Monday, August 1, 2011

baby boy room reveal

We finally finished the room for the new baby! Notice I didn't say "nursery." Does anyone else get a creepy, Flowers in the Attic vibe from that word?



I digress. The space is small (8 x 10 feet) and so was our budget. We had to tackle some basics - adding heat (the room was unheated), moving an electrical outlet, adding a wall light switch (again...old house), fixing the plaster in some areas, etc. This work, plus the twin bed we bought for June, ate up some serious cash.

Based on our budget, we worked with a mix of things we already had and some new stuff.

Already Had
crib
curtain fabric (Amy Butler honeycomb in green)
cherry wood rocking chair

New Items
rocker cushions
dresser/changing table
art and wall decor

We bounced around a few design ideas but my husband is the design skeptic. Nothing too nautical or soft or modern or glam (i.e. no baby blue zebra print curtains). Very picky for a man who wanted to name our son Geronimo. Nick envisioned a "tough, bold, 70's room." This was his inspiration.

source

In college we owned a cherry red Subaru brat so this go-kart tugs at our heart strings. But dirt brown and 70's orange? No thanks. Okay, how can we make this work and still use the Amy Butler fabric?

Then Nick found this image online and wanted to replicate the red, orange and yellow stripes about midway up the accent wall. "Whatever you think is best, dear," I said, doing my best Betty Draper inpression, while suppressing my design dictator personality.


Turns out...no like. Too circus-y. Nick thought it looked like a Burger King circa 1985. Bold, bright colors are great but this was just wrong. And no, I didn't take any pictures of the disaster. Imagine a fast food joint and you'll get the picture.

Plan B - use a more subdued color for the stripes (*cough*...my original idea). But that meant we had to re-prime, re-paint, re-tape, and then re-stripe the wall. Oh and re-mud and sand the wall because we could see the raised outline of the stripes through the first coat of primer.

In the end, we extended the horizontal stripes from floor to ceiling (see tutorial here), I finished the curtain, and Nick hung a new closet door and room door. Again, my hero - he had to cut, prime, paint, fit with hardware, and hang the doors. Added all the fixings and we were done!





Here's the rundown on sources...

Paint: walls are Navajo White from Olympic at Lowes. A great low-VOC paint we used in June's room. The stripes are a custom match, also in Olympic, of Benjamin Moore's Woodlawn Blue.

Crib: Graco Tuscon, a model which is discontinued. It's a fixed side crib though, so it wasn't recalled.

Dresser: Ikea Tromheim

Curtain: DIY lined curtain using Amy Butler fabric (tutorial here)

Nightlight: Kinderglo

Tote: 3 sprouts

Rocker Cushions: black, ikat cushions on sale here

Elephant Stool: family piece passed down from my stepmom. This pachyderm got airlifted out of Vietnam.

Wall Art: red painted H from Joann Fabrics, Charley Harper memory game collage by me, and a lovely fox print from my blogging partner in crime and uber-cool cousin, Bridget.

All in all, we're quite happy with how the room turned out. Somehow the design concept went from Bold 70's to Burger King to...what is it now? Preppy/ethnic? I can't tell. Clearly, the Bambino will care less, but June loves it in there, so I'll take that as the seal of approval.