The nursery is retextured!

Its hard to believe, but baby #5 is on the way and this is the first time we will have a dedicated nursery! The three big boys all share one (large) room upstairs and our toddler and the new baby will be sharing the nursery. It is so nice to have a place for changing diapers and age appropriate toys, not to mention a convenient place to store baby clothes. Most of our children's hand-me-down/future size clothing is stored in totes under the basement storage shelves, but baby clothes get changed out so frequently, I could spend all my time bring totes up and down the stairs to keep up with a growing infant! Having them in the nursery will simplify things.

You might wonder why I would be so set on redecorating the nursery this late in my pregnancy... well....
We painted the nursery walls with a pale yellow (a can of "oops" paint), after we hung new sheet rock on the ceiling last summer, but I have been so bothered by the patch job on some of the walls (done by the previous owners) that I just HAD to redo it before I could allow Mr. Ireland to put trim up. It bothers me that much! I figured that it was easier to displace one child for two nights now, than to wait until there were 2 little ones who had to be moved out and worked around.


See that square in the upper right portion of the wall? There are 3 of those around the room and squares of glue (not visible to you) everywhere, I'm assuming from having large tiles glued to the walls? Maybe panelling? Whatever, it's irritating.

Here are some nursery befores:


I retextured the walls over 2 days, mixing my new paint into the mud to make the walls a darker, more golden yellow. It took me about 5 hours to do hand texture 4 walls. Its not perfect (I have never mixed paint into my texture before and it was not predictable) but I love the new color and the aged look of the walls now. It fits the house much better.

There are many small things left to be done in the nursery: sew new curtains (from giraffe print bed sheets bought on clearance), add a shelf above the dresser, make a red slip cover for the chair, add shelves in the closer (cut and ready to go), install the closet doors (waiting in the basement), paint the dresser that I use for a changing table (and replace drawer glides and hardware), and hang art work. It's not a difficult makeover, but those little projects can be time consuming.

I was able to get the paint for the dresser and 4 bags of mud for the bedroom all on clearance this week! It came to a whopping total of $25 for all of it (which is saying a lot when the original total would have been close to $80)! I bought the VOC free paint for the walls back in January when it was on clearance, marked down to $10 a gallon from $32 and was able to choose my colors. The laminated shelves for the closet were not on sale, but I made sure I had them cut before I left the store, so that saves me a lot of work at home.

Here is my swatch palette:

Curtain fabric, accent and dresser color, current rug and flooring, new walls!

If I have time, I will make a crib skirt and bumper from the giraffe print. We'll see. My sewing list gets longer and longer and my due date seems to be racing at me! I should have new pictures up next week, so check back soon!