Luke's Mini Mod Nursery Tour

What what? It's tour time!

I'm sure you had nothing better to do than refresh your browser 800 times a day until I posted the latest tour, right? Or, if you're like me, you barely have time to eat and sitting down at the computer for three minutes is a major luxury.

Thanks for spending that three minutes on me. Let me try to make it worth your while.

Much like the rest of our house, this room was a hot mess when we moved in. Tobacco green carpet that reeked of tobacco, hideous paint, a weird booby light fixture that hung long and low from the faux wood fan... it pretty much had it all.

For a while it was Ben's office, but then I got knocked up and the baby had to sleep somewhere besides our bedroom, duh.

Except, guess who's never ever ever in his entire seven months of life slept here?

Thanks a bundle, pyloric stenosis and insane food allergies. I hated sleeping, anyway.

But it's kind of ok because that means I can keep my sock monkey shrine unbesmirched by snot, and also the hot air balloon sheets that I am unnaturally fond of are still clean months after their debut.

Plus I doubt very much that Luke will appreciate the brass overload that's going on in here as much as I do.

Brassssssssss.

But I'm betting he will totally love the vintage Dufy screenprint I snagged for him at a thrift shop.

He's probably not my kid if he doesn't.

That was a joke since I vividly recall squeezing him out of my lady center.

Some things stick with you.

Things like this guy.

Speaking of sticky important things, do you remember The Great Rug Debate of 2012?

Solved.

I hemmed and hawed over a handful of 8x10 rugs until I stumbled upon the West Elm Souk at the outlets for $70.

Score one for poverty.

It's cute, but it's also a mess. I do not recommend it for high traffic areas unless you like to hoard leaves.

Detailz.

I have to say, I love designing kid rooms. There are so many fun details, like this totally crazy chair I had sitting around forever. New upholstery made him a mega comfy scene stealer.

Almost as cute as the dude who lives here. Or sort of lives here. Or will live here someday.

I hope.

Thanks for hanging out for Luke's grand tour! Sorry the writing is so sleepy, but I am whipped. I'm so tired I'm going to lazily paste the source list from a previous sneak peek I posted.

Paint color is Benjamin Moore Frappe, courtesy of the amazing Sanders.

Chair is vintage Milo Baughman that I had recovered in Togo fabric. This was the big splurge for this room — about $450 total.

Curtains are super cheap Ikea Ritva onto which my sweet MIL spent two nights sewing ribbon trim… LOVE THEM! Four panels cost $65 plus time. Can’t beat that.

Mongolian fur pillow came from the West Elm outlet for $5.

Light fixture came from Ebay.

Vintage Raoul Dufy screenprint came from Room Service for $28. I cut a new mat for it.

Bookshelf is Ikea Expedit.

Sheepskin rug is old news.

Everything else is thrifted. I really tried to reuse as much stuff as possible to keep the cost down.

And that's it!

I hate to be a ho, but if you want to see another tour please please please let me know. Because in my house, the menu of options goes something like dinner OR shower.  So I'm hungry and dirty. But I wrote a post.

Yay, me!

Until next week.

[all images copyright ERIN WILLIAMSON]

Sneaky Peak

I'm frantically editing pictures for tomorrow's nursery tour, but this guy just wanted to stop by and say hello:

See you dudes tomorrow!

Chrysalis

I have emerged from the shadowy depths of baby hibernation a butterfly transformed by your kind comments. Thank you for reading all about my room tour last week, and double triple googleplex thank you for letting me know you'd like to see more of them. I'm working up a tour of the nursery for next week, so please do tune in for that there goodness.

Today is not so much goodness. Both kids have/had crazy high fevers and I've gotten 4-5 hours of broken sleep every night for a week. Right about now I'd like to punch winter in the face. Since winter is an intangible being with no face to punch, let's talk kitchens for a minute or two.

You knew it would come to this, right?

So, Ben and I tried to strip a door in the hopes we might turn our dated glossy honey oak cabinets into something with this vibe:

And the door laughed in our faces. I'm guessing the finish applied to our cabinets is some kind of super space age polymerized diamond hard coating designed to resist grease and terrorists, because it is NOT COMING OFF. At least not like it does on tv, when you apply the stripping compound and 72 layers of paint slough off in one fell swoop, revealing clean and sparkly wooden goodness beneath.

First we tried denatured alcohol, then we tried lacquer thinner. Then we glopped on the citristrip and left it on for 30 minutes. Then we glopped on more citristrip and left it on overnight. Then in desperation we tried acetone. Basically, we dumped every chemical we could find on that door and only a fraction of the finish was removed.

And so, paint it is.

I'm pretty sad and keep mooning over this kind of stuff:

But maybe for the next house.

I did consider trying to copy this look by refacing our cabinets, but I think it's just not financially feasible. We may as well gut the kitchen and rebuild at that point.

Sadly, we are not rich. We're real people on a stupid real budget that makes me real mad. But at least we have a house and food and cars, so it's time to get over it and move on. Maybe to this?

But with light uppers, yes?

I'm still pricing out replacing our doors with paint grade shaker style doors. What we spend on new doors miiiigggght save us a few bucks in paint labor. Maybe. I'm not sure if it's going to be worth it or not.

While my kitchen plans continue to incubate, go check out the power of paint over at Styled Thing:

Not too shabby, Miss Julie.

See you dudes next week for the next tour.

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