.  We mounted the owl picture on some scrapbook paper I had.

The next DYI project was the shelf.  It had been gifted to me, but never used.  So I painted the inside of another thrift store bottle and found a few things laying around to put on it.  Both Josh and Ben love dinosaurs right now, so the little triceratops is a nod to Sam's big brothers.

The pictures in the frame are also of Josh and Ben, now and as babies.  It's amazing how much they looked alike and it will be fun to see how our new little guy compares. (the frame looks a little funny here because it's actually a shadow box)

This last one just shows what the other side of the room looks like.  I eventually want to get rid of the awful mini-blinds (for aesthetic and practical reasons, because they're partially broken and won't go up and down smoothly or tilt without having to perform feats of creativity to get the hardware to work.)

All the baby clothes have been washed, diapers are on the changing table and now all I have to do is wait around for baby boy's arrival.  Thanks to my awesomely creative husband for all his hard work bringing my constantly-changing vision to life, and thanks to my parents for their help in making the room look fantastic!  Come anytime you want, little Samuel.  We're ready.