My Creative Blog:
Nursery

This day seems like a long time coming. It's the first time I've completed a nursery AFTER the baby was born. Ha! (If you missed my baby announcement, you can see it here) Doing this reveal today- October 1st- is sort of ironic, since this is the day I was due! I'm so happy I took my time to finish it because I'm really happy with it! It's not perfect- is any room ever really perfect??-, but it makes me smile and will be a great space for Bennett… when I can part from him.; ) I hope you're ready for a whole slew of pictures. Sit back and enjoy!

Come on in!

This room is nothing like I originally envisioned, but one thing that stuck is the color scheme: orange, mint and gray. It's so fresh, bright and a little quirky.

Isn't that little Bennett burp cloth adorable? My friend Karen from Thread Blossoms made it and I never want to actually use it- it's too cute!

Free printables are a great way to dress the walls in a nursery- (you can see my round up of fun printables here.) I added the printable on the far left from The Handmade Home, and I love it! The rocking chair has been in my family for years, but I just recently decided to make it work in the space by painting it in Annie Sloan's Graphite chalk paint. The abstract art was custom-made by my cute kids (more on that later!)

These cube shelves are from Ikea- Monica actually hung them during our first Nate's Crate challenge on The Nate Berkus Show. They totally look like built-ins and fit that little nook perfectly.

This room doesn't have a closet that we can use, so we purchased an armoire from Ikea to hang some of Bennett's clothes. When you sit in the rocking chair, you kind of stare right at the side of the armoire, so I hung an old print that was in my nursery as a baby, after painting the wood frame in the same graphite as the chair.

I've had the coffee sign for several years, but I moved it in the nursery because I thought it was kind of funny…if you've ever had a newborn, you know how much caffeine you need!: )

Oh, the dresser. This dresser is fabulous, isn't it? It was my grandparents and I totally wasn't sold on it at first, but we were trying to do this room on a budget and it was free. Done deal, folks. Now, I am in love with it! I'll share the details in another post, but with some paint and wax and a pop of orange paint on the legs, it was turned into the best part of the room!

I thought the"Oh Boy" was so appropriate for two reasons: 1) we were having a boy (duh!) and 2) we were taken so by surprise with this pregnancy. It makes such a statement and adds a whole lot of personality to the room!

I added some washi tape to the plain black lamp shade to add a little interest. Man, I love washi- is there no end to it's many uses?

Bennett isn't spending too much time in this room yet, but I'm pretty sure he's excited about it!

I hope you love it as much as I do! Tell me…what's your favorite part?

Sources Sheets: Target Rug: Ikea Changing Pad Cover: Babys R Us Dresser Paint: Annie Sloan Graphite & Paris Gray, Dark Wax Giant Letters: Hobby Lobby Dresser light: Target Color-blocked baskets: Target Copper Light on bookshelf: Local antique shop Armoire: Ikea Bookshelf cubes: Ikea Rocking Chair: Hand-me-down Mirror: Walmart Coffee sign: Vintage sign store in OCNJ

Since we have a little time off before our next episode (the last episode before baby arrives!), I've been spending some time getting the nursery ready. It's funny- this pregnancy has flown by and up until now, I haven't even begun to prepare for it! Of course, we always try to redecorate rooms on the cheap and one of my favorite ways to do this is by using free printables. And I wouldn't be a good blog friend if I didn't share my absolute fav finds with you! So, here are 12 of the most adorable, trendy and fun printables I could find.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let's get this party started!

1. Ooh Moon 2. Balancing Home
So, this first Noah's Ark print is so stinkin' cute! Ooh Moon is really cool because you can sign up for an alert when a new printable is available and you have 24 hours to print it out. The Love Shines Here print would fit equally as well in a kitchen or playroom as in a nursery!

3. Feed Your Soul 4. Balancing Home
Feed Your Soul is a free art program that has real artists contribute original prints that are downloadable and printable. There are tons of fun options, so make sure you browse around to find your favorite! This Blast Off print is simple and fun and perfect for a little boy's room.

5. The DIY Village 6. Feed Your Soul
Matt and Jacque from the DIY Village are gearing up for the arrival of their first child and created this simple printable that speaks volumes. I love that you can customize it by coloring it in to match your room decor! Number 6 is another Feed Your Soul masterpiece (Pretty sure you'll see this one in a gallery wall in my baby's room!)

7. Trendy Peas 8. I Rock So What
Ummm, I'm sorry, but isn't that fox the cutest little thing? I don't know if you remember, but I mentioned that I was really hoping to incorporate forest animals, namely sneaky little foxes, in our baby's nursery, so I was thrilled to find this printable! And you can't go wrong with this whale printable- it would look especially perfect in a nautical room of any kind.

9. Tried and True 10. Eighteen Twenty-Five
Watercolor prints are in so in right now, and this World Smiled print incorporates that trend a bit. I absolutely love the sentiment, because doesn't every parent feel that way about their baby?! Leave it to Eighteen Twenty-Five to come up with a graphic printable in about a million pretty colors. They have tons of subway art printables too, so snoop around a bit when you hop over there.

11. On To Baby I'm a big fan of any printable that you can customize and so this monogram print that comes in a bunch of colors is right up my alley. We're not revealing any baby names yet (not that we've settled on one or anything!), so you'll have to just wait until our nursery reveal to see what we chose.: )

12. I Rock So What

This.is.truth. The end.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And for those of you who are willing to shell out a couple bucks, I found these too-sweet-to-pass-up printables on Etsy. While these aren't free, they're all less than $10 each, so you're still getting a pretty darn good bargain!

1. Bon Temps Beignet

2. Printable Wisdom

3. Prints and Printables

Again with the foxes! Love, love, love this set of 3.

4. Plum Street Prints

Plum Street Prints had so many fabulous printables that I had trouble choosing just one to showcase! For some reason, I am really drawn to the simple designs these days.

Well, that's about it. Now I just have the difficult job of choosing which ones to print and hang in the baby's room. Where are your go-to sources for free printables? Do share!!

Nothing says city style like a cool, exposed brick wall… but bringing in real brick for this nursery makeover just wasn't an option! We decided adding faux bring paneling was the best option! This is a great project if you want to add some character and style to your home without spending a lot of money.

How to Create a Faux Brick Wall
Lowe's and Home Depot both sell faux brick panels for about $15-$25. I'll be honest, they're crazy ugly when you get them- they need some paint STAT! But, they're affordable and look awesome when they're finished.
1. Measure your wall space to determine how many panels you’ll need. Each brick panel comes in a 4x8 sheet. They're usually in the lumber section near paneling.

2. Paint the brick to your desired color. These panels often get overlooked because they have a super-outdated red, brick finish, but they can easily be changed with regular, old wall paint! We chose to roll our panels with a base coat of white, and then add a fun pop of color with aqua spraypaint over top. If you want a rustic look, go for uneven coverage, letting some of the white show through. If you’re going for sleek and modern, go for full coverage with your spray paint.

3. Create a template that includes any special cuts (like outlets, light switches or pitched ceiling lines) you’ll need to make before installing the panels. We just used leftover cardboard that we placed on the wall, traced the line of the ceiling with a marker, and cut using a straight-edge razor. Using your template as a guide, make cuts on the panels as needed with a jigsaw.

4. Place painted panels on the wall and nail into place using a nail gun, or a hammer and nails. Caulk any seams or spaces along the wall and ceiling for a finished look. Easy peasy!

There you have it- you just added instant character and interest to your room without ever having to lift a brick!; )

To watch the full episode of this nursery makeover, click Here! There were so many fun projects in this room!

If you're looking for another creative wall treatment idea, check out this project:
Planked Walls with Exposed Studs

Jess and I had so much fun working on this episode of Knock It Off - We transformed this baby's nursery from crazy, blinding pink into a kid-friendly version of a loft space- we called it a"soft loft."

To check out the full video of this episode, click here
One of the biggest projects in this space was painting the hardwood floors. The floors were pretty beat up and actually had planks going in all different directions. It took a little convincing, but eventually we got both homeowners on board with the idea of painting their hardwood.

The first step was to sand the floors. You need to get off any gloss, because the paint won't adhere to the floors if you don't. We rented our sander by the hour and it took less than an hour to do the whole room. $50 later we were all done!

Once we were gloss-free, we whitewashed the entire floor. We wanted to cool the tone down a bit- sometimes warm oak can seem a bit red-orange. We used 3 parts water to 1 part paint. This step goes by super fast using a roller and an extender pole.
Just make sure you don't paint yourself into a corner! lol Start at the far side of the room and work towards the door!

After the whitewash had totally dried, we used painter's tape to mark off our pattern. I won't lie, this was tedious and almost made me poke my eyes out a few times. Of course we couldn't have just gone with a plain old pattern, we made ours cool and funky. Actually the taping was easy, but figuring out what color went where actually had me and 3 guys on our camera crew going nuts!: ) I think they thought I was losing it.

Here's the pattern we went with. It's just a combo of diamonds and lines, but it gives a fun, 3-D look and we like the combo of diamonds and some herringbone-ish arrows!

We used mini foam rollers for each of the colors. We use a coral, charcoal, greige, navy, and the whitewash color that was the base. The mix of colors is where it was tricky to get the pattern down. What I recommend is using a sticky note or little piece of painter's tape in each shape to make sure you have the colors laid out right before painting.

When each square had two coats, we had one awesome, show-stopping floor! It was so much better than the damaged hardwood and had to much more of an impact on the room!

There were tons of fun projects in this room! Check out our KIO DIY page to see more!

Click HERE to visit the Knock It Off homepage to watch this full episode!
So, do tell… would you be on board with painting your old hardwood floors or not so much?