3.09.2011

nursery update!

.
i can't believe i haven't posted more about layla's room transformation. it's just that i am thinking about it and seeing and doing it from a first-person POV all the time so i forget that not everyone else is overloaded, and that no one has even seen the progress.

well, as of today we have all the big stuff DONE, and are just needing a little more organization, cleaning and a few more clutch things to make it a real finished "home."

it has gotten tricky because layla sleeps in her room now that we have most of the major things in that are necessary for safe infant habitation, so we can't just go in there and start hammering away whenever we please. we've gotten the most done on weekends when judah is with my parents and she can sleep in his room. so it's lurching forward in fits and starts, but so much has happened since my last meager teaser update.

keep this in your brain because it's the awesome INSPIRATION ROOM from ohdeedoh and the look we are going for (and straight duplicating in some elements):

glory goodness, i love it so

after we got the room painted, the first task was to paint judah's white crib a light gray color. jesse assembled judah's new toddler bed one night and swapped that out for the crib, which we had recently converted into the toddler bed-version of itself since we knew this transistion was coming and which he (judah) had been sleeping in until layla was ready to move into it. was that confusing? i am confused. judah: in a new toddler bed. layla: in the convertible crib which was once converted to a bed for judah but now is back to a crib for layla. me: sorry.


we picked the perfect spray paint color and i painted two of the pieces one night before i ran out of paint. i went back and bought more the next day, and jesse started on the other 2 sides. well when he was putting a final coat on, this horrifying texture appeared on our pristine surface. LOTS of google research, gnashing of teeth, sanding, repainting and FAILS later, we gave up on spray paint due to paint-curing issues far beyond our realm of chemistry knowledge and decided to just paint it with roller and martha stewart interior paint. that's what we made elliot and lena do with us with they unsuspectingly came to visit this time.

she's the helpfulest. and she LOVES this picture

ok so we moved beyond the spray paint crisis and got the crib in the room: painted and perfect. oh, except we couldnt assemble it because jesse lost the critical hardware for about 2 weeks (the missing bolts would later be found STILL IN THEIR HOLES. hilarious.)

i fearfully painted the outside and front edges of our big expedit shelf with the same martha stewart color. didnt want to be too matchy-matchy with everything, but the black-brown color against the dark walls was not working for me.

next was a big one: a trip to IKEA for a changing table/dresser plus some storage units for the new sewing area and a bunch of other little items. i was going up on a tuesday night to ATL for our girls' league fantasy football celebration dinner so i figured i'd hit the ike first. on a whim, i asked lena 2 days before if she'd want to come too since she was going to the dinner and she needed some QT with layla. and because i love her.

it didn't really occur to me that attempting an ikea trip with an infant in a carseat all by myself would have been IMPOSSIBLE. you cant push a cart/stroller containing a babyseat AND a huge-box flat cart big-box pusher thing at the same time.

seriously, even with lena and a virtually empty store to run loose in and a pre-printed list of everything i needed, we all almost died. stresville. my favorite part was the gigantic muscle man sitting on a bench behind my car watching me and lena heaving and grunting the huge boxes into the car and not offering to help because he was too busy SMOKING directly into my lungs!

the first exercise i have gotten in months and i was feeding my muscles with pure secondhand cancer clouds. thanks for the NEGATIVE help, sir!

layla passed out at checkout. lena is my allstar

so i finally get home that night and unload everything with jesse and we set about the amazing ikea tradition of turning these...



...into something resembling furniture

can i just stop here and drop some profundity bombs on yall? okay, ready:

building ikea furniture is like following jesus (stick with me). even though i LOVE everything they've ever made before and they have never steered me wrong, in the middle of the instructions i am always straight up doubting that their method is going to turn out right. i am sure they have made a mistake because nothing looks like i expected, and it seems like pieces are missing, and i even sometimes try my own methods for how it should all fit together (with disastrous consequences and much doubling-back onto the written path). by the end i always end up following their original plan and it always ends up better, even if is was totally whack-looking, upside down-seeming and confusing as hell while i was doing it.

thank you jesus for being so dope that you can use flat-packed swedish particle board to teach me about your love.

Oslo vomited in our living room and we LOVE it!

so about halfway through the assembly of MALM 2x3 we take the frame into her room to visualize where it will go with the shelf and the crib.

BINGO! it totally doesn't fit at all. so we have a half-assembled chest of drawers to return. they don't recommend backward assembly because if you break something you cant return it. and we are non-truck owners so taking it back assmebled became a huge new challenge involving babysitters, carseat switcharoos, vehichle borrowing and lots of hassle for sweet jesse. but he prevailed like the champ he is and came back with a fitting (literally) chest of drawers/changing table for lay: hemnes, 3-drawer, white.

taking her maiden voyage on a real changing table. up until now she has only been changed in our bed and on the hearth. judge. (thats just one of judah's spare covers on there for now, i am going to make her a custom cover soon)

REAL WOOD...for at least part of the unit. cedar. that's a big deal for ikea. and i love the cheery interior stripes.

if you look in the above pic you will see a striped rag rug. now, i was going to buy the outrageously perfect and equally outrageously expensive 5-foot anthro rug that the inspiration room used because a friend of a friend gets a 40% off discount in april that i was going to use. and i was going to make sure layla always kept it and took care of it and even decorated her first house with her husband around this rug as the centerpiece because, even at 40% off ($180!!!), it was still steeeeeeeeep for us.

but then i found this rug at ross in the perfect colors for $5!!! and i had a giftcard! so now we are putting this one where we stand when we change her and we can get the smaller 2.5 -foot anthro rug for $46 and it will go in front of her crib. most excellent aversion of sticker shock and guilt.

next up was a chair for nursing/rocking/jumping off of later in life (thank you, judah). layla's room is a little smaller than judahs and didnt have spacem for a full blown glider like judah has (and still uses every night, so no hand-me-downing it). but layla really loves bouncing, so i thought ikea's star utility chair POANG would be great. except they are at least $100 for the chair and another $100 for the foot rest.

but i found BOLIDEN online that was a similar style for $100 for both pieces. BUT they didnt have it when lena and i went. BUT they did have PELLO which was just the same-ish chair without the footstoool at all and a plain natural-colored cushion. i firgued we could paint the frame and i would recover the cushion. a pain, yes. but worth it for the savings. well, we put it together and it looked like trash. so cheap looking and awful. so back it went during our 3rd ikea trip in a week.

this time i really took POANG for a test drive. the fact that this design comes with a 10-year warranty is pretty telling about their confidence in it. and when i considered this upholstery in person (i previously thought it too black and too busy), i reconsidered and thought it would be a great neutral but patterned piece that would suit her room after all. now i am in love with it.

test-driving it.

no need to enlarge the photo, i'll just tell you: the pricetag says $129 (upcharge for the patterned cushion) which i am not thrilled about. we had to use even more of layla's baby fund (earmarked for a college fund one day--if i can stop buying things like this) to spring for this and the dresser, but i really am in love with it and we WILL have it for at least 10 years. and since it bounces rather than glides, a footrest is really not necessary. so home it came.

in the meantime i hung one of the 3 mobile pieces (and managed to lose the others in our chaos of reorganizing). we also got a few white ikea inserts for the shelving unit that turn the big cubbies into drawers, cabinets and smaller cubbies.

the shelf with inserts, POANG ready to be assembled and the mobile sort of hung. plus a mess.

so here is that corner now. still pretty bare, but some really cool things are planned for this area

moving right along. i feel confident i have lost most of you by now, but out of dogged stubborness i plunge forward.

i got these 4 precious screenprints from the etsy shop of an atlanta-area artist (hahaha, i wrote "atlanta-area office" the first time i published this post) and hung them on a jury-rigged ikea wire intended for curtains.

the clippies wanted to slide so i just put a dot of hot glue on each to keep everything lined up

i love how these little sayings work because they could easily be me and jesse saying them, but really they are even more fitting when you picture jesus telling her these things. tear.

getting tripped out by the 1/3 of the mobile. which is soon to be much lower

next up was the little wallflowers trail, which was a steal at $16 (with a coupon) from bed bath and beyond for 25 of them in assorted sizes.


floating and fancying around the room

i love the flow of these now but i want them a little thicker so i am going to get another pack when another coupon comes out.

this is the print by the door. it says oh so much without any words and i just adore it

so up until last weekend, layla was still sleeping in her litte incline rocker bassinet thing because i didnt have all the crib linens (still dont have the crib skirt made). judah models:

i think this thing is actually approved for kids ups to 30 lbs so he technically could sleep in this. crazytoons.

okay, brace yourself for this next piece because it is UNREAL! my mom's friend made us the crib bumpers and i found the exact fabric from the inspiration room. being an exact ripoff of the other family's bumper, i thought i was prepared for what these would look like in real life. well, i wasn't. bomb dot diggity com doesn't even cover how mightily pimp these mothers are (but it is does cover my lame dork quotient for the day).

all curled up for just a hint of their greatness. i am teasing this reveal out...

and then the BOOM SHAKA LACKA with the full inside effect. do you hear me squealing? and layla LOVES looking at the black and white pattern. (maybe she read about it somewhere...)


and mrs. stacey made the ties extra chunky which looks so prime. oh my gosh, i want to chew on them.

do you love so far? i so do. of course, it has been a headache during some phases, and having to buy a whole new dresser and chair really hurt, but it is really coming together for surprisingly little money and lots of fun creativity and bargain hunting.

a few more "statement" pieces that will really make it its uniqueness shine through and a good round of tidying and this baby will be complete.

18 comments:

  1. I love the prints that you got! (And...still really excited to see the yarn balls in their full glory.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. wow keight that looks wonderful!! Keep the pics coming :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. well doy I LOVE the ROOM! babies love black and white! yes. aunt chaquita made it back to the blog.

    you will be decorating my baby room in 8 years.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow. That looks spectacular!!! Move to chicago and help me? Please oh please?

    ReplyDelete
  5. oh my gosh!!!! it looks AWESOME! i'm super impressed ;)

    ReplyDelete
  6. looks great! We have the same bookshelf and dresser in Levi's room but in different sizes.

    ReplyDelete
  7. holy cow i am AMAZED!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. The bumper really is phenomenal! And, I hadn't noticed before that you painted the shelving - nice touch!

    Do I really have to have another baby to get a pretty black and white bumper like yours?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Okay, I officially no longer believe you when you say "I have no interior design ability or style." I like your room better than the inspiration room!

    ReplyDelete
  10. holy freaking moley. the bumpers. i die. LOVE them. can't believe i just used a rachael zoe phrase. i have never watched more than a commercial with her in it, but whatever. it was too appropriate a phrase to not use. the room is looking awesome. i love it all. i have had those prints in my etsy faves for a while. ADORE them. so perfect for a girl's room. i totally adore every piece of hemnes furniture ever made and have been dying to have my own forever. so jealous of layla! also, tried to comment like 5 times on how you rocked that swaddle project, but got interrupted every time. so here it is in this comment. amazing job. so impressed!!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. LOVE the room! The bedding I could just die for! And the Ikea chair, oh how I LOVE that place!!

    ReplyDelete
  12. please be a doll and tell me where you got the amazing fabric....

    ReplyDelete
  13. I forgot to say before that I also have the Poang chair for Annabel's room, and I love it! It is amazingly comfortable, doesn't take up too much space, looks good, AND I got mine at Salvation Army for $20! (Best score ever, especially since I was specifically looking out at garage sales for THAT chair). I've also been tempted by the miniature kids version Ikea has for $40 (just in plain white fabric, I think).

    ReplyDelete
  14. Love, love, love the room. I could use your sense of design here. Please remember that your uncle and I own a truck if you need to borrow it.
    Hope to see you all soon. Love to your all.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Gorgeous room! Sure you don't have a second career in interior design? Zac has the poang chair and loves it. I resisted it for so long, until they came out with the leather one. Then I could tolerate it. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  16. You are one talented lady...I absolutely love it. I kind of wish I could live in it. Layla is a lucky kiddo!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I "rocked" my sweet baby 21 yrs ago in a chair just like the one you bought. I hope you like it as much as I did!I get motion sick in a rocker so it was a great alternative. Beautiful room!

    ReplyDelete