Nursery Mockup 3000

Have I mentioned lately that a tiny person is coming to live with us in a few months? Don't you think it's the weirdest thing EVER that two people have sexy time and then suddenly there's another person in between you, taking up all the extra space and eating all your food? Well, it doesn't actually happen all of the sudden... it's 10 (yes, 10 -- count them) months later, and I need every single day of every single month to finish all of the loose ends I have created by tearing up our house and then expecting for all the bits and pieces to fall back to earth, perfectly arranged.

I need to get a grip, y'all. Pri. Or. I. Tize. Hence today is nursery mockup day. Kaboom.

Let's revisit the most amazing room that I am obsessed with right now:

I want to make love to that folding screen and brass footed ottoman and have artsy fur babies (it would be cool if this took less than 10 months). The tone on tone is check check delicious, and the cobalt pop is perfecto. My kid friendly interpretation:

I'm sure it needs some tweaking, but the bare necessities are there. I tried to make do with what I had, so it can never be as amazing as that amazing room, but hopefully it has a similar artsy cool, comfy breezy feeling going on. Let's discuss the elements.

1) Wall color is living room neutral, double formula for some extra oomph. Sisalish carpet is what's already in there.

2) The chandelier is from Ike's old room. It used to be black, but wondering if I should repaint... suggestions?

3) Vintage dresser is already in there, but it's a triple dresser and has brass hardware. Hoping it won't take the vibe too far towards brown town.

4) Shades are plain ivory/white romans with cobalt piping. Not enough room for curtains.

5) I already have baskets as well as the moroccan butt warming stool and Senor Giraffe. He may or may not make the final cut.

6) I already have the six-pelt sheepskin rug. Hoping it will do the trick since it's light and bright but is amazingly easy to keep clean.

7) The table lamp and crib are from Ikea.

8 ) I don't have that blue painting. May have to do a poster thingy. Gold frame is a must.

9) And now we come to the chair... this is where things get tricky.

I could of course reuse this guy, who is already the perfect cobalt blue:

However, handsome rocker is A) not very comfortable and B) takes up mega space. This was ok in Ike's giant old room, but space is at a premium in the tiny new fetus nursery.

OR I could sell the rocker (I hope), and pay bucks to recover this Thayer Coggin chair:

This is the perfect chair, scale and comfortwise. It even rocks and swivels.

So, what do I do? How much will it cost to recover a small barrel chair? I can't imagine using it in its current incarnation, unless maaaaaayyyyybbe I put it into our soon to be pinkish/peachish bedroom. Honestly, it would really benefit from new fabric, though.

I just don't know if that's where I should put my money right now...

Yesterday our second car blew up and we're now at 5k for car repair costs this year alone. It's barely May.

That would have paid for a new couch, the table I want, wallpaper, paint, chair upholstery, etc.

So I must spend wisely. I also don't want to do things 50 times over because I'm not happy that I cheaped out the first time.

Tell me what to do, sage people.

Crazy Wallpaper I May Buy

First of all, thank you SO MUCH for your kind and generous well wishes on yesterday's post! While making babies is lots of fun, carrying them is... not so much fun. Thank you for filling the gaping void left by my good friends gin and tonic. Now I promised to get off my ass and play decorating party with you, so yesterday (in between American Pickers and Pawn Stars... I am obviously addicted to vicarious antiquing) I ordered a motherload of wallpaper samples.

I'm really digging this Abigail Edwards Seascape paper for the small but bright nursery, be it boy or girl:

For a boy I would paint the ceiling dark teal, for a girl I would use aubergine. White roman shades trimmed in matching cord, deco mahogany furniture, Ike's old hot air balloon chandelier (see it and the furniture in Ike's old room here), this chair reupholstered in warm charcoal (patterned?) velvet, and a few tiny persimmon accents. Bam! And that's about all that tiny room can handle. Except for a baby. (please, jeebus, let it handle the baby!)

So here is my tentative nursery girl palette.

And the boy palette.

Plus there will be lots of gold and black and flame mahogany up in that joint.

ps: we painted our front room that teal color, but darker.

pps: planning to paint the master bedroom that aubergine color... but darker.

Thoughts? Concerns?

Am I already scarring the fetus for life by plotting such things?

The scarring has to start sometime.

Ike's Baby Bachelor Pad Revealed!

Finally finally finally, despite many obstacles and a complete lack of sleep, I managed to photograph Ike's new nursery/playroom and today is the day I'm sharing it with you -- my fellow members of perpetual renovators anonymous. If you recall, we wanted to get rid of the queen sized bed in Ike's nursery, because who wants to play sleepover party with a snoring toddler in the room? Plus, Ike desperately needed some space to store his growing toy collection. Ok, I desperately needed to get the toys out of the living room, and for the most part we have succeeded. Triumph!

So, without further ado:

Hooray! We're so glad it's done, and it's become an infinitely more pleasant place to spend time.

And a view of the facing wall where we have the changing station, plus a peek at me shooting the room. I really hope I was wearing a bra that day...

Since I'm sure you're dying to know, here's the skinny on how this whole plan came together. The first item at hand was stuffing our giant queen sized mattress in Ike's closet (I can't believe it fit). Then we headed out to Ikea and bought some Expedit shelves and a kid's Kritter table and chair set, for a total cost of about $120.

I have to say the white stuff wasn't my first choice, but finding good vintage funiture for kids is HARD. And expensive. I looked everywhere for kid's furniture, but Ikea really had the best, cheapest selection. And look at all that delicious toy storage.

Now that we had a jumbled mass of mahogany and stark white furniture, the paint drama descended on me like late stage ADHD, or maybe like early onset Alzheimers, or something else really really bad... after mixing up approximately 876 samples, Sanders cut me off and chose Pratt and Lambert's Wolf. I LOVE IT. Have I mentioned lately that Sanders is a genius? He is. Go see him, or email us with your painting conundrums. He can fix them up lickety split.

After solving the paint problem, I scored the antique Heriz rug on craigslist for $160. It's old and has taken a beating, which made it perfect for a kid's room. Plus I've been dying for a Persian rug forever, since way before I wrote this post. Double plus this sucker is ginormous and triple plus it has been recently cleaned, which is HUGE deal for vintage Persian rugs, especially if you're a lazy mom like me and you love to lay on the floor. You can't just steam clean a Persian rug, and professional cleaning is crazy expensive -- it cost the previous owner $600! But if you want one for yourself (and you know you do), Naomi over at Design Manifest wrote an excellet primer on how to snag your own.

It was of the utmost importance that we spend as little as possible on this project, so every single other thing in this room is something we already had: I got the Italian hot air balloon chandelier at Round Top over a year ago and Karly told me to paint it black (that Karly is one smart lady -- smart enough to design a beautiful nursery right the first time around, as in without a giant unnecessary bed). The drummer boy painting was also a Round Top score. I've had the fabulous Klein blue velvet rocker since we moved into this house over three years ago, I scored the rocking horse at a thrift store before Christmas, the stuffed giraffe was something stupid like $3 at the thrift store, I've been toting around the vintage 50s sailboat painting over Ike's crib since May 2005 (the thrift store sticker is still on the back), the mahogany furniture is early Phyllis Morris that we bought in California years ago, and the other toys and artwork were gifts from very generous friends and family -- many of them made by hand.

I did get a few great 20x200 prints for Christmas that I put in here, including two by Jenny Odell and this one by William Wegman. Also, I traded Karly some plates for the coolest sconce in the world, which you can barely make out in the second picture. It's a hand holding a lightbulb and it makes me gigglesnort every time I switch it on.

In case all you parents out there were wondering, yes -- we do have more toys than these. There are two giant scooters parked in the closet (just for the pictures), and although we definitely reduced the amount of toys in the living room, there are still a lot of toys out in the living room. Kids like toys. Go figure.

That's it for my tour, except for the most important part:

Ike loves his new room, just like any king loves his castle. And it's a good thing, because I am not repainting it again.

At least not anytime soon.