Wesley’s New Room!

Wesley inherited a nursery that was decorated before we even knew that Kyla was a girl.  For his third birthday, I wanted to give him a big kid room and really clear out all the baby stuff.

I forgot to take pictures but I trolled old posts to find a few glimpses of the baked scone-and-sage-green room with sagier trim.   

 

This was the last room with a popcorn ceiling and it’s days were numbered. After all, I had scrapped, retextured, and repainted 5 (5!!) separate popcorn ceilings in our home and this one was the smallest.

 

I don’t know what went wrong. 

I started on a Thursday night and planned that the ceiling and all the walls, and most of the trim work would be done by end of Sunday. 

 

I was still working on the 3rd ceiling re-do on Tuesday.  Papa Jim had to be called in and his only suggestion was to mud the damn thing and start again.  It was the absolutely worst idea out there, except all the ones I came up with.  I mudded, sanded, mudded, sanded, sanded, primed, textured, touched up, primed, then painted first and second coat.  Was I happy?  Not with myself.  But, for being more work that all the other ceilings combined, it turned out the best.  Which means exactly this:  You will never, never notice the ceiling in that room.  A perfect ceiling (outside of the Sistine Chapel, of course)is a non-entity. 

I had noodled on the new color for a month or so, wavering between the blue or green family.  Wesley wanted all the colors he saw in the paint chip aisle.  But finally he began insisting on a red room and the light bulb lit up.  I love red!  And a bright, cheerful red would be just the right…accent.  I found a brownish linen color that made a good neutral background for dinosaurs and then did floor and ceiling trim in fire engine red.  And the dinosaur lamp and bedding set I found (used, of course) each had the same primary red in them. 

This

 

became this (SIL Julie made the kids each their own growth chart. Isn’t this one cool?)

I have since cleaned up the closet (no more empty paint cans, etc) but his small room really opened up once his dresser was put into the “wardrobe area”.  I’ll keep the doors off for now, but I think I would like to add trim around the closet to make it pop.

 

I searched for weeks for a play rug on craigslist and what found was outrageous—$40 to $200!  Then I found out that Ikea sells them for $14.95.  I sucked it up and bought it new.  It’s been a hit for the kids AND it hides the spot where Wesley emptied out the acid wart medicine last year.

My best find, though, was this bookshelf.  Ikea, again, but off craigslist for $80.  Not exactly a steal, but a fantastic accessory! 

And because there were so many straight lines in the room, I wanted to add some curves.  I took part of an 1/8” plywood board leftover from a flooring project at the cabin and made it into this chalkboard blob.

 

 

There is only one thing hanging on his wall so far—a cut out from the birthday wrapping paper Dwayne drew for him.  Cute, huh?

 

I have just a few things I want to add:  we have a bedframe down in the garage that I’ve been saving for Wesley’s big kid bed since he was born but haven’t dragged it out yet.  The blue blinds that are splattered with oil-based texture and have several permanently bent slats really, really need to go.   And those bare walls are just waiting for some din0 decals or posters or something.  I’ll be looking around…

Thanks for stopping by!