WP's Nursery: The paint

This is by far my FAVORITE transformation in his room.

As I've mentioned before, we're renting, which usually means no changes to anything on the inside, and it usually means white walls.  Our landlords actually lived in this house before they leased it, however, and they LOVED color.  Every wall in our house is a color other than white, and honestly, I love 90% of the color choices.  It's bright and cheery, and color hides all sorts of dirt.  There was one room, however, that made me want to vomit. 

The future nursery.

 See what I mean?

When I asked our landlord about it, he said these were his son's favorite colors, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. 

Then he happily gave us permission to paint.

Mom (in the picture above) and I spent a couple of days during my spring break taping, priming (the colors were SO dark not even paint plus primer would work), and getting that nasty stuff out. 

 Then this happened!  Look how beautiful!  We chose Martha Stewart's Aegean Blue for the room, and truth be told, I had no clue if we were having a girl or a boy, I just loved the color!  (The picture above is the exact same wall and window.  What a difference!)

Even Bryson dog loved the new wall color, and quickly found a new corner, his favorite, to snuggle into while waiting for his baby brother to arrive.  The color looks totally different in the different lights, which is kind of what I like about it.  The sea can change depending on the light, the weather, etc., and that's exactly what this does. 

What is YOUR favorite paint color?

WP's Nursery: The Changing Area

William's room is my absolute favorite room in the house.  I've said it before, I'll say it again.  It is so cheery, so happy, and every detail put together so carefully and with so much love and anticipation.  I even love the area where we change him. 

The diapers?  Notsomuch. 

Anyway.

 I love it!  If you have to do the dirty work, you might as well have a pretty place to do it.

 I didn't want to buy an actual changing table, since you use them for a little while and then you're done.  I decided to use this antique dresser that I already had.  I bought it right out of college for $125, and it's been one of my favorite pieces of furniture.  Now it will be WP's dresser as he grows up!

 All of these frames came from Hobby Lobby.  William loves to talk to the picture of me when I change him, and I love seeing the sweet baby pictures, reminding me of his tiny little self.  And who doesn't love a chalkboard!  That came from Hobby Lobby also, and I painted it to match his room.

 This basket came from Babies R Us and sits on his hamper next to the changing table.  It's filled with diapers, lotion, cotton rounds, a hair brush, etc.  On the other side of the table is the Diaper Genie.  Oh my goodness - this is a necessity.  We tried it without it for the first week or so, and after the stench of everything, we ordered it immediately. 

On top of the dresser sits the wipes, a paci (because we always need a paci handy), and a changing pad.  My mom made the changing covers - he has this green one and an orange chevron one that match the rest of the fabrics in his room - and I love being able to easily switch them out.  We always have a waterproof liner on top of the cover just in case.  WP doesn't pee on things often, but he spits up so much that this is a life saver. 

There you have it!  What is the most useful item in your baby's changing area?

WP's Nursery: The mobile

Before William Preston was born (or WP as we call him on the internets), I had the unique situation of being able to design a room from scratch.  The whole room.  At one time.  I don't know about you, but if my husband came home one day and I had done this to any other room in the house, I might be in trouble.  However, when a BABY comes along, all bets are off!

So much of his room was done by me and my mother by hand, that one post will not do it justice.  And I really should start withe paint and work my way up from there, but well, I don't feel like, and this is my blog.

WP's mobile is actually a late addition to his room.  I made it for him for Christmas, and we just got it hung up.  I looked for a mobile I liked, but honestly, I just couldn't find one I liked that I was willing to pay for.  With a little searching on the internet, I had an idea of where I needed to go.

I started by picking up some felt in the colors of his room (about 20 cents a piece at your Michael's).  I sketched out a pattern and used those patterns to cut the pieces of felt.  I chose robots, since that became the theme of his room (but that's a whole other story). 

Next, I broke out my embroidery needle and white embroidery thread, and stitched around the main parts, using a little bit of pillow stuffing before I sealed them to give it a little dimension.  I used felt glue to secure the decorative pieces of felt and to glue the arms and legs together.

(Ignore my desk - it's old and worn, but it was my great-grandmother's, and I love it!)  I used fishing wire to attach the robots to an embroidery hoop.  The size of the embroidery hoop and the quantity and size of your pieces is totally up to you.  I chose to keep mine pretty small to not overtake the decorations already in his room. 

We're renting, so I didn't want to put a permanent large hole in the ceiling.  Since mine is on the smaller side, I used a Command hook that was intended for Christmas lights.  We tied the fishing line to the command hook, and stuck it to the ceiling.

I love how this turned out!  I've already taken WP in there and turned on the fan to make his robots dance!  He loved them!