BABY LEAH’S ROOM

We’re finally getting around to showing you Leah’s baby room! I took these pictures back in early November, but not much has changed since then… except now we actually get to enjoy baby girl’s room with her! There are still some small things left to do, but if I wait to reveal before every little thing is “finished”, you might not see it until 2017! And I’m just too excited not to share…

The first thing to do was pick a new paint color for the walls. And I’m not going to even pretend and say that this was easy. Why is it always the hardest thing?! I wanted a lighter color (like Mya’s room) because the girls’ rooms don’t get great natural light and they are on the smaller side. (The rooms are on the smaller side. Not our girls. Have you seen Leah’s cheeks?!) So, in effort to make their spaces feel inviting, light, and airy, I went with soft colors. For Leah’s room, we wanted a greyish-lavender. We picked up numerous paint samples, slapped them on the wall, but they ended up looking pink or too grey or even neon. After mulling over too many swatches, we landed on one from Sherwin Williams. It was like God’s light shined in through the window and pointed directly on Veiled Violet (SW 6268)— an angelic, completely magical moment and the perfect color choice for the baby room.

Then on to my favorite part– gathering what we have and making it work cohesively with other things. I like home decor that has meaning to me– if I don’t love it, I’m not going to nail it to the wall. I also don’t like storing things away if they can somehow be displayed. My late aunt Del embroidered these dish towels for our wedding. I always thought they were just too delicate and sweet to wipe up anything in the kitchen. So they remained in a box until now– almost six years later!– and I love them so. Using three frames that we already owned, I just trimmed them down to fit within each frame.

These white heart shelves were originally in my childhood room. They used to look like this and line the upper corner of a room, but they were not the right dimensions for their new space.

Enter handyman Derek with the bandsaw and miter saw and we were saved! He dismantled, cut to my desired size, and I patched holes with dowels, sanded and painted. We used Sherwin Williams ProClassic Acrylic Latex (which I use on all furniture pieces) in Pure White (SW 7005). Then I thought they were too deep (previously 12″) for the room size, so Derek dismantled again and cut down to 7″ shelf depth. Such a good hubby– making all my dreams come true! And we even have a fourth shelf stored in the closet waiting to be hung under the other three when baby girl grows out of her crib and transitions to a big girl bed.

The quilt is from my Mom a few Christmases ago and it’s made from old sweaters. I love its colors, so displaying it as a wall hanging seemed like a good idea. And our nephew is soon making colorful origami for the plain wire mobile above the crib.

The dresser came from Mya’s room and compliments the wall color. (Remember she wanted to swap out her fushia one for the blue-ish one!) I already had the mirror (above dresser) from many years ago, but it looks a little space-agey (that’s a word, right?!) in here to me. I want to keep it up, but have an idea on how to add to its cuteness factor, which I hope to complete soon. It might become an animal head. Just saying. Let’s also not ignore the fact that I couldn’t crop out my baby belly from the bottom left corner of this picture. That’s talent, people. Or one big baby belly. Either one.

The rocker was in Mya’s room and then the office. You can learn how to make the t-shirt rug here. The nightstand was given to us three years ago and never had a real place in the house until now.

Awhile ago (not knowing what I’d use it for at the time), I found an old, ornate wooden frame for $5 at a garage sale. I spray painted it gold and brushed on some latex purple paint to create some gold borders. The fabric “L” was $2 at HomeGoods. Score!

You can learn how to do the paint swatch art here. And you can also learn how to do the residual paint art here. It’s your lucky day! 😉

This was the closet before I organized all the tubs of baby clothes. So. Many. Baby clothes. We kept some sentimental newborn and 3 month pieces, but have passed most of them on since baby Leah is already in 6 month stuff. Yeah, she’s only 5 weeks. But the girl likes to eat!

As I sat in the rocker last night and looked around the room, I tallied up what we spent to complete Leah’s room and it came to $100 ($30 for wall paint, $15 for shelf paint, $15 for a waterproof mattress cover, $40 for a humidifier.) I probably wouldn’t even count the mattress cover or humidifier, but we needed both and Derek likes numbers… so $100. If I could someday create a job for myself to use what people have (plus just a little more), plus a little organization, some DIY, and savvy space planning… you would find my happy place. Oh and some dark chocolate chips. Gotta have those in the happy place. Not having those would be a deal breaker.