Baby Room: Before & After

Guess I missed WIWW again... oops! Maybe next week? :)

Super excited to get new bedroom carpet installed today, even if it means our house is now littered with bedroom furniture and crap. Over the last few months, we've finally gotten around to fixing up our room, so I'll show it off after the carpet's in... and every thing's back in order... maybe a week or two? :)

In the mean time, the baby room is really starting to come together. Which is a good thing considering we only have 4 weeks to go, if that!

So incase you missed the "true" before, you can see it here. But here are a few of the clean befores:

And the afters:

You can read more about hanging the moulding here and the not-so-great paint experience here. It was hard to find curtains in the right length without having to special order, but we finally found these brown ones on sale at Pier 1. Will be perfect for blocking out the afternoon sun!

LOVE this curtain rod from Lowe's. J thought it was a little girlie at first, but he likes it now that it's up.

J also hung the new ceiling fan (Lowe's again... I think we're paying their electric bill...) in place of the crappy gold flushmount.

And also hung a new light fixture over the sink. Guess where we got it?

Still need to paint the bathroom (probably just a brighter shade of white), but it's starting to look cute. And most of the accessories for the bathroom? Baby shower gifts from Target!

So the Potterybarn towels I ordered don't exactly match, but I still like them. Maybe I'll just stick them back for when baby's older...

Still loving the crib my parents bought us and the Target bedding (geez, maybe we're paying their electric bill, too!).

Added the little sheep rug...

And the vinyl tree from Babies r' Us.

We flanked each side of the crib with storage cubes from IKEA and storage boxes from various places for books and toys.

Still need to get the dresser upstairs, which we'll also use as the changing table, and I need to finish his letters and pillows. Also have some other adorable baby shower goodies to put out, too. Overall, I think it's pretty darn cute, and it's fun to finally see it come together!

Linking up to these fabulous parties:

Creative Bloggers Party & Hop @ Homemaker on a Dime

Before & After Party @ Thrifty Decor Chick

Remodelabolic's Anonymous @ Remodelaholic

Friday Favs Party @ Nap Time Crafters

DIY Project Parade @ DIY Show Off

When Paint Goes Wrong

...terribly wrong. I'm talking attack you like a glowing Smurf wrong. It was supposed to be lucky #17. Yep, that's right, I tested 17 different colors on the wall. And #17? Had me swooning. I had already decided I wanted a brownish tan on the bottom, and loved Glidden's Olivewood. And I thought #17 was the perfect, airy blue to go with it. I mean it was called, after all, Mount Airy.

Boy, was I wrong.

J took Wednesday off to paint the baby room while I was at work. He called a little after lunch to say the brown looked awesome, but he wasn't sure about the blue. I told him to stop and wait until I got home and looked at it. Then he sent me a picture and said it was drying fine -- and from the picture, it did look fine. So he kept going.

And when I got home at 5? I was greeted with a nervous husband. I asked him what's wrong. "It's glowing," he said. I didn't have to go far upstairs before I could see what he meant. It was literally glowing, like a house for Smurfs. Or Thomas the Train. And I burst out laughing. Laughing. Not exactly the reaction J was hoping for. I felt bad, considering he'd spent his whole day off painting, but it was better than crying, right?

We went back and forth on what to do. I hated the idea of him repainting, but not sure I could live with it. J wasn't in the mood to repaint, but frustrated he didn't just stop. What was amazing was that the color was perfect with the light on. Gorgeous.

But with the light off? There aren't words. And pictures hardly capture the "glow"...

How could one paint look so different?! I guess it wouldn't have been that bad if we hadn't done the ceiling, too. And, the darker it got outside, the darker the room became, even with the light on. I told J I'd do whatever he wanted, and I think he knew I really wanted to do it over. So, we grabbed some dinner and headed to Lowe's to pick out new paint.

We each grabbed sample chips we liked -- me grabbing blues, J grabbing greens (at this point he decided that maybe I didn't like blue... I started to think so myself...), and narrowed it down to two greens and two blues. We got the samples home and on the wall, and I quickly decided on Valspar's Cool Sheets, a light blue with a hint of mint. J was hesitant, but wanted to get it done that night. So, we went back to Lowe's and got the Valspar with Primer in eggshell, and it thankfully covered that blue mess.

Poor J stayed up until 2 a.m. repainting that room. I didn't get a good look at it until the next day, and I looooved it. J was even glad he repainted. And that it was all done before his fishing tournament Thursday night. {Priorities, right?}

I'm super happy with how it all turned out, despite the double money spent in paint. {Note to self: when J says use a certain brand, use a certain brand. The cheap stuff? Glows.}

Excited to finally starting pulling together all the final -- and fun! -- touches over the next few weeks. Maybe we'll actually get done before baby! ;)

Linking up to these fabulous parties:

DIY Project Parade @ The DIY Show Off

Remodelaholic's Anonymous @ Remodelaholic

Saturday Nite Special @ Funky Junk Interiors

Sunday Showcase Party @ Under the Table & Dreaming

Mould It, Baby!

We're finally making progress with the baby room -- seems like the ball's really rolling now and every thing's starting to fall into place. Or, at least, I have a picture in my mind of what it'll {hopefully} look like when it's done!

J got the moulding up this week. I know, I know, some people spell it "molding" -- but that always brings to mind that green fuzzy stuff I find on muffins when I leave them out too long. Or the veggies left in the fridge for months... I digress...

I originally wanted to do a board & batten treatment like this or this, but after much debating with the hubs (and many more grey hairs), we decided on just a simple moulding hung around the room. Kind of like a chair rail, only wider and higher. I think it's actually a wide baseboard turned upside down.

So, after a few trips to Lowe's for supplies and new "toys" J insisted he needed, the actual process of putting up the moulding went fairly quick. And our game room? Became the workshop.

Once we decided on a spot above the light switch, J used a level to mark a line all the way around the room. He then went back with a stud finder and marked all the studs.

He used a little wall adhesive and a nail gun to hang the moulding. I pretended to help by holding the pieces while he nailed.

Sorry the pictures are so crappy -- our camera takes better outdoor photos than inside. But, at least it's water proof so there's no chance of me dropping it into a river this time. Anyway, this room has a Jack-n-Jill bathroom, so when it came to the opening around the sink area, J angled the edges so that it would lay flat against the wall.

The only corner that was a pain was where we have one rounded corner where the wall juts out. It only took him a couple of tries to get it cut right -- I think it went easier than either of us expected!

After the nails were in, J went around all the edges with paintable caulk and filled in the nail holes.

Once that dried, he went over everything with primer, and we had the baseboard moulding color-matched. I figure it's not too big of a deal if the colors aren't exact. And, I even managed to finally pick a paint color out of this color sample mess!

Seriously, I think I have a paint-picking problem. But I love the colors we chose -- J should have the room painted in the next couple of days, so I'll share it this week!

Linking up to these fabulous parties:

Mad Skills Monday @ Support Blog for Mom's of BOYS!

DIY Project Parade @ The DIY Show Off

From Bedroom to Retreat - Slowly!

After we moved in, the only things we changed in our master bedroom were the door knobs and the light fixture. So last fall, while J was out of town, I decided it was time to finally paint. I didn't think to take a true "before" picture until I'd started moving furniture --

For the paint, I color matched a sample I had and loved it. But, when I went to Lowe's at the last minute before they closed, they couldn't figure out the ratio and ended up color-matching the color match. Do you know where this is going?

Yeah, so at midnight when I started painting, I got half a wall done before bursting into tears. The color I wanted was more of a brownish-grey. The one I got? Definitely all grey and no brown. Now, though, I like it. It's actually quite calming in the mornings when the sun shines through. And it looks great with just about any color.

I just love how kitty likes to be in every picture. Anyway, the real reason for this post? I finally found a spot for my wrought iron beauty.

Yeah, I think we hung it a tad high. Oops! Because it's soo heavy, we had to use anchors ... which equals big holes ... which means it's staying put for awhile. But I do love how the swirls compliment the swirls in this pillow I found at Pier 1.

I'm hoping to find curtains and new lamps soon, maybe a new bed frame. And maybe convince J to hang some crown molding? Definitely! ;)

Linking to the fabulous parties:

Feature Yourself Friday @ Fingerprints on the Fridge

Show & Tell Friday @ My Romantic Home

Saturday Night Special @ Funky Junk Interiors