The Kids' Rooms

This info is old news by now, but I still wanted to take some time to document changes to the kids' rooms. Henry was in his nursery until we found out we were expecting Annie. We knew we would have to transition him to a "big boy" room, so below are some pics from the project we started in mid March. He has done beautifully with the move!

Henry's new room used to be the guest room. It was an olive green color, had an outdated ceiling fan, and popcorn ceilings. We have slowly taken off the popcorn in each of the rooms in our house (a few rooms still remain), so we knew we would want to take them off in his room while it was empty. Here is Steven scraping the ceilings. You can kind of see the old paint color.

This is a picture of the messy job...you should see the floors during this whole process. And look at the wet walls....ugg. It's not a fun job, but the results sure are nice.

Henry was absolutely enthralled with the whole process. He loved just standing there in the doorway and watching Steven work (the floors were too messy for him to walk around in there).

Here are the ceilings after all being scraped and sanded before being painted white. Way to go, Steven! This project was all him...me being pregnant and still getting over pneumonia were good enough excuses for him to take the helm!

Look at Henry's smile...that is TRUE happiness. He was SO into the ladder and wanted to help daddy work so badly. We let him climb up there every night and "work" with some tools.

Another ladder shot...you can see the walls are painted a light gray and the ceilings are painted. They are putting in a nice new ceiling fan here.

This is in the middle of decorating it...Henry wanted to be in every shot. I wanted to keep the rocking chair in there as long as possible! I know it probably looks babyish, but as long as he doesn't know the difference we are good!

Here he is in his "big boy bed"....ahem. That is what he thinks anyway! Henry has never tried to climb out of his crib (even now at 2 and a half years old), so I am not about to transition him into a real bed until we have to. I like having him contained at night! This crib we borrowed from friends (thank you Hunter and Blakeley!!!) since we still needed the white one for the nursery. It felt bigger to Henry, and he was so proud of it!!

"Helping" organize his books on his bookshelf! The rug I got at TJ Maxx on clearance and the brown light blocking curtains were $4 a panel at dirt cheap-score! I didn't really have a theme in mind, but these neutral, boyish colors work well together.

Drumroll, please! Just this summer we have finally gotten some stuff up on the walls in the kids' rooms, so I feel like the are finally official (hence the blog post). We had this chest of drawers already in the guest room, and they will work for now. They are old and kind of rickety, so that is something I look to replace eventually. The picture is a framed poster from a gorgeous town we visited last summer in Switzerland...we figured the cows would work for a kids room!

The Scrabble tiles are from Hobby Lobby, and Steven and I both loved them when we saw them! I know if we had set time aside we could have made something similar, but there is something said for having it already done for you!! I have since put a frame around the "h" beside his bed. The frame is the same color as the crib and tiles, so it looks really good.

Here is his reading nook again-the 2 square pics were from his nursery. When Henry looked at them when I put them back up in this room, he said, "Baby Annie!!"...I had to tell him it was HIM as a baby, and at first he didn't believe me!  I'm really happy with the way this turned out! Eventually Henry may want something different, but right now he is thrilled with his room!

Next up? Annie's room! I originally thought I would be OK keeping the nursery exactly like it was for another baby. When we found out Annie was a girl, somehow the yellow and gray theme just seemed boyish. I still thought keeping it the same would be fine with me, but as her due date approached, I began to change my mind! With a second baby, there is just so much LESS prep. I didn't feel like we were READY for #2 because of that-we hadn't DONE anything much for her arrival! I think I was also still just a little bit skeptical that she was actually going to be a girl for some reason, too. I was also nervous about picking pink-there are so many shades and I didn't want anything too loud or overbearing. We decided to finally do it, though, sooo...being the good sport that he is, Steven transformed the nursery from neutral yellow to girly pink! I ended up loving the shade of pink we chose. My mom helped paint the trim one day, and I could have sworn I got a picture of her working, but I can't find it anywhere...guess that what happens when you post something 6 months post project!


After the painting and putting back of furniture, all the decorations had to go up on the wall! Henry was SO into all of this...he wanted to help so badly. Steven let him help hammer some shelves which he loved! He also loved sorting through the jar of nails. These pics were taken exactly a month before Annie was born!

I love the finished product! We kept all the bedding the same, as well as the rocker, rug, and bookshelf. I just added a few feminine touches like the change from a square mirror to this shabby chic looking one we found at an antique store. I also added a throw pillow that Steven actually gave me when we were dating that is made from a quilt square. My German doll that mom kept is sitting on the floor (don't worry Annie-I hated it and don't mind if you do, too. I don't know why Manar kept that one!). And the girl bin from Aunt Mae to hold extra books.

The pink minky dot blanket thrown over the crib is just like Henry's yellow one made by Grandma. I don't know if she will love hers like he loves his, but at least she has one to try! She also has a pink Angel dear hippo lovie with her name on it in there just like Henry's special bunny one. The vintage floral prints above the crib are ones I had before that work perfectly in her room! I had collected them from thrift stores and antique stores.

We had seen some cute handkerchief name banners at Alter'd State that I wanted to buy for a girl, but with Annie having a double n, it just looked funny with two of the same handkerchiefs right next to each other. SO, I got the idea that I could make something similar that I liked. I already had several hankies, so I found a few more that the antique store that were floral, then painted the letters of her name in gray. That's were my talent ended, however. I passed it off to Grandma to fold and sew all together. I was happy with how it turned out!

Melanie made Annie this cute wreath which I put on the outside of her closet door. To the right is the button initial decoration that Heather made for Henry with yellow buttons. We switched out the yellow for pink and re-did the initial from H to A!

The changing table is pretty much the same as with Henry. I just changed the pad cover to the that soft minky dot pink one. Above on the shelves are a couple more vintage pictures. The one with the dog actually was from a60's Baptist Sunday School curriculum  (it said on the back) that must have been teaching about responsibility or something. So cute-I think I got it from a yard sale. To the left of that is a book that was mine as a kid called "Love is a Special Way of Feeling" by Joan Walsh Anglund. The words and illustrations in it are just precious. Since it was pink, I figured I could display it in Annie's room! The dress was actually my niece Emma's-she wore it to our wedding! I love Annie's room, and I hope she does, too.