Who was I kidding!?  There was NO way I was going to be able to wait to share the deets on the nursery until it’s all done! I fall more in LOVE with how it looks ALREADY that I can’t keep it to myself.  Plus, it’s more fun to show the progress as we go!

So I suppose the proper place to start would be with some before shots of the room, right?

Chris and I originally painted this room a bright sunshine yellow way back..possibly in our first year dating.  It was bright and cheery and the room was simply a spare room/my music room at the time. There was no thought of a baby any time soon, so we went bright and bold.  About 2 years ago, we came across a great sale on some excellent quality laminate flooring and decided to do the yellow room and the movie/game room (which is the other spare bedroom).  Now that baby is on the way, I am SO glad we decided to bite the bullet and get those floors done when we did!

Over the past year and a bit, the yellow room quickly went from a spare room to our junk room/dumping ground.  If we didn’t know where to temporarily put something, it always ended up in this room.

And with that, the BEFORE shots.

As you see, we had quite a bit of work to do before we could even think about painting/decorating for baby girl.   We worked on cleaning out the space over the course of a few weekends and thanks to the big help from Chris’ cousin, we were able to get everything but the bed cleared in time for our scheduled painting day.

The Plan

We knew from the start that we wanted to paint the walls grey with a bigger picture in mind for the finished product.  I need to keep at least something a secret on here, so you’ll just have to wait to watch the plan completely unfold!

Execution

About a month ago, my mom had expressed that she wanted to help us paint the nursery so we took her up on her offer.  My parents proceeded to purchase us the paint and my mom offered her painting services as part of our baby gift. Pretty awesome!  We made a painting date for Family Day weekend and that’s what went on in our place this past Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday came and my mom (or should I say Nana!) showed up all ready to get to work.  I helped out by doing some of the lower trim (thanks to the low VOC paint) and it wasn’t long until we started to get that grey on the walls.

I was SO excited to see that yellow go!!!

After a couple of hours and a few breaks, I pretty much jumped for joy as I watched the last of the yellow disappear.

With the first coat done, my mom headed home and we continued on with our Saturday.

Sunday afternoon, both my mom and dad showed up to finish up the painting, hang a new light fixture and hang a curtain rod.

While my mom rocked it on the painting, grandpa and dad-to-be worked on putting together baby girl’s new light fixture which I picked up at Ikea last weekend.

The second coat always seems to go by faster as it wasn’t long before the painting was done! Someone was very proud of her work (and she should be!).

My dad then got the fixture up in a snap just in time for my mom and I to rush in with the curtain rod and the curtains that she had picked out for the space.

Interesting story about the curtains… I had originally wanted to make the curtains myself, but after shopping all over for fabric was shocked as to how much the project was going to cost!!  My mom called me from Bouclair one day last week describing some curtains that she had found on sale. I had told her to go ahead and pick them up because worst case, we could return them if they didn’t work with our vision.  As soon as Chris and I saw them in person, we knew they would work.  But then as soon as we saw them in the room, with the grey walls, we knew they were perfect!!

Since installing a curtain rod can be a 2 person job, and since I can’t really climb the ladder to help out, we enlisted my dad to help Chris out with that little task.

My mom held the rod with a curtain on it in place so that I could tell the boys where I wanted it height-wise.  Next thing I know, the curtain rod is installed!!

We held off with putting the curtains on until Monday to let the walls really dry.  But once Chris got them on, I obviously went camera happy!!

Before I show you the part 1 AFTER pics, let’s take a look at our little checklist Young House Love-style of what we have done and what we have left to do.

Nursery Checklist

• clean room
• paint walls
• repair/paint baseboards and trim
• paint door
• touch up ceiling
• clear closet/remove door
• touch up paint in closet
• hang bar in closet
• purchase/install new floor grate
• hang light fixture
• install/hang curtains over window
• purchase/build crib
• purchase dresser
• re-finish dresser
• storage
• art!
• decorations
• dirty diaper solution
• pillows

And without further ado…. here’s what baby girl’s nursery looks like so far.

I swear, I fall more in LOVE with it every time I look at the photos or go into the room! I can’t wait for the finished product!!!!