Fantasy Forest Theme Nursery

Baby Obi's room is all ready for her arrival.

Come on in!

Custom Slip-covered Graham Glider by West Elm
Tree & Bird Curtains from IKEA

Refinished heirloom dresser.
Paint color: Blue Whisper

Crib from Target
Wall decals from Etsy

Painted nightstand dresser - Craiglist $25 + paint supplies
Commissioned artwork

On right: "Lagoon Love" by Illustrator Brittney Lee @britsketch

Wall hanger rack with Owls from IKEA

Baby Obi's closet! #somanydresses

Baby Obi has her own en suite!
(It's literally two steps from the diaper changing station... can't get more convenient than this in a poo disaster, right?)

Fantasy Forest Nursery Design

I'm expecting a baby this summer! So my latest project is working on putting together a nursery for my baby girl.

I decided to go gender-neutral with the overall design and all the major purchases because this is our first child, and who knows, there may be a boy using the same nursery in the future. I am calling this design "Fantasy Forest".

• Graham Glider by West Elm
• (DIY) Handmade slipcover, fabric from JoAnn's, 45" home decor cotton
• IKEA EXPEDIT bookshelf, white
• IKEA EIVOR curtains
• IKEA hanging toy storage
• Simmons Kids Slumber Time Elite Crib
• (DIY) Refinished French Provincial Dresser, purchased off of Craiglist
• (DIY) Refinished White Dresser
• Valspar wall paint, "Blue Whisper"

I already had a few items I wanted to work into the design: the crib, my white dresser (for a changing table), the yellow night stand, and the white tree curtains.

The "BEFORE" picture of the mostly-empty bedroom, from several angles.

My design and color inspiration began with these Mary Blair pictures, and I decided I wanted to go for a fantasy-style forest, not something "realistic":

I came up with this design concept for painting the walls...

Then at Emerald City Comicon I found this amazing illustration by Brittney Lee and had to buy a print for the nursery. It coordinates perfectly!


"Lagoon Love" by Brittney Lee @britsketch

To solidify my color palette, I found a picture of a nursery that used the green, blue, yellow, and turquoise colors very effectively in a gender-neutral design.

I love how the yellows and pinks pop against the light blue wall. Who says light blue has to be a boy color? So I ran with it. Isn't it pretty? The room is so much brighter now.

The room is painted!
My dad did most of the work because he knows what he is doing. I helped!

The room is still a work in progress, I've got three months to go!



Finally, I can move in some furniture...

Want to know my entire design process in a nutshell (sort of)? Here you go...

Ava's Advice on How to Go About Designing a Nursery:

1. Create a "Nursery" board on Pinterest. Do a search for "nursery" and start pinning everything you like. Eventually you will be able to spot trends on themes and colors that really speak to you. Create 1-3 new boards for the themes that most appeal to you and move those pins to those new boards. The two themes that spoke to me were woodland/forest and Star Wars (and other nerdy nurseries).
2. Add inspiration images to your themed nursery boards (keep generic "nursery" pins in your "Nursery" board). These inspiration images could be color palettes, scenic photography, artwork, or merchandise, anything that fits your theme and potential colors.
3. Decide on general theme and color palette. Expect that your theme and colors may get more refined as you purchase items, so this may need to be flexible.
4. Purchase/pick out the big items (crib, changing table/dresser, glider/rocker chair). An unexpected sale on an amazing crib may throw your color palette off, so if you can get the big items early, this will help you tweak your design as needed. Don't know where to start? Create a "Nursery Furniture" board on Pinterest and start pinning pictures (including the price and linking back to the item). When you find one you like or plan to purchase, move that pin to your themed board to see the image alongside your inspiration images.
5. Copy images of your furniture and decor items from your Pinterest board to Microsoft OneNote* and organize your furniture around the room layout. If you have a picture of your room, add it to help you visualize the space. Use the Online Room Planner by Urban Barn to figure out your furniture layout (don't forget to copy a picture of your layout into OneNote as well).
   * OneNote is great for organizing text and images all in one place. You can copy and paste from your browser, and can resize and drag things around easily. I created several OneNote pages, including design images copied from Pinterest (to help solidify the color scheme), a visual layout (above), color scheme details with paint color names, and even a list of furniture items with measurements.
6. Pick out your paint color and paint the room! This color should be influenced by your inspiration images and should coordinate with the furniture and decor you have picked out already.
7. Lastly, move your furniture in, set up the crib, and pick out the rest of your decorations. Curtains, crib sheets, storage baskets, a pouf, toys, and other small coordinating items can be added to your Baby Registry.

You can find my Pinterest Board here: Fantasy Forest

Reupholstered French Chairs

My first venture into upholstery and furniture refinishing continues!

When I saw these two dining chairs I thought they were adorable and would be an excellent project. I love the "bones" of these chairs, the turned-wood legs and arms and the nice design on the back of the chair.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep these white or paint them a bold color so I decided to find a fabric I liked first, then let the fabric dictate the paint choice.

The fabric I found was Waverly Modern Essentials "Solar Flare". I purchased this fabric from JoAnn's Fabrics. One yard was enough to cover both seats, and of course I waited for the 50% sale!

Waverly Modern Essentials "Solar Flare"

The "before" picture! (care of a Craigslist seller)

I found the chairs on Craigslist, $35 for the pair. They had a pale blue toile fabric that was stained and the paint job was a little sloppy and beat-up. There were only the two chairs, not a full set of six, but the chairs are so interesting that I think they make cute accent chairs, even if they aren't used for dining chairs. They could be an office chair or extra living room chair, or a new chair for my craft room.

The first thing I did was unscrew the seat, sand down the frames, dab on primer and then add a few fresh coats of white satin spray paint.

1 coat of primer, 2-4 coats of spray paint, 2 coats of Wipe-On Poly

The previous painter had clearly only sprayed the chair from the top down and missed a lot of spots on the legs so the first couple of coats I sprayed on while the chairs were upside-down.

When I removed the blue toile fabric I actually discovered the seats had been red velvet before that and even before the red velvet they had been this ugly brown cotton weave fabric.

I left the first two layers of fabric on since they had been nailed on; the blue toile had been stapled on so it was easy to remove with a flat-head screwdriver and needle-nose pliers.

I covered the red velvet with a layer of cotton quilting batting and then laid my fun fabric on top of the batting. Lacking a staple gun, I used upholstery nails to take the fabric in place.

The extra batting made the seat a little thicker so I ended up having to buy longer screws to attach the seats back in place.

The "after" picture!

Refinished French Provincial Nightstand

I purchased this nightstand from a Craigslister for $25. It was old and a little worse for wear, but I knew it would make a great project! I found a lot of pictures of similar French Provincial-style furniture which had been painted, remember this Inspiration blog post?

Can you believe I didn't take a before picture? Oh well. This thing used to painted a yellowish white with gold detailing, very similar to this desk, and the hardware was unpainted.

Here are the products I used. "High Hiding Primer" - two coats, much sanding. Olympic Satin paint "Rise and Shine" color - four coats. Topped it off with one coat of MINIWAX Wipe-On Poly. The can says you should use two coats, by one coat seemed to cover well. I would have added a second coat if I'd missed any spots. The Krylon white (gloss) spray paint was used on the hardware, in several coats.

I love how it turned out, so cheery and pretty!

I even lined the drawers with a pretty black and white floral contact paper. Adorable! Now the dresser is in my guest room, which I haven't done much with yet. But a bold pop of color is always a great start!

Now that I think of it... this nightstand could also be really cute in the livingroom/dining area to hold table linens or games.

Inspiration - Repainting Old Furniture

This transformation has given me the confidence to tackle my own furniture-repainting project!

This painter started with a lovely old French white-and-gold style desk:

The before picture (Source: http://nattybydesign.blogspot.com/2011/04/going-green.html)

Last year I bought a French-style three-drawer nightstand on Craiglist that was white with gold details just like the picture above. After completing my Dresser Facelift project I did not refinish the night stand and instead just moved it into a spare bedroom as-is, but the white paint on the night stand looks old and yellowed, which seems out-of-place in a new, modern bedroom.

But check out what Natty-By-Design did to that old desk! 

The after picture (Source: http://nattybydesign.blogspot.com/2011/04/going-green.html)

See the whole post here: http://nattybydesign.blogspot.com/2011/04/going-green.html

Check out her shop: http://nattybydesign.blogspot.com/p/my-shop.html

Wow. Hey, that carpet looks like the same carpet in my house.

Look, she even had the guts to repaint the hardware white.

This is a gorgeous jade green color that would really work well with Chinese decor.

I think any good, rich color could work! for this technique. What about purple, red, or a rich yellow?

Natty also painted a couple of matching nightstands pink with white hardware instead of continuing with the bold green color. Again, this pink would also work well with Chinese decor, but I love how it's paired here with the blue and white in this photo.

On futher search, I found more painted French-style furniture!

http://curbly.com/modhomeecteacher/posts/9412-how-to-repaint-the-painted-dresser
Check out this link for a How-To on repainting dressers! Excellent.

This adorable Tiffany-blue dresser comes with a really great How-To on repainting painted furniture. I think the black hardware looks great with the light blue; white hardware wouldn't contrast as much.

 

dresser by Poppyseed Living
Photo by buoy bird ~ http://buoybird.com/2010/09/25/born-free/

I'm sure I'll have a follow-up post in the future to share how I transform my own French-style night stand. What color will I choose? Hmmm... I'm up to suggestions!

Easter Cupcakes

This is the story of my weekend adventure, culminating in the eventual consumption of cupcakes.

It all started when I went grocery shopping and saw the cake mix on sale at Safeway. I purchased one box of white cake mix and a little tub of white buttercream frosting. (This is the part where you figure out this blog post is not going to be an instructional recipe on how to make cupcakes.)

When I got home that evening, I mixed up the cake mix, recalling from previous experience that I should mix the liquids together first, then slowly stir in the cake mix and only reach for the blender once every bit of powder has been mixed in with liquids so as not to end up with powder all over the kitchen. Shortly thereafter, my cupcakes were in the oven.

I removed them from the oven, let them cool, then covered them in plastic wrap and then proceeded to play Lord of the Rings Online, achieving level 20 on my Warden named Eivalyn. I figured I could wait until Saturday to frost the cupcakes.

On Saturday I managed to score a nice new dining set on Craiglist for an unbelievably low price which could be equivalent to 95% off retail. Craigslist is the way to go if you know a nice guy with a truck.

How does this fit in with the cupcake story? Well, obviously I need somewhere to put my cupcakes and a nice new dining table is the perfect place to sit down and do some frosting.

I found a "Neon" food coloring set, which was perfect for Easter colors.

I split the buttercream frosting into a few bowls and put different colors in each. I had a lot of pale blue candy sprinkles left from baby shower cupcakes so I put those on top!

The End!

Dresser Facelift

This dresser has been in my family a very long time.

At one time it was painted a lovely turquoise color. I believe it was changed to purple for my sister's room about 25 years ago and my cousins never changed the color when they used it.

The "BEFORE" picture.

I believe it was my grandma's, then my mom's, my sister's, my cousins'... clothes have been stored in, babies have been changed on top of it... and now I have it!

But it could use a little sprucing up...

The "AFTER" picture.

I painted it a different shade of white to match the trim in my house, and also replaced the hardware. Gorgeous!