Hot Mess: Kids' Rooms

The kids' room aren't terrible in terms of being eyesores, but they could be more functional and less cluttered, for sure. 

This is Leepo's room. See how his trundle bed pulls out to butt into a side table? I hope to move a lot of his toys downstairs into the basement, which will allow me to move his lounging area right next to those windows.Where his chair and lamp are now I will later stack a couple of Paloozas (which we got for super cheap at the Land of Nod outlet) after painting them in a complementary color. The Paloozas will take the place of a bedside table.

Can you tell we really like the Land of Nod*? IKEA, too? This here is the girl's room. She doesn't sleep here yet and we actually have a guest "bed" (it's just a mattress) sitting on the floor in place of her future twin bed. The plan is to move the mattress downstairs into the new guest room and do all sorts of rearranging in here! The bookcase is going to go into the room currently being used as a nursery. (See below.) The chalkboard, activity table, and chairs are slotted for a kids' area in the basement.  I would love, love, love to get my hands on a Jenny Lind bed for her. -I keep scouring Craigslist for a good deal. Already got the sheet sets here. Finally, I have plans to refinish a beautiful cabinet I scored at a resale store many moons ago. You can spot it below, as well.

OK, you see this closet in the nursery? I'm going to remove the doors, stick the aforementioned bookcase in here, and insert some sort of seating to the side of it to create a reading nook like the one below. 

Thrifty Decor Chick

Excuse the horrendous red blinds for a moment.  Something is out of proportion with this chest o' drawers being positioned here.

Won't it look better in this corner with better lighting? I think so. And once Girly moves on to her big pink room, its drawers will be used for books and supplies. Yep, the plan is to convert the nursery room into a study.

This is our two-care garage acting like a single-car garage. Up front you'll find the storage Paloozas that need a new paint job. Behind the large brass etagere is the cabinet that needs to be refinished and ultimately go into the pink room. With the weather being nice and cooperative, and my OCD tendencies  being pushed to the limits, I know these things need to get taken care of much sooner than later.

*We are frequent flyers at their outlet store. It makes me so happy to be in Chicagoland.

Fear and Loathing in the Nursery

I think I've explained this before. I'm terrified of what's going on, design-wise, in the nursery.

Due to the fact that I went very neutral everywhere else in the house, I felt it important to go big and bold with color in the baby's room. Also, people will make you feel like a bad parent if you don't make things light and bright in there: "You're not going to paint the walls gray in there are you? What, you wanna raise Hitler?"

OK, no one actually said that, but they might as well have.

So I committed myself to bright colors with this rug, shown from Land of Nod. (Moving forward, you should assume that if it's from Land of Nod, it's actually from their factory store.)

Then I got overwhelmed by it.

In an effort to make progress, I decided to hunt for a purple pouf like the one shown in the image above. As luck would have it, the outlet carried it at a discount! Score.

I really don't want to start getting new furniture for the room since Beanie is speeding through childhood (though I would looove a modern white crib, I admit it), so I have to make that navy blue Poang chair relate. This is where a throw pillow could save the day, right?

To review, we have a navy blue chair next to a deep purple pouf, with the background walls a green gray. There's also a hot mess of color with what could be considered a white/cream foundation.

Let's see what we got in terms of potentials.

Escape

by Amy Sia

BLOSSOMS - PURPLE

by Ylenia Pizzetti

Bear // Calm

by Amy Hamilton

Any of these work? (Why must this be so hard?)

Super fancing renderings here: Option A //  Option B // Option C

The Middle-Crazy of the Nursery Continues

I went with that half-wall idea. And trust me, when you live in an older home with not-quite-flat walls and floors, this was no picnic to accomplish.

The upper wall is in Benjamin Moore's White Dove, and the lower is Gray Owl. This has been a color combo suggested over and over again on Pinterest, but funny enough I came to it on my own after comparing samples and later finding out their names. I suppose subconsciously I was influenced.

Been putting up artwork to break up the lines and that has been a lot of fun so far. We're going for a carefree eclectic look in here, so I basically grab whatever's on hand and use 3M command strips to stick it up there. I'm starting to run low on supplies, so that means I get to do some Etsy art shopping. I'm also loving a lot of what I'm seeing at Society6, so maybe I'll just have to grab something there, too. The prices are way affordable compared to stuff I've seen elsewhere. 

I still think the room looks disjointed and basically a hot mess overall, but I keep telling myself it will all come together in the end. -Which is hard to do because I don't exactly have a vision of that, I just try things left and right and tell myself that the rug you see there can draw it all together. . . or it will be my undoing.

Half Rad

I saw this on, where else?, Pinterest and my interest was piqued. I think I might go for this half-wall paint look in the nursery.

Source

Since I already know what rug is going in there (got it on super sale at The Land of Nod outlet, SCORE), I tried matching up some paint samples last night.

You'd think matching a neutral with a neutral would be easy, but sadly this was not the case. All of those things Maria Killam preaches teaches came into play: Hue, intensity, clean/dirty, undertones. It's like I understood why most paint sample weren't working, but I wasn't clever enough to come up with a solution. The sample shown above is my best match so far. Still not sure, though. The tricky thing here is I think if I choose something too saturated then the room will look heavy and choppy. Must proceed with caution, or be prepared to abandon this idea and go all the way with color.

A Peachy Keen Girl's Room

I think I'm going to switch it up for the girl's room in the next house. Instead of gray-lavender walls, I'll be choosing peach, and hope to incorporate it with the following colors.

Source

Source

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Goodbye First Home: Beanie's Nursery

I've posted other pics of the nursery before. It's a small, intimate space that brings me much joy. I think it's pretty girly. That nursing chair is the best, it can fit me and two little kids on each side. The chair is, of course, coming with us to the next house. The sad thing is, my daughter's memory of this place will not follow along. 

Nursery Update

In the middle of the craziness that has been my (new) life, I did manage to finish up Beanie's nursery. I am terribly behind in snatching pictures of all the progress, though. Here's a nice teaser photo instead to get us up and running again.

"Come into my office, we need to talk."

That funkadelic chair was a resale-shop find that we recently had reupholstered. It was previously covered in greenish orange muppet fur, I do not exaggerate. Bonus: It swivels. We had to wait for the final product a LONG time, but I can see now that the guy we hired is a perfectionist. I LOVE this chair now. The magenta pillow is from Chiasso, as is the side table. I scored that graphic giraffe pillow from Home Goods. Book shelves are from IKEA. The artwork is a framed picture that I got from Pinterest and to the right of that is Beanie's grandfather's Phi Beta Kappa certificate from the 1960s (no pressure kid!). The curtains are the same ones I showed earlier, which I ordered from ModCloth.

Though you can't tell from my daughter's expression, her nursery really is an oasis that makes us all happy and calm. I would like to add that many people thought I couldn't pull off 'girly,' and perhaps I didn't achieve the classic definition of that, but I think I did a pretty good job (if I may say so myself) and I can't wait to share the rest!

Mixin' It Up: Acrylic

Because I know all two of you who read this blog were losing sleep over the side table decision, I'm putting you out of your misery.

We went with the Chiasso table, which is even cheaper when you pick it up from the store. I like that it will be easy to clean, won't tip over, and will allow me to keep some fun reading material handy while I breastfeed.

U-turn table

I thought it would compliment the clear handles I recently added to baby's chest o' drawers/changing table. I found them at Anthro. (I find their hardware section totally addicting.)

Deco Block Knob

Eek! Things are coming together. Just gotta get this baby out. . ,

Side Table for the Nursery

I need a little table next to where I intend to nurse so that I can have a cup of water within reach. For some reason, side tables are not easy to come by and seem to be more expensive than you'd expect. Here's what I'm eyeing:

World Market's Green Cube

$129.99

IKEA's outdoor tray table, Sandskar

$34.99

Chiasso's U-turn Table

$88

Overstock's Freemont Table

$61.19

And what I consider to be THE classic side table:
West Elm's Martini

$129

I have a few coupons to play with, so we'll see what comes of that.

Nursery Scheme?

Is this crazy?

We're about to find out. The pink pattern on the right is the crib skirt currently. I ordered the curtains on the left and am itching to find out if this is going to look fabulous or tragic. The nesting bird in me needs some closure here.

I have to say I really envy people who know how to mix patterns. It is such an art form! Let me know when someone comes up with a surefire equation, an algorithm for how to do this right the first time.

For now, I'm studying the following:

• BHG
• Real Simple

Update: Nicole Balch of Making it Lovely hooked it up with this post! AT outline here.