It is  Dwell Studio’s Zoo Pals Blue Fabric.  I didn’t have a pattern, so I just winged it, {well kind of, I read tons of tutorials on how other people did it and then went from there}   I think it turned out pretty darn good for a novice sewer. {just don’t look TOO close and we are good}

I haven’t taken any good pictures of the whole room yet, but you can see how it ties in with the ottoman in the room that I had done a couple of months ago

{isn’t that bear so cute!  Shannon got it as a gift from her Aunt}

We kept the “carter” letters I used at Shannon’s shower, and put them above the changing table dresser.  Shannon just re-vamped them with scrapbook paper that matched the room.  {she has a lot of time on her hands being in the waiting mode and not working, she is getting kind of cre8tive which makes me happy!}  We used the 3m velcro picture hooks to hang them.  I highly recommend these for this type of project.  Super easy to use and you don’t put a ton of holes in the wall trying to get them to hang perfect.  Plus they come off easily when you want to take them down.

Don’t you just love that print she got off of Etsy?  It is done by an Etsy shop called pumpkinandbutterfly and then she framed it in an Ikea 11 x 13 white frame

Shannon and I were at HomeGoods one day, and of course we weren’t looking for a lamp for the room, but wouldn’t you know it?  We stumbled upon the perfect lamp!  The base has  alphabet letters and was the perfect color

But the best part of this lamp besides the cuteness?  The finial on top of the shade

It was meant to be in Carter’s room don’t ya think?  But my favorite, favorite part of this room {and I think Shannon’s too} is from this book

We ordered the vinyl saying off of Amazon of the song from the book {if you have ever read this book you know that it is the sweetest story of how a mother feels about her child.  I cried the first time I read it to Shannon when she was a baby}

We put it above Carter’s crib {this was my first time putting vinyl lettering on a wall, it was tedious and slow but overall not too bad}

Geez, I am getting all choked up looking at it…

Since Carter is hopefully coming soon, and we don’t have the valence yet, I will take more pictures of the whole room to show you in a couple of weeks.  Maybe by then I can include Carter in the pictures!

Nursery progress is a post from: Cre8tive Designs Inc.

Here is the dresser as it was given to us, it is beautiful piece, but just needed some TLC to bring it back to life.  I love the fret work on the front and the curvy sides.

I of course thought I could hand sand it and then put a wax on it and be done.  But that is never the way it goes right?  These were my problem areas

This spot on the side panel

Scratches on the top

Water spots on the bottom drawer.

Marian said I needed to bite the bullet and sand it down with my sander, so I did.  Then I went to her blog page for her secret recipe

3/4 cup of oil {I mixed both vegetable oil and olive oil because I didn’t have enough of the vegetable oil, Marian says you can use either type} and 1/4 cup vinegar.  Then I went to town rubbing down the dresser.  Marian didn’t mention her formula was a good moisturizer for my hands, that was a pleasant surprise, I have the driest hands known to man.  It was a huge difference right away, I was so excited that I almost forgot to take pictures of the processes. Here you can tell that the top has the oil and vinegar and the side is still the raw sanded wood.  The hand sander took out that weird spot on the side thank goodness

Once I got it all rubbed down, I did it a second time for good measure.   After two coats I still had half of the oil and vinegar left over, so this mixture goes a long way.  It took all the water spots away and the scratches, it was unbelievable.   Once I was done, I noticed the wood was now appearing more reddish in color.  I don’t think this had anything to do with the oil and vinegar, I think it was just the type of wood the dresser is was made out of.   Plus I got a little too happy with my sander and took off some of the veneer on this drawer..oops

So to bring the dresser to more of brown tone, and blend my oops spot, I stained right over the oil and vinegar with Minwax special walnut.  It actually took two coats of the stain to tone down the red and a little stippling and blending to blend that bare spot.

I soaked the hardware in CLR and then cleaned them with a wire brush and TSP.  I had no idea that the hardware was so beautiful, evidently they really were dirty.  Here is a picture of the new hardware and the corner area where I got a little too happy with the sander

Can’t even tell right? I was pretty pleased that it turned out as good as it did.    Here is a picture of the water stained area

Totally gone!

I then brushed two coats of Minwax polyurethane satin to seal the whole dresser including the hardware.  And here it is all finished and ready to go to the nursery.

I even lined the drawers with some blue polka dot paper

The before

The after

The nursery is almost done, I can’t wait to show you how it looks in there. Marian is  extremely busy with her own business, {practically sold out of everything at Lucketts!  You go girl} it was just so sweet of her to take the time to give me her tips and advice. Thank you Marian, you are the best!

Now it just wouldn’t be right if I didn’t link up to Marian’s party!

Also joining these fun parties too!

I’ll have some oil and vinegar with that dresser is a post from: Cre8tive Designs Inc.

I first was showing my daughter all the beautiful pictures out in blog land of the board and batten that everyone is doing.   Like this one

image from here

And of course she feel in love with it.  Then I started thinking…which I really should of thought of before I opened my big mouth and started showing my daughter the board and batten.  They just put brand new baseboards in when they did their renovation 6 months ago, and those would have to be re-done if not replaced.  Plus, this room doesn’t have a closet in it, and for now they are going to forgo putting one in since a baby really only needs an armoire for the first couple of years.  So if we put board and batten up now even replacing the baseboards, it would have to be torn down for the future closet.  So board and batten wasn’t such a good idea, oops.

Now I had to come up with a  plan “b”

I saw these two images on Potterybarnkids and an idea came to me

I liked the idea of the squared edge chair rail with the pegs in the first picture {in the far left corner of the picture}.  Then I was drawn to the stripes on the wall in the second picture.

When I design, if i can, I like to add depth to a room either with wallpaper, unusual wall tiles or molding.  Just painting the walls is a great option, but is so one dimensional, so I really strive to go beyond just paint.    I was trying to come up with one other element for the walls that would fit their budget.

So, I thought by bringing these two Pottery Barn inspiration elements together it would be a nice alternative to the board and batten that was axed.  Now that we had a plan, it was time to move forward and start on the room.

They already had purchased this rug from Pottery Barn Outlet for the room,  so it was our starting point for color inspiration.

For the walls, we decided to use swiss coffee, a light blue that matches the rug and add a navy blue as an accent.Sherwin Williams Blissful Blue and Indigo

Here is how my idea turned out so far.   The chair rail sits about 5 feet off the floor.  I decided to add a small shelf on top of the chair rail just on one wall, you can kind of see it in the first picture {the two white blobs are the blades of the ceiling fan going, it was hot the day I took this picture}.  I thought this would be a great way to display art, small accessories or stuffed animals without taking up space on to of  the furniture pieces.  Once we get all the furniture in the room, we are going to strategically add a couple of pegs here and there on the chair rail around the room. {the painting, chair rail and shelf were done by a contractor, so we can’t take credit for the actual work}

Shannon and Nate hadn’t found any ready-made bedding that they liked, so I was started looking for fabrics to custom make the bedding.   Nate, my son-n-law,  is a HUGE baseball fan, and would love to do the baby’s room in nothing but baseball, but my daughter isn’t too keen on that idea. I thought this fabric I found by Dwellstudio at Joann’s looked like baseballs and was the perfect color of blue.  Sort of bringing in the baseball theme but in a subtle way.

I am going to make a flat roman shade for the window out of the “baseball” fabric.

I brought this storage ottoman over to their house to try

It was one of those pieces of furniture that kept getting moved around my house because I didn’t have a place for it.  So it was a win/win situation for all of us when it fit perfectly in the room.

We feel in love with this fabric DwellStudio Zoo Pal in blue, also at Joann’s. I put the zoo print on the bottom half of this storage ottoman.  The brown velvet pulls out some of the brown in the fabric, so this adds another accent color in the room.   I took off the casters and painted the legs white. Then I sewed the fabric into one long rectangle and then stapled it to the inside and underneath of the ottoman .  This way the new fabric can easily be removed {well if you call removing a ton of staples easy work} and the existing brown velvet will still be in tack.

I am going to attempt to make a crib skirt out of this fabric as well.  Crossing my fingers it won’t be that hard.  But this is probably the only two areas we will using the zoo print, over doing it with this fabric will get too “themed” feeling.  Shannon would also like to bring in some vintage children prints and vintage style to the room as well. {maybe we can find an old vintage baseball glove for Nate to put on the shelf}

They ordered this crib from JC Penny.

They bought a white armoire off of Craig’s list and I added these cute knobs to dress it up. {I know, the whales are making me look like I am a liar and using an animal “theme”, but they were so darn cute, on sale and the perfect blue, I couldn’t pass them up!}

Then there is this dresser that they got for free from a family member, they are going to use as the changing table.  It has really deep drawers for storage, and is very solid.

The wood on this dresser is just beautiful, and we wanted to keep it in its natural wood tone. It looks really nice against the blue rug and walls and it picks up the tones of the wood floors.  But it needed some TLC.   We hand sanded it down but there were scratches and water spots that weren’t coming out.

I didn’t know how to fix this, so I contacted the queen, the queen of furniture transformations that is,  Marian, from Miss Mustard Seed.  She gave me a great tip that worked wonders.  I can’t wait to show you how it turned out and what I used on it! That Marian, she is one savoy person when it comes to fixing up furniture.

So slowly but surely it is coming along.  There is still lots to do, well lots of sewing for me to do, and I am not a seamstress so this might take awhile.  But I have plenty of time before the baby comes in July.

Nursery Inspiration & Progress is a post from: Cre8tive Designs Inc.