Board and Batten Nursery: Nell's Edition

Okay, so we've established that when we were waiting for Thomas to arrive two and a half years ago I wanted a monochromatic brown and white board and batten nursery. And when I was pregnant with Nell, I wanted to add color to the nursery: namely turquoise and orange. But, not knowing if we were having a Nell or an "it's a good thing Nell was a girl because we might still be trying to find a name" boy, I held off on doing too much with the nursery until the baby arrived. And the thing about holding off until the baby arrives? A lot less time on your hands. But I knew this. Which is why you get to see Nell's room now...on her four month birthday.

The gallery wall above her crib will be added to, but if we waited for it to be done, you'd be seeing this post on her 18th birthday. So here's how it stands now.

Live Your Life on purpose...if I could pick one phrase for my daughter (and my son) to carry with them, this might be it. When I saw the free printable on the Sarah Jane Studios blog, I printed it immediately for my own bulletin board. But due to the fact that my printer was out of yellow, the green printed turquoise. Happy accident, it immediately got added to Nell's room. There's so much in life that's out of our control, but we get to decide how to handle the things that come up. As babies, they're loved and cuddled and learn so much from us as parents - we can guide them in certain directions and teach them. But, I want my kids to know that in the long run, they are ultimately responsible for their own happiness.

I really wanted to keep the brown paint because the fabric choices I made before she was born tied the turquoise and brown together. After Nell was born, the brown felt too masculine to me, so I decided I had to bite the bullet and put things on the walls. I wanted to steer clear of pink. I like pink, don't get me wrong, I just didn't want a pink nursery. So, I figured bright colors and intricate shapes and frames would feminize the brown enough.

The dresser I scored for $30 on craigslist when I was pregnant with Thomas is probably my favorite piece of furniture I own. I adore its character.

The alphabet changing pad brings the colors from the other side of the room to the changing table side of the room. I love it so much more than the stark white cover I chose for T's room. Good thing I got a do-over :).

The library style bookshelves were in the room when it was Thomas's - I love forward facing bookshelves. We put a regular bookcase in T's new room, and it's nowhere near as convenient for him or for me. Nell's Aardvark is just waiting for her to be old enough to sleep with a lovey.

And the room's newest occupant. We think it suits her.

On first glance, I thought this was a picture of Thomas. She's looking more like her brother everyday...of course, the fact that I make her wear her older brother's hand-me-downs might have something to do with that.

One last look at the nursery, a comparison of how it looked two years ago for Thomas and how it looks now for Nell. I still love Thomas's brown and white nursery - it was perfect for him and it was perfect for me at the time. But I adore what a little color and pattern did for it, too. It's perfect for Nell and perfect for me at this time. Amazing the difference two years can make in your style choices!

And now that Nell's room is pretty much done, I'm planning to redo certain elements of Thomas's big boy room (but I will wait for him to be out of the crib before I do too much). Shhh. Don't tell Mr. B, I haven't broken that news to him, yet.

Fall Around The House

I love Fall. Enough to decorate for it - and keep decorations in storage the remainder of the year. And we all know that's big for this minimalist. That being said, my Fall decor pales in comparison to so many others. But I'm taking baby steps. I think it's the kids that are softening me up and causing me to embrace seasonal decor. As Thomas starts to discover the holidays and seasons and I watch his face light up at every pumpkin we see, it's so much more fun. And I look forward to Nell discovering the magic of holidays and seasons, too. Just not too soon, little lady. I'm in no rush to move beyond the baby stage.  
So, our minimal seasonal decor tour begins at the console table just opposite the front door. Two white pumpkins and a little white gourd that Thomas and I made into a ghost.  They never stay here...Thomas pulls them off the console about thirty times a day and makes a "pumpkin patch" on the floor. The real pumpkin patch we're taking him to this week is going to blow his mind.

And then you take about three steps into our living room and you've got our mantle. Featuring the pennant banner Kim sent me three years ago, the Fall printable that my mom and I made last year, Thomas's pumpkin from his first pumpkin patch adventure with his Gigi and his pumpkin bucket.

And a few more steps into the kitchen, you're greeted by my white ceramic pumpkin cookie jar/soup tureen. Two guesses which of those foods fills it at this house. Yeah, definitely not the soup.

And my kitchen bulletin board, with mustard fall fabric for a backdrop to our family pictures/invitations and Thomas's pumpkin craft.

And that's Fall inside this imperfect little house. If you're just joining us and need a lay of the land, you can see how our house looks year round in this House Tour. How's your fall decor shaping up?  Stop back later this week - I'm finally going to share Thomas's board and batten nursery revamped to become Nell's nursery. No big deal, she's only four months old and I'm finally just declaring it as done as it ever will be.

Linking up to The Inspired Room.

Thomas's Room Tweaking

We did some rearranging to Tom's room - I was so excited to move him into the bigger of our two kid bedrooms until I realized that the only heating and air conditioning vent in the room is located in the least convenient place, limiting furniture placement signficantly. Our upstairs gets hot - even with the A/C on - and T's room at the back of the house is probably the hottest of the rooms. This was no big deal in April when the nights were still cool, but June has reared it's hot head and T's room needed an open A/C vent. Unfortunately, until T's out of his crib, there just aren't many ways to make the furniture work without the room feeling crammed. But we're working with what we've got - I'm not about to have the vent moved (actually, I was totally ready to have the vent moved, Mr. B talked me down from that one). 



Anyway, I needed to move T's big bed - that we currently read books and "stuggle" on since he's still sleeping in his crib - away from the floor vent to allow our A/C to at least make an attempt at cooling down Tom's room. And I have been fawning over the Pottery Barn Kids rugby stripe duvet since I first saw it - and when I finally found a twin sized navy stripe in a local store (I wanted orange or navy, but both are sold out pretty much everywhere I've looked), I grabbed it and ran to the checkout.

So this is Tom's summer bedding - I predict it feeling to summery for me come fall and we'll switch back to the plaid, but for now this is fresh and fun and graphic. The bed placement isn't my favorite, but it's not my least favorite of the few available options either. Please ignore the ridiculous sticker that was plastered on the bed when it arrived that I have yet to remove - I'm lazy. 

In other news, I finally hung something on one of the three empty walls in T's room (the pegboard above his bookcase was the only decor happening for two months, if you'll recall). I whipped up these golf subway prints and a golf silhouette in Photoshop:

Thomas is smitten. He woke up from his first nap and said, "See my golfer, Mama? Dat's my golfer." He's a tiny bit obsessed with the sport.

So that's the state of Thomas's room - rugby stripes and golf art. He's seems to be pretty happy about it:

Evolution of the Master Bedroom

My mom was over on Tuesday to watch Thomas while I had a doctor's appointment (Baby McKevitt's pretty happy where he or she is at the moment, it appears), and after I got home she stuck around for an hour to help me organize my medicine cabinet and fold laundry. While she was folding and I was ironing the throw pillow covers for the living room, I tossed an ironed pillow cover on my bed and noticed that the green rugby stripes worked perfectly with my bright and graphic floral quilt on our bed. I said to Caroline, "Do you know what I love? Slowly but surely, my house has become mix and matchable - I could use these pillows in here if I wanted. Remember when the upstairs was all brown and white and the downstairs was all green and black?" Caroline commented that her house is the same way and it is - my mom loves blue and white with a little bit of yellow, while I opt for white and green and black for the most part.  So anyway, a look back at the evolution of our master bedroom - from hand-me-down kids to slowly but surely realizing our own style:
Here was our bedroom shortly after we moved in, hand-me-down bed and side tables.

A year after we moved in, we bought nightstands, mirrors and a dresser (not shown), and switched the bedding out for something lighter.

Eventually we hung a capiz chandelier and switched the bedding back to a richer color:

A year and a half after we moved in, Mr. B and I bought our grown-up bed (hooray for no longer sleeping on the double mattress that saw me through college...). I was obviously still feeling like the master bedroom needed to be brown and white:

My sister-in-law and I wasted no time making the now famous nailhead trim and burlap headboard that I still adore to this day:

That summer I made a white duvet with brown grosgrain trim and switched between the two frequently:

Until finally, I stumbled across this quilt in February 2011 - and haven't felt the urge to change bedding once since I put it on the bed. There was something about putting that quilt on the bed that just made everything we currently had in the room work for me - I was allowing my personality to walk up the stairs (Mr. B was not in love with the idea of having a floral quilt on our bed originally, but I keep my house full of men pretty gender neutral so argued for a touch of pretty somewhere, and he did concede that he didn't hate it, so it stayed, and now I'd say he's neutral on it). That's a record over here at imperfect, considering that the other bedding got switched 5 times in 3 years - and was rotated in and out frequently depending on my mood. 

Shortly after buying the new quilt, I updated the lighting for more modern (and more me - since at this point I was beginning to figure out who "me" was decor-wise) tear drop lamps with drum shades and took down the frames of Mr. B and me from college. Yep, that trio of frames hung in my room senior year of college. Not like we don't have gorgeous wedding pictures we could frame or something.

That's our master bedroom all grown-up.  Or at least the wall that hosts the bed portion of our bedroom - the rest of it's still a hot mess. Don't believe me? Here, let me prove it:

The eventual plan is to replace the low white chair with something more substantial - what, who knows? And maybe someday hang a wedding picture over our dresser. Novel idea.

I'll figure out what I want to do with it one of these days. I'm beginning to think that I might actually need to check myself into Can't Commit to Wall Decor Anonymous. Come on Emily, it's been 5 years, let's hang something on these walls.  Do you have a room that's changed more times than the number of years you've lived in your house? 

PS - You can see a just-moved-in to how it sits now post on the living room here. 

Nursery Curtains

When I decided that McKiddle #2 would get a new take on the nursery, I also knew that I wouldn't be changing the basics - namely the board and batten and antique dresser we use as a changing table were definitely staying. I also figured we'd keep the chocolate brown paint.


But in the 2 years since I decorated the nursery for McKiddle #1 (now lovingly called Thomas), I've developed a greater appreciation for color. And since we don't know if the baby is a boy or a girl (truly no clue - last week I was leaning girl, this week I'm leaning boy), we're still aiming for gender neutral here - so I picked dark turquoise as the main accent color - with a few other colors, which you'll see soon. And I figure dark turquoise can be made feminine or masculine depending on the other colors in the room.
I stumbled across this turquoise and brown quatrefoil fabric in January and snatched up every yard they had for curtains. Now that Thomas is happily down the hall in his new room and actually goes to the new room when we ask him where his room is, I felt safe starting to call the nursery the "Baby's room" and making changes to it. Not that Thomas has any clue that the curtains got changed, but it makes me feel better.

Caroline came up this week with her sewing machine and we set up shop at my dining room table, each of us in front of our respective sewing machine. We cut the the fabric to size, lined it with blackout lining, hemmed them and clipped them up on the curtain rings. We gave ourselves an hour to get it done and we were successful. I might be the only person to say this, but I love sewing with blackout lining - the weight and structure it adds to curtains feels substantial.

Still to come: a new crib and crib skirt, a new chair, and I'm going to get over my minimalist fear of artwork and add something decorative to at least one wall. You heard me color and artwork, it's about to get crazy, people.

Pinspiration...Depending on Who You Ask

I repined this picture via Sarah on Pinterest last night and showed it to Mr. B.

Source: houseofturquoise.com via Emily on Pinterest

Me: This would be PERFECT for our office/playroom.B: Looks nice.
[30 minutes later.]
Me: Seriously, this wouldn't be that hard. Basic desks on the far wall with some storage, an art and puzzle table for Thomas in the middle, a cute little window seat under the window for toy storage and lots of floor space for playing.B: [Pointing at the black writer's desk and leaning bookshelves that we currently have in our office] What would we do with these? Me: Craigslist?B: I hate Pinterest. Worst invention ever.

Thomas's Vintage Boy's Room

I always knew that when we were preparing for a second baby, Thomas would move to our former guest room because it's bigger and affords more space to play. So, when I started thinking about Thomas's next room - long before I was even pregnant with McKiddle 2, I really wanted a trundle bed for Thomas. I love trundle beds. They provide extra sleeping space for guests or sleepovers but don't take up highly coveted floor space in smaller rooms and don't take up the visual space of bunk beds while serving the same function. In actuality, the trundle was nearly impossible to find in a style I liked and at a price I deemed reasonable. I was about to commisssion someone to build the bed in my vision whenI  found this solid wood, not an ounce of particle board, espresso trundle for a steal online. I'm thrilled with the purchase.

Beyond that, the only certainty was that his room wouldn't have a "theme" - I'm a big believer that a classic, non-themey, kid's room gives lots of room for imagination and play. A classic base allows you to accent the room as the kid's interests come and go, but as far as the main pieces go - bedding, furniture, color schemes - I like classics. And for T's room, I wanted a classic, Americana boy's room with a little bit of a vintage vibe. I like a mix of old and new in a room - I like a room to feel pieced together overtime, not catalog ordered. So this is what we came up with.

 

For a quick lay-of-the-land (I couldn't find my wide angle lens when I took these), the door to the room from the hallway is not pictured, but when you walk-in you face the wall with the chair and bed on it. Thomas's walk-in closet is through the door that's visible.

Wall decor has never been my strong suit - I'd rather have blank walls than fill them with things I don't love. But I LOVE the pegboard above his bookcase. The rest of the room's walls will become minimally decorated as Thomas's interests come and go over the years. I'm pretty sure Mr. B is on the hunt for something that I'll deem worth of the room that's golf themed - Thomas is a golf addict right now. And down the road I'm sure we'll switch framed baseball pennants, maps and the like in and out. We'll see what the future holds, though...I love that the room will grow with Tom.

The finger painting frame on the pegboard will be switched out for this frame - which will house Thomas's monthly pictures from his first year. I really struggled to find a premade 12 opening frame that I liked anywhere but Pottery Barn, and when I started this project PBK only had silver leaf (more feminine than I was looking for) and oval options which I didn't think would display the calendar shoots very well. I priced making my own frame and it was ridiculous, so I went to order the silver leaf one, discovered PBK had just released the Jackson first year frame, and ordered it. So we're waiting for that to come back in stock and make it's way to our house - then I'll update on that.

I made the Roman Shades out of blue ticking stripe and blackout liner. The first one (small window) was tough, but I sailed through the second one and improved upon the technique...so I foresee redoing the first one in my future.

And for now, the room actually has both the trundle and the crib in it. Thomas is a pretty good sleeper, and I'm not willing to mess with a good thing, so we bought a new crib for the nursery. When T moves from the crib to his bed, we'll retire this crib to storage in the basement should we find ourselves in a situation where we need two cribs again.

When we moved the crib, I laughed thinking that if McKiddle is a boy, in two years Tom and (insert still undecided traditional Irish Catholic boy's name here) could be sharing this room - and we'd be back to a setup just like this. Good thing I inadvertently bought a very similar style bed to the crib (seriously, it didn't even cross my mind that the two were similar when I bought the bed - I guess I just know what I like when it comes to furniture for boys?).

So that's our Mr. Tom's new room. Vintage Americana, Emily style.

DIY Child Silhouettes

While working on Thomas's "big" (not big boy - he's far from one of those, unless you're asking him, of course) room, I decided that he'd have a vignette above his dresser that included his monthly baby pictures framed (still working on that because it turns out I don't like most multi-photo frames), a silhouette of my little friend's profile, and a big "T".

There are a ton of tutorials on how to DIY a silhouette, but I just did it the way I know how. I snapped a picture of Thomas from the side (harder than it sounds since someone...if I knew who, there'd be hell to pay...taught him that he can see every picture after it's taken and he doesn't know to wait until the picture is taken to come running to "See it, see it! Mama? Pease?". Yeah, I have like 3 pictures of Thomas over the last three months as a result of this fun phase). 

Then I put it into Photoshop, deleted the background, and filled in his profile with black to make it easy to trace - it's not perfect, but the dark silhouette it produced was enough for me to trace. My favorite way to do this is to use the magnetic lasso tool, select the inverse and delete the background, then select the selection again and color it in black. As you trace this, you'll even out any imperfections that the lasso tool created - it's no biggie.

So you print it out and trace the image onto white paper (or, if your home is currently technologically challenged like ours is and you can't get your computer and printer to "talk" to each other, you can trace it from your computer screen onto paper. It's time for a tech overhaul over here). This is a good time to add anything that your tracing missed - like little characteristic hairs that stick up or out. Then, attach black cardstock or construction paper to the white piece (tape or staple it in place) and cut carefully around the tracing. Glue, tape or otherwise affix to white cardstock, frame it, and you're good to go. 

Just waiting for a dresser to hang above, this is Thomas at 19 months: cowlick, baby mullet and a tiny bit of a flat spot that's still rounding out after his Craniosynostosis surgery. It's our Tom to a T and I love every square inch of him. Thomas loves it, too. He points to it and says "This Ta-sis. Love Ta-sis". The kid's doing just fine in the confidence department.

 

Bookshelves for the Nursery

Thomas's room is pretty much as you saw it in July.  The mattress is lower, but otherwise the room hasn't changed.  But I've been on the lookout for a bookcase for Tom's room - something that wouldn't take up much floor space because the room is small, and something that wouldn't take up much wall space because I love the board and batten and want that to be the room's focus (thus the lack of artwork).

Originally, I had planned for B and I to make Thomas some library style bookshelves (copies of PBK bookshelves) via Ana-White.com.  But, if you'll recall, we're building the banquette in the kitchen and you still haven't seen photos because we're not done yet.  And I kind of wanted Thomas to have these bookshelves before he leaves for college.  So when I saw knock-offs of the Pottery Barn bookshelves on Target's website (on sale at the time for $52 each) I jumped.  And I love them.

I love the slim profile. I love that they take up almost no floor space. I love that they don't take away from or block the board and batten we love so much. I love that they display some of our favorite books forward facing for easy selection. 

Every night before bed, B, Thomas, Casco and I play and read books on the floor of Thomas's room.  And our new shelves are the perfect complement to that little routine that we love.