We have been wanting to start a blog for a while (I actually set this one up almost a year ago…just never posted anything…) and as we are starting to prepare for the birth of our first son, now seemed a good time! The purpose of this blog is mostly for us to just catalog what is going on in our lives, and will hopefully help keep out-of-town relatives more closely involved…with pictures (aka Mom Lowe and Nana;)!
Well, we starting actually setting up what will be, Lord willing, Caleb’s nursery this week! I think a “before” picture is really necessary:
Could that room be less “boy”? I think it is the exact color of Pepto-Bismol…I know the previous owner was a little girl but still – it was a little too pink.
We are really excited about creating this room for our little boy! We want it to be very “boy” and also a room that doesn’t just look like a nursery – something he can grow into…so basically no ducks or lambs. So, we went with simple blue and white. Mister picked the color and I have to say he did a really great job – historically we (more I actually) are horrible at picking paint colors. I like to blame it on our lovely “orange peel” (I think that’s what its called?) textured walls – for some reason the color does NOT look near the same as it does on a paint chip! Anyway, I really didn’t want to go through the fiasco of paint sample after paint sample up on the walls, and when Mister brought home a chip called “Blue Lava” and said he liked it, I had just gotten home from my third night shift in a row and didn’t really care to question – turned out his instincts were just rightJ There isn’t a lot of natural light in the nursery so it looks more navy than it actually is – just what we wanted!
The reason only half the wall is painted is because we are going to tackle “board and batten” on the bottom! We’ve been wanting to try this type of moulding for a long time, and really thought it would look fun in a nursery…and then our wonderful parents left us a Lowes giftcard last month and we knew just what to use it forJ I have to admit I was a more than a little nervous to try this – even though all the blogs said it was easy, the last time we did woodwork (beadboard in the bathroom) it turned out OK but was kind of a fiasco. But…Mister convinced me and it turned out he was right – it was not that hard at all and a lot of fun:
We used pre-primed MDF board – a lot cheaper than real wood but plenty durable for our purposes. We started by measuring the walls and spacing where we thought we would be putting the battens before we even went to the store, so that the nice Lowes people could cut it to the exact right height for us! We (Mister) used a simple miter box and hand saw for the few cuts we did have to make ourselves. We put one long piece as a baseboard – yep, right on top of our old baseboard. I know this is totally taboo to serious home decorators, but we did NOT want to mess with tearing out the old baseboard, and actually like how it looks – like one of those super expensive chunky baseboards! Then we went through the whole room and marked the studs with a simple stud-finder, because we wanted to space our battens so that as many as possible were right on studs. Then we measured. And leveled. and measured. and leveled. and measured again just to make sure:
Dad told us that we should let Maya in the nursery as much as possible – the more she’s exposed to it, especially as its changing, the less likely she will be jealous of Caleb when he’s born…or choose his room as her extension of the backyard…she just curls up and watches as we’re hammering – totally clueless.
Next we hammered up the top piece—it braced the few battens that were not on studs between the top and bottom boards.
Then we chose to add a sort of second level – later I want to add hooks at random points for decoration and also for hanging things like little boy PJs and backpack somedayJ
This was the hardest part I think! Just making sure it was level...and stayed level as we hammered --- we used an extra long board to to brace each piece on the bottom while we put it up
The final piece was a smaller (1 inch I think?) piece on top of that as a simple shelf. This we actually used Liquid Nails for because it would be almost impossible to nail it in from the top. We also added a tiny corner moulding that we actually had left over from the bathroom project last year to “finish” the shelf:
Then we chose to add a sort of second level – later I want to add hooks at random points for decoration and also for hanging things like little boy PJs and backpack somedayJ
This was the hardest part I think! Just making sure it was level...and stayed level as we hammered --- we used an extra long board to to brace each piece on the bottom while we put it up
The final piece was a smaller (1 inch I think?) piece on top of that as a simple shelf. This we actually used Liquid Nails for because it would be almost impossible to nail it in from the top. We also added a tiny corner moulding that we actually had left over from the bathroom project last year to “finish” the shelf:
We plan on resting picture frames and books on this little shelf around the room!
We’re not quite done – still have to fill all those little gaps and nail spots with paintable calk and add a coat of white paint…hopefully tomorrow!
ADDENDUM:
Our crib came today! Our wonderful parents ordered it last week and it just got here today so we had to put it up:) We think it looks great with the white and blue:
Ok and now we really want to finish the room...and really want to meet little Caleb James!!!
