New Bean's Room

Queenie posed a question about New Bean's room. She wanted to know if I'd decided on a color scheme. So I decided to share what I have planned thus far.

First, I'd like you to enter the chaos and destruction we first lived with in that room. When we bought the house and it was just T & I, we used it as an office (and my makeshift crafting area). It's hard to see, but if you look closely above the desk, you can see a teeny print on the wall. The room had three layers of wallpaper (you can see it peeling to the left of the painting).



While I was pregnant for Monkey, T started working on it. He ripped down all three layers of wallpaper only to find multiple layers of paint underneath. You're thinking "Why is paint a big deal?" right? The paint had been peeled and was chipped and cracking in many places and it was a gigantic mess. T worked hard on those walls. We spent days scraping as much paint as we could. Then T had to mud everything and make it as smooth as possible (otherwise, it would have looked horrid to just paint over it). I really wish we'd thought to take a picture of the "during" stage. T was pretty discouraged for a while, too (it takes a lot to discourage my Mr. Optimism).

This is what we ended up with on the walls. It's a pale blue, but has some gray undertones to it.

We've been using this room as our guest room ever since (and for some reason, I never took pictures of it all done up - that's not like me!).

At the moment, this room still has a bed frame and box spring set up (we took the mattress for Monkey when we converted her bed), all sorts of extra bedding tossed on top, baby items I had hiding under Monkey's crib we'll need for New Bean and my dresser (which I still haven't found a suitable replacement for because this one will NOT fit in our master bedroom). In the coming months, we're leaving the box spring in there so we can put an air mattress or futon mattress on top so we have a "spare bed" for a little while longer.

I promised T we won't be doing a lot of work in here this time. I need him to put a better shelving system in the closet and he'll give the ceiling a fresh coat of paint. I've decided we're leaving the walls because I really do like the color. If it's a girl, I'll add punches of pinks and silvers. If it's a boy, I haven't decided on other colors, but with blue as a base, it won't be difficult to figure out.

I'm going with black furniture this time. The cheapest crib I've found so far is from Walmart. It's ok, but I'm not in love with it.

I haven't started looking for a dresser yet. I'm sure it won't be too difficult to find a nice black dresser, though.

I found some nursery inspiration on My Sweet Savannah (one of my new favorite blogs - her home truly inspires me and has given me a kick in the pants to get to work in my home). I love the shelf on the wall with the framed sheet music. I would probably find something other than sheet music to frame, though. We love music, but we aren't musically inclined.

I have a few ideas but I'll be doing the same as I did for Monkey. We'll have the basic furniture in place but won't do any actual decorating until we meet New Bean and find out if it's a he or a she! (Monkey slept in a Pack 'n Play in our room for four months, so it's not like we'll need to have the crib made right away, even. HA).

And a quick update on Monkey's room. Her bedding is all on. I made her bed skirt this week. I have three or four more projects planned and then I'll show you the finished product (it still might be a few weeks - I need man muscle for a project that I'm not telling T about because I know he won't agree to it and therefor won't help. I'm avoiding a fight by not even mentioning it to him. HA)!

I'm currently working on our bedroom still, as well. Baby steps and one little thing at a time.

I need more hours in a day. And another set of hands.