September 1, 2016 | girl & grey

September 26, 2016 1 Comment

goodbabyroom

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Happy Monday! It is finally cooling off and raining here in Texas and I am thrilled. This has been a very hot, long summer and I am ready for Fall and the cooler temps that come with it. Bring on all the pumpkins! Over the weekend, my seven year old, Nolan, asked me why I haven’t been getting the baby room ready? She is right, it’s time to get busy. I have all things nursery on the brain. Isn’t the one above just dreamy? We have about seven weeks left until my c-section and this very slow moving lady needs to pick up the pace.

Here is the space. Yikes. Since we have moved into the new house, we have used this room as a dumping ground for extra art and frames.

I want the nursery to be a simple space with just the necessities. The room is small (about 10×11) and I want it to feel modern, open, and without a lot of frills. This is our third baby and we have learned our lesson about buying all the things. We went crazy when Nolan was born and she had every baby item on the market. She had swings, bassinets, strollers (yes, we had more than one), toys, activity mats, and on and on and on. We scaled back when Grey came along and he had much less. This time, the plan is to start with just a few of the basics. If we find that we absolutely cannot survive without a particular item, we will add as needed. So, I started putting together a small list to accomplish this simple, open space. As always, I kept the price points at what I thought to be affordable. Big impact + small budget = my cup of tea.

First, lets start from the floor and work our way up.

rugforbaby

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This rug is fun and its low price tag makes it not too precious. I think this is perfect to inject some pattern and ground the space. I think a 5×7 would be just the right size and allow me to place the other pieces of furniture around it.

2. Obviously, I need a crib for our guy. Nolan and Grey used the same crib and it looked worn out by the time Grey grew out of it. Think teeth marks, dents and a squeaky mattress from jumping.

baby-crib

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This crib has clean lines and with its bright white color is perfect for our small room. My sister bought this very same crib for her daughter, Finley, and has loved it. Finley approved!

3. Crib bedding is hard. I looked and looked for something that was cute for a baby boy but not over the top with monster trucks or fire engines.

baby-bedding

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It might be hard to tell from the picture, but this pattern has a small feather pattern. Cute, huh? I thought so. I haven’t ordered from Land of Nod before, so I am excited to test them out in the nursery. I want some of these for my bed!

4. This changing pad and cover is another Land of Nod find. There were so many options that I may end up changing my mind again. But I was drawn to this one because of the fun pop of color it would bring to the space.

babychangingcover

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It seems like the baby gear is so much cooler since I was last in the baby game. Like those yummy pouches that I see so many toddlers happily devouring. What?! I’m not even sure if those were around when Grey was transitioning to baby food. Maybe they were, but I wasn’t privy to them.

5. This mobile could be cute in a boy nursery, girl nursery or maybe I plan on stealing this from our baby when he’s done with it and hanging it in our living room.

westelmbaby

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Nate thinks this mobile is perfect as it pays homage to our time here in Texas. Nolan and Grey were both born in Portland so this is a cute reminder that our new baby is a Texan. I wonder if he’ll have an accent?

So that’s my list of baby finds for the nursery to come! Grey is donating his old dresser to his baby brother that will house his clothes (ahem…that we have yet to buy) and his new changing pad. It is an IKEA dresser we bought a couple years ago that we stained and painted the drawer fronts white.

Don’t you love a good list? I sure do. Something about having things laid out in print helps to ease my type-A tendencies. During my whole pregnancy, I kept telling myself that I had plenty of time to get going on the baby’s room. But, as Nolan pointed out, my window is closing.

P.s. Our new floors have come in and are being installed on Saturday, this Saturday! I took lots of horrible before pictures of our current flooring situation so you’ll be able to appreciate my crazy enthusiasm. Take a deep breath….eeek!

Crushed Ice

September 8, 2016 2 Comments

Oh my goodness. It’s been crazy at our house the last few weeks. We have been busy adjusting to our new school schedule. Hello 6:15am! This is not a natural time for anyone in our family to get up in the morning. We fall more into the night owl category, for sure. In addition to our new school schedule, Grey started fall football and Nolan is finishing up her swimming classes and gearing up for tryouts for swim team. Nate has also been recruited as head coach for Grey’s football team…gulp. Nate is competitive. He is so competitive that we have “no board-game” rule in our house for the general well being/happiness for everyone who lives here. But, I’m sure he will be able to keep his competitive nature in check for these cute little football players, right?

Things have been really busy at home as well. We have my C-section officially scheduled for November 11 so I have to get busy and get some projects done around the house before baby boy is here and the holidays soon thereafter. So, in an effort to keep this train moving, I finally chose a paint color for the interior of the house. I knew I wanted something in the greige family, i.e. a warm gray color. I also decided that this color is going to be pretty much everywhere. This means the living room, dining room, kitchen, entryway, hallway, etc. You get the idea. I’m thinking this will bring a nice flowing and cohesive look to the inside of the house.

A few weeks ago, I went and picked quite a few swatches of paint that I brought home to study. I quickly narrowed down my options as so many of these colors looked too dark in our house. The lighting is super tricky in here with the screened porch on the back of the house that blocks a lot of natural light. I quickly had three favorites for which I went and grabbed test pots at Lowe’s.

All three colors are Sherwin Williams. The top was Nebulous White, the middle swatch was Crushed Ice and the bottom was On the Rocks. I painted these swatches in several different places around the house all in different lighting situations. Dark, darker, and barely visible to the human eye. In the end, I went with the middle swatch because I felt it brought the most warmth to the game. And that’s what this place needs. A warm and fresh pallet.

This is a shot of the hallway with a fresh coat of Crushed Ice. I especially love the way it pops against the trim. I also just finished painting ALL the trim in the whole house. I was able to leave the baseboards because we will be replacing them when we have our new floors installed, but more on that in a minute. Remember what our hall used to look like on move in day? Wow. I feel bad for THAT Courtney. She had a lot of work ahead of her.

Main Hall

The walls were super shiny and it drove me crazy. It made the texture on the wall stand out as well. This particular texture has so much texture with sharp-ish peaks that it looks like it might scratch you if you rubbed against it. So, while I know most people do not recommend painting their walls in a flat sheen, I went ahead and did it anyways. It seems to tone down our crazy texture and doesn’t draw your eye to the texture, the way it did when the walls were a satin sheen. I hear the warnings against flat paint as it isn’t as washable as some of the more shiny sheens and to this I say, if our walls are so dirty that I am constantly needing to wash them, I suppose I will be repainting anyways. Also, I think that the paint formulas have come a long ways. All of the sheens seem to be washable these days. Anyways, that wraps up my mini-rant and now, more pretty pictures!

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Did you spot our new light fixture in the dining room? I have been hunting for something for this space for a while now. We have had an IKEA one above our table for several years but I have been wanting something a little more special. The lightbulbs are dipped in silver which is really fun.

Remember before how I mentioned floors? Well, we finally made a decision and ordered our wood floors! So, they will be coming in over the next few weeks and then demo and installation should be at the end of this month. They will go down everywhere except the bathrooms and bedrooms. I am so excited/nervous. Here is a little sneak peek of what will soon be our new floors.

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So that’s the dish in our house. I can’t believe we are going to have new floors soon! Picture me with a serious case of perma-grin.

My 5 current crushes for the nursery

Crushed Ice