KIDDING! Lots of ventilation, folks, I promise! And lots of help and breaks, too. :-)
To begin with, deciding which room to choose was a certified Pain in the Ass. Not that the baby cares, but for me to give up the somewhat spacious spare bedroom/office? Or for Adam to give up sole rights to his instrument-laden “man room”? Decisions, decisions… and sacrifices galore!
Well, the whole thing is still in semi-transition, but as we put everything together in the room we think the nursery was meant to be, the project is starting to fit together like the pieces of an unsolved jigsaw puzzle. First, we decided to put the office in together with the drums—two things you would think wouldn’t mesh, but you’d have thought wrong, haha! Adam had the great idea last night to make the drum/computer room a sort of “learning center,” as he dubbed it, for the kiddo. What a great idea, daddy! He’s already talking about setting up baby-sized instruments in there right alongside his big guy stuff! It will be fun to see the two of them banging away side-by-side. (Get the Tylenol and ear plugs ready, y’all! I’m just sayin’…) Plus, with the computer in there, we can possibly set our Sprout up with his own tiny desk and maybe some Leap learning stuff if we can fit it all in. We’ll have our iTunes library so conveniently nearby to play along to… You know, now that Adam expressed the concept in that light, I can think of a ton of great reasons to put all that stuff in the same room together. We’re figuring it out as we go, and trying to find the positives of dealing with NOT a lot of extra space. (Less to clean, hmmm—does that count?) So that’s that.
As for the nursery itself, we agreed in terms of the room being relatively gender-neutral, so to speak. After all, how many times do you want to have to redo a room, right? What if the next time, we have a girl? I personally think that girls deserve the same exposure to the same colors as little boys do, and vice versa, so I was against using either pink or blue as the primary colors. So we (I) decided on some other colors and off I went to the hardware store for some samples. I wanted a theme that a kid could grow into, so I figured jungle animals would be a good one. Bonus: it went with the colors that Adam and I are partial to anyhow throughout the rest of our house. In his defense, poor Adam wasn’t so sure about the theme to begin with, I don’t think, but the idea grew on him. Who doesn’t like funky monkeys?
So we went from a boring beige box of a boudoir to what you see in the pictures! Ta-Da! It was quite a project that took a lot of time and patience, but the return is totally worth it. My dad, my niece Michaela and I painted the bottom half of the room a deep olive green and then installed a creamy white chair rail slightly higher than you’d normally see one. The top half we left the original color, just to simplify things a little and to leave a distinct tie-in to the rest of the house. Michaela decided, 
when presented with two options of colorful quirkiness, that the circles would look the best of my two potential paint schemes. After all her hard work, she got out a little creative energy drawing animal faces within the circles! She was such a good painter for it being her first time.
To begin with, deciding which room to choose was a certified Pain in the Ass. Not that the baby cares, but for me to give up the somewhat spacious spare bedroom/office? Or for Adam to give up sole rights to his instrument-laden “man room”? Decisions, decisions… and sacrifices galore!
Well, the whole thing is still in semi-transition, but as we put everything together in the room we think the nursery was meant to be, the project is starting to fit together like the pieces of an unsolved jigsaw puzzle. First, we decided to put the office in together with the drums—two things you would think wouldn’t mesh, but you’d have thought wrong, haha! Adam had the great idea last night to make the drum/computer room a sort of “learning center,” as he dubbed it, for the kiddo. What a great idea, daddy! He’s already talking about setting up baby-sized instruments in there right alongside his big guy stuff! It will be fun to see the two of them banging away side-by-side. (Get the Tylenol and ear plugs ready, y’all! I’m just sayin’…) Plus, with the computer in there, we can possibly set our Sprout up with his own tiny desk and maybe some Leap learning stuff if we can fit it all in. We’ll have our iTunes library so conveniently nearby to play along to… You know, now that Adam expressed the concept in that light, I can think of a ton of great reasons to put all that stuff in the same room together. We’re figuring it out as we go, and trying to find the positives of dealing with NOT a lot of extra space. (Less to clean, hmmm—does that count?) So that’s that.
As for the nursery itself, we agreed in terms of the room being relatively gender-neutral, so to speak. After all, how many times do you want to have to redo a room, right? What if the next time, we have a girl? I personally think that girls deserve the same exposure to the same colors as little boys do, and vice versa, so I was against using either pink or blue as the primary colors. So we (I) decided on some other colors and off I went to the hardware store for some samples. I wanted a theme that a kid could grow into, so I figured jungle animals would be a good one. Bonus: it went with the colors that Adam and I are partial to anyhow throughout the rest of our house. In his defense, poor Adam wasn’t so sure about the theme to begin with, I don’t think, but the idea grew on him. Who doesn’t like funky monkeys?
So we went from a boring beige box of a boudoir to what you see in the pictures! Ta-Da! It was quite a project that took a lot of time and patience, but the return is totally worth it. My dad, my niece Michaela and I painted the bottom half of the room a deep olive green and then installed a creamy white chair rail slightly higher than you’d normally see one. The top half we left the original color, just to simplify things a little and to leave a distinct tie-in to the rest of the house. Michaela decided, 
when presented with two options of colorful quirkiness, that the circles would look the best of my two potential paint schemes. After all her hard work, she got out a little creative energy drawing animal faces within the circles! She was such a good painter for it being her first time. And Dad and I managed to not kill each other in the process of the chair rail. (By the way, Dad, I will never be using that damned red chalk line again. EVER, unless it’s outside. That shit was tough as nails to get out of the carpet. Who the hell told you it would vacuum right up? They lied to you! Sheesh!)
Anyway, as you can see, after many hours of detailed hand-painting of those crazy circles in four different colors, it turned out better than I ever thought it would, and I really hope the baby likes it! Oh my God, it would be a shame if he had some seriously weird aversion to all things round, wouldn’t it?! I found myself thinking as I was finishing the last touches, ‘Geez, I hope my kid doesn’t end up autistic or something and is so bothered by the minor imperfections of my circles that he can’t even stand it!’ HA! Isn’t that an awful thought?! I swear, pregnancy makes you worry about the most random, far-fetched silliness imaginable. Of course, I let the thought pass like water under the bridge and moved on to worrying about some new detail-or-other that crossed my path that day. No really… I can’t even tell you the things that manifest themselves in my imagination. And the dreams! Completely whacked out, seriously.
Anyway, as you can see, after many hours of detailed hand-painting of those crazy circles in four different colors, it turned out better than I ever thought it would, and I really hope the baby likes it! Oh my God, it would be a shame if he had some seriously weird aversion to all things round, wouldn’t it?! I found myself thinking as I was finishing the last touches, ‘Geez, I hope my kid doesn’t end up autistic or something and is so bothered by the minor imperfections of my circles that he can’t even stand it!’ HA! Isn’t that an awful thought?! I swear, pregnancy makes you worry about the most random, far-fetched silliness imaginable. Of course, I let the thought pass like water under the bridge and moved on to worrying about some new detail-or-other that crossed my path that day. No really… I can’t even tell you the things that manifest themselves in my imagination. And the dreams! Completely whacked out, seriously. 
But I digress… so far the room is perfect, and I love spending time in there already. Most of the furniture (crib and changer given to us by Mike and Jenn, thanks!) is painted and in place. I am still mulling over some different ideas for what to do with the crib in my (scatter)brained head. The frame will be black, definitely, but I might add some special green flourishes for visual interest. (I know, I know, Grandma, you think I’m crazy, but look how sharp everything else looks in black! There will be so many colors in the room eventually, you won’t even notice it.) With the room mostly done, I have about four more months to sort out the rest of the details. HOLY SHIT! ONLY four more months! Where did the time go? I need to get crackin’! Buh-bye now! 
(By the way, for small projects like the circles, the little jars of paint they sell at Ace hardware are just perfect. They call them Paint Pods or something, and they come in a ton of colors, so that’s what I used.)
Room is adorable! I love the animal touches on the walls. You're little 'beast' will love them too. I still think some 'blue' would be nice though...he is a BOY afterall. :P
ReplyDeleteOk...I'll settle for some blue clothes then.
Yeah...4 months will seem like an eternity until you start blogging more, then it will seem like it flew by!
Love ya,
Mom