Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Evolution of the Baby Room

T minus 5.5 weeks until baby. oy.

What's making it easier is that we made good progress on the nursery over the last month. The amazing Beth came down and we painted for three days straight over President's Weekend. Thanks to Pandora Radio (AKON!) and a little bit of gossiping, we stayed sane and did a pretty good job. The weekend of March 12 was Baby Shower #1 and hauling some second-hand furniture back from MA. And this past weekend was for putting everything away!

But let's start at the beginning . . .

When we moved in, there was a creepy Dumbo mural on the walls (many of the little critters were cute, but I think Dumbo is SCARY!).

small BR

2nd Bedroom

Bye Bye Dumbo!
Priming Baby Room

The door was freakin ADORABLE!!! Of course it was also covered in about 7 layers of lead-paint (Chris has been stripping the door frames around the rest of the apartment, and the numbers of layers we found just screams toxic paint!), so door got tossed. I hope to recreate the barn-door effect on the new one, but we'll see.

2nd Bedroom


Anyway, the room needed a new decor, and on a trip to the New York Public Library, I found my inspiration.

Winnie the pooh at the New York Public Library

Winnie the Pooh at the New York Public Library

Winnie the pooh at the New York Public Library

I have a few of the Winnie the Pooh books with the original illustrations, so I scanned them in and plotted them around the room.

babyroom_pooh
(click for larger image)

My amazing friend Beth came down over President's Day and we got to work. She had a few tips up her sleeve too!

1) Use a projector to display the image on the wall and trace.

Painting the Baby Room

Painting the Baby Room

Chris snagged a digital one from work, so we could display the scanned images right from the laptop (and crop and edit quickly if needed) instead of fumbling with overheads and transparencies.

2) Use watercolor crayons to trace the image, so it can be washed off afterwards.

So over three days, we traced on our images and painted.

Pooh and Balloon, the Little Back Rain Cloud . . .

pooh bees  Painting the Baby Room  Painting the Baby Room
006  004

Pooh and Piglet . . .

pooh and piglet 2  Painting the Baby Room  009

010  012  011

Piglet's House . . .

Piglet house  Painting the Baby Room  011

013  014  019

Pooh Climbing the Tree . . .

Tree  Painting the Baby Room  Painting the Baby Room

021  024  002

Owl's House . . . 

pooh owls house  Painting the Baby Room  Painting the Baby Room
Painting the Baby Room  008  030
008 007

And the crew . . .

Tigger . . .

tigger  Painting the Baby Room

015  016


Rabbit . . .

rabbit  Painting the Baby Room

020  018


Eeyore . . .

Painting the Baby Room  Painting the Baby Room  021

Christpher Robin . . .

Christopher Robin  026

017


Finishing Touches:

Trim . . . 

008

Curtains and blinds . . .

1000000130

1000000129


Oh, and baby needs furniture. My mother made me promise not to buy/register for anything until I cleaned out the extra stuff she had at her house.

Baby Shower Haul (5)

Baby Shower Haul (8)

Finally, time to put everything in place and away!

Baby Room - Almost done (4)

Baby Room - Almost done (2)


The whole package . . .

Baby Room - Almost done (1)


The only things left to do:

1) Get a new grate for over the radiator
(the original one was all dented and sharp)
Small BR

2) The curtains over the high shelves are not screwed in very tight. One side actually ripped the anchor out of the wall. Chris wants to replace all of them.

3) Baby Shower #2 is this coming weekend. After that, we'll get the rest of what we need and finish up!

1 comments:

4-Way Split said...

Beautiful, M! I looooove the pooh inspiration and artwork. Get your nesting on :). Great job!