E's Room Finale {Beware: long rambles!}

Finally, a post all about E's room makeover. It was the first room that we've painted... and even though there are more rooms that I want to paint, that just hasn't happened yet. 

A little at a time. A little at a time :)

Anyways, the main reason that we needed to paint E's room was because it was very much a boy's room before. Those dinosaurs may have only been on one wall, but oy! I believe they are painted with chalkboard paint, and if you look closely enough, you can still see their outlines after being painted, but there's enough stuff on the wall now, that you would probably never notice.

I chose the almost-white-cream-color because I love the idea of white walls, but I know that with the cherry wood trim and cabinets in this house, I doubt I could ever pull it off. This cream is the next best thing! I cannot wait to use it in other rooms to brighten things up! (the main color in the house, which included two walls in E's room, is a much more yellowish/tannish/beige... I want to get rid of it!).

You can see above that the walls used to be a dark brown below the bright green. I chose a aqua-ish blue. Much to my dismay, there are three bedrooms in this house that have chair rails. Now, I love the idea of chair rails, but they only put it on two of the walls in those three bedrooms. If I'm going to do chair rails, they'll go on all of the walls or none of the walls. So.... now we have the joy of trying to match detail and color. I wish the previous owner would have left some information on their trim purchases!!

But enough about paint... you remember the wall art from a previous post... 

... and that I hung a quilt on a wall... and painted my old bed...

... and I painted a rummage sale shelf.

Well, here is E's new desk/vanity! It used to be mine when I was little... and it used to my mom's before that. When I was little Mom painted it white with yellow tops and blue horse stencils. When I was in middle school, I repainted them white with some blue/pink/purple sponge details on the top. It was time for another refresher! The main color is a shade away from the walls, and the pink is a fun pop! I first found the spray paint for the handles and then matched the paint for the top and bottom to that. (Same story with the dresser below).

 The chair came from a thrift store. It was a dollar. I originally passed on it, but then I told my mom about it, and she went and bought it for me, ha! I painted it black when I had it in my old apartment. But, to make it fit perfectly in E's room, I painted it a shade away from the blue paint on the bottom half of the walls.

 Here's the dresser, and you can see where we need to find the chair rails still! The mirror was a wedding present that I spray painted the same as the bed. 

Overall, I love E's room!!! Now, it's time to start thinking of Gus-Gus's room... only a few months left!

E's {Future} New Bed

I love "stealing" from my parents :) 

Although E is still not quite ready for the twin bed, I figured it just made sense to move my old twin bed at the same time that we moved everything else to our new house last summer. If it's any consolation, at least I left my parents the twin bed frame and mattress that I used in college!

Before setting this one up, however, I needed to spruce it up!

Mom originally took this bed out of an outbuilding at my grandmother's farm (a hired man had used it at one time, I think) when I first needed a twin bed. At that time it was red... then Mom painted it white... then I repainted it white and changed the flowery details. This time... I was going for a more deeper, striking look! (but first, I needed to use a little steal wool to smooth it all down).

Here's the color I chose! I LOVE IT!

I covered up a wall in the garage, opened the garage doors and went to work. Of course, I was limited to nap times and after bedtimes, but it was still a pretty quick project.

As you can see, we decided to set it up in E's room, even though she's still sleeping in the crib. I didn't want to move it around too many times (even with just setting it up once, I still have to go and touch up a few chips!), plus I figured this allows E to get used to it before she actually sleeps in it. 

I love how the purple looks next to the pink and blues in her room... the next post is a review of everything in her room, along with a few notes about her dresser and desk! I finished the quilt last spring, and never imagined that it would be used for E's bed. I plan on making a new one eventually that is longer and wider, but for now, I think this one works fine!

We may not hang out on it every day, but it's safe to say that E loves her future bed :) 

Hopefully she still loves it when it's time to say bye-bye to her crib!

A Shelf for Ev

I always love a good before-and-after project! This started as a rummage/vintage/garage sale find. I only bought it this past summer, but I cannot remember how much I paid for it! After a little work, it became a nice shelf for my daughter's newly-decorated bedroom.

Even before buying a house, I always loved the idea of putting a piece of wood on some decorative brackets to make an easy shelf. Well, here was a shelf that already had the decorative brackets, so I didn't even think twice before picking this up at the sale!

First, it was time to sand. 

Then, I used some above-ground-pool supports (that have since been sold to a scrap metal place) to make a nice spray-painting station in the back yard. 

The only black spray paint that we had on hand was some super-tough-on-rust stuff that my husband previously used on our SUV hitch. All I cared about that it was black :)

After spray painting the brackets, I primed and painted. The final paint color is one shade away from the wall color. It was the same paint that I used for her dresser and desk (upcoming post).

I topped it off with my hexi-scrap table topper and a few special frames and pictures of E. 

Project complete :)

A Young One's Wall Art {E's Room}

I decided that Evelyn needed more on her walls, so I browsed Pinterest for some wall art ideas. Ever since I learned how to create my own using this tutorial, I have felt more confident in making more (here was my first project).

 

There are a lot of great ideas on Pinterest, so I kind of picked and choosed before I went to Photoshop and created a print-out that was the exact same size as the wood board I found out in the wood pile that came with our house. 

The piece had been done for several weeks (and annoying my husband for just lying on our kitchen island), before we put up the mirror. I couldn't hang the art before I knew how tall the mirror would be. But now, the mirror is up, the art is up and my husband doesn't have to be annoyed by my projects lying all over the kitchen... well, until I come up with another crafty project :)

Quilt on the Wall {E's Room}

 Evelyn's room is the only room that we have truly made our own... paint and all. 

Eventually you'll get all the details, but for now, I'll show you how I hung a quilt that doesn't have a quilt sleeve.

 

 This is the quilt that my mother-in-law made for Evelyn when she was born. After we painted her room in our new house, I realized how well the quilt matches the color scheme! However, there was the slight problem. This quilt wasn't intended to go on the wall, so Kari didn't sew on a quilt sleeve. I wasn't about to possibly ruin her beautiful work by added a sleeve after the fact, so I came up with a plan.

 

 I spent a long time searching home improvement stores for fancy nails (because really, what kind of mom wants to go traipsing around mutliple stores with a young toddler searching for something that might not be in stock?!). I finally found these on the Lowes website. When they arrived, I realized they weren't exactly what I had in mind, but they do work perfectly! 

I put two regular nails into the wall and tied on a double thickness of a thin twine I had on hand. After attaching the quilt with regular clothespins and seeing that my vision was in fact going to work, I finally nailed in the huge, decorative nails with a rubber mallet.

 

Doesn't it look so great about Evelyn's future bed?? I may eventually paint the clothespins or at least decorate with washi tape, but for now, I'm in love :)