Eric and I are excited to post the first of hopefully many blogs about house projects that make our house more of our home. Our first project took place at the end of February when my sister flew up for a few days and my mom and aunt Susan came down to help us paint and decorate Josiah's room. My sister had already made some fun things for his walls and I wanted to be able to put them up on nice fresh paint.
Before we get too far into the process though, lets step backwards two years and take a look at his room right after Eric's Nana passed away.
This room was Eric's uncle's room as a kid and things had accumulated over time. Lots of credit goes to Eric's mom, aunt and uncle for working hard the past two years to get the rooms of this house cleaned out.
When we moved in, we got the room situated for Josiah and hung a blanket up over the window to keep the cold air and light out so he would sleep better. Although the blanket served it's purpose, it also made it seem like a small dark room. The following pictures show you what the room looked like for the past 6 months.
The door at the end of his crib goes into the closet in the master bedroom. One of our ideas was to close up this doorway because it seemed unnecessary.
I also wanted to get a new light fixture because this one gives off kind of a yellowy light and belongs at the top of a lamp post.
Eric's uncle wanted to take this little two-level shelf with him so we also had to come up with a solution for where to keep the wipes and lotions, etc. Fortunately, my sister is very handy when it comes to carpentry so she was a great resource for us.
We started off by choosing a color theme of green with accents of blue and brown (very baby boyish) and I remembered seeing some friends' nurseries with a chair rail on the wall. It turns out a chair rail is very easy to put up (I have no idea about these things) so we also decided on a chair rail with a darker green on the bottom of the wall and lighter green on the top. We also repainted the ceiling which made a huge difference in lightening up the room.
Eric photo-shopped some color ideas by using pictures of the actual room and then changing the colors on the walls. We decided on a white chair rail to divide the two different shades of green and then it was off to Home Depot to get supplies and paint.
The first step was to close up the doorway at the end of Josiah's crib. My aunt Susan helped Eric do that on a Saturday before my sister got here so it would be ready to paint by the time she arrived.
First there was a hole in the wall.
Now there is a not a hole.
When my family arrived, we got to work right away taping and painting the room. My mom is good at this stuff so she taped and then did the edging.
I did the big roller brushing where this is less room for error ha ha.
My sister was in charge of the chair rail.
And baby-sitting.
The chair rail makes me SO happy! I felt like I could stand in the room and stare at it for an hour being happy about how it turned out.
I also got a new light fixture for $25 at Home Depot and LOVE the way it lights up the room!
.
We took two days to paint and then washed the floor of the nursery before peeling the tape off and getting ready to put things back together. My sister was able to hang up the letters that she made over Josiah's crib and we put everything else back in it's place. I loved my aunt Susan's idea of putting his dresser in his closet so we could have more space out in his room. This meant a last minute shelf construction by my sister and she was literally putting on the last coat of paint on the shelf as she was headed out the door to catch her plane to North Carolina.
Here is the room Josiah sleeps in now. We added some Pooh decals as a finishing touch and in a few weeks we will also be adding some Roman shades that will block the light and keep it warm without needing to hang a blanket over the windows.
Many thanks go to Eric's mom, aunt and uncle for cleaning out the room for us and to my hubby, sister, mom and aunt for all their hard work in helping to make this new room a fun happy place for Josiah.
Also thanks to Kelsey, Amy, and Bethany who also contributed items to this room. See if you girls can pick out your contributions. :-)
Stay tuned for upcoming house projects that will hopefully turn out just as nice!
Here is a little promo for using Photoshop to help you with your painting ideas. Here is the original photo we were using for planning.
Here is what we came up with for an idea with Photoshop. Painted with digital paint.
Here is the final room painted for real!
