Decorating Whitney's Room

 I have felt bad for Whitney and her boring beige room for a while.  The only decoration she had was a few things hung on the wall and a little butterfly mobile above her crib.

 This is the old dresser she had. It was originally brown, Scott had it in his bedroom growing up. We moved it to California and I repainted it yellow and found cute star knobs for it. But it was time for another facelift.

A while ago I bought this cute crib sheet at Target.  I thought it was so cute and started brainstorming ideas for this room. Not only is it Whitney's, it will always be the nursery since it is right across from our room.  Although unlikely, we may have a boy someday, so I wanted something gender-neutral.  I finally decided on the woodland theme, going off of this sheet.

The next step was a trip to one of my favorite stores : Sherwin Williams.  There I quickly picked out a sky blue and a green paint that remind me of spring, the color of the first baby leaves. This is probably my favorite color.  I picked a less shiny base for the blue, since it won't see much wear and tear, but for the lower color of green, it was definitely scrubbable!  After I bought the paint in July, I didn't do much.  My mom was coming and I figured that would be the best time to paint. Although i often paint alone with the kids, having a babysitter during the process would be a big help.

 After washing the walls, removing nails and blinds, and taping with Frog Tape, I started with two coats of the sky blue.  Even as I started, I didn't really have a full idea of how I would separate the two colors.  I had been thinking about it for months and debating different ideas, but I just decided to go for it and see what happened.  I finally decided to use sidewalk chalk (plentiful since Abbby's birthday party) to draw out some bushes and trees.  It worked great, and was easy to work with.  I picked a few trees from the sheet to copy, but the rest was free hand.  I began painting the edges, and found a regular paintbrush was not going to cut it. I grabbed a little foam craft brush and that worked much better. After I filled in the edges and cut in teh corners and baseboards, then I could just do all the green.  It was actually nice only working with one half of the wall at a time, even though it took many steps.  I did another coat of green and made sure to get all the little places, like the pointy edges of the pine trees.

 After all those steps were done and very dry, I began adding more details. I had bought a small sample size of dark green, and had some light green and yellow left over from Sara's room, so I just began mixing colors.  I was able to do the details again with the small foam brush, and fill in with a small roller (also left from painting sara's stripes)

 I looked online for a long time, trying to find a large tree vinyl sticker or something. Anything that was actually big enough was way too expensive, and none of them were exactly what i was looking for.  I took a leap with inspiration from all the design shows I like to watch, including Extreme Makeover : Home Edition, where they always go all out on kids rooms and are not afraid to nail things to the wall.  I was going to make my own trees.  A full sheet of MDF is huge, so i found some thinner quarter sheets at Home Depot and was able to get four of them.  The large tree had to be made in two pieces, but it worked out fine. I took some butcher paper into the room, looked at the crib sheet and sketched the trunks out, measured and all that.  Then my mom helped hold the wood for me while I cut it out with the jigsaw.  After that, it was a whole bunch of sanding, but MDF sands really well, so it wasn't too bad.

 While at Home Depot, I found this chalkboard paint that can be tinted, so we got dark brown "Coffee."  I researched on the internet and figured out how I wanted to do it. I took my trees to the basement and every three hours for about three days I added a coat with a foam roller  The color is great, still haven't written on it, I kindof don't want to give Whitney any ideas... 

I used regular finishing nails to put the trunks in place, they need to stay, but no one should be hanging on them (hopefully) so I didn't think I needed to anchor them in or anything.  I found a rug at IKEA and it looked just like a patch of grass,so I aired that out on the porch for a few days and added it in.

 Ordered some knobs for the dresser and got them.  The screws were too long, but I was able to get some shorter ones and install those.

 I finally found a great website which had woodland animals in the sizes I wanted and ordered them. They came so fast, I was really happy.  I added all these around the room, hoping no one will decide to pick them off. 

 Mom and I were able to make a quilt insanely fast, because I figured I would not do it by myself. I found a few fabrics I liked on a Wal-Mart trip and we threw them together at 10 pm.  We spent the next few days sewing and just quilted it on the machine ourselves. When Grandma Watson came to Abby's baptism, she was able to help hand sew the binding.  Thank goodness for internet tutorials, helped us get it on there with the corners right! it is somewhere between a crib and twin size, should be great for the toddler bed and to wrap up in.

 the tree by the window was a big pine tree, but it was not working out, so it became a different kind of tree that I like much more.

 The squirrel was a little huger than I thought he would be, so he is hiding behind the rocking chair.  Once Whitney is in a toddler bad, the chair will go. And once a new baby is there, a changing table will go against the wall where I left it mostly blank.  So that should all work, no matter which way we have things.

I am not sure why i got only the mushrooms beige. I thought they would look cute, like they were growing out of the baseboards, but they really blend in.  I may buy brown ones later if I find some money laying around. 
So, all in all it was a really fun project for me to do. I love designing and getting ideas and taking the steps to finish it.  I love walking down the hall and seeing that glowing green coming from the room.  I am so happy most things turned out just the way I wanted, which isn't always the case. There are a few things I don't love, but I do like, so it's ok.  The fun part is seeing how much Whitney likes it. She loves her trees and can name all her animals.  She will lay on her grass to get her diaper changed and I really think she enjoys it all. I think the room is classic and will be cute for years to come.  So I think that's about it!  Sometime when inspiration strikes again, I think I will be doing the guest room for all of you to enjoy when you come visit! But that will probably be a while. One room at a time.