room reveal: Rowan's big kid bedroom!

I can't believe it's taken me almost seven months to get to this point, but I think I can finally officially say that Rowan's big kid room is DONE. Granted, I've been pregnant for all but about two weeks of this room makeover, so I'll cut myself some slack...but STILL. The truth is that everything's been finished for a couple months except painting the closet and building the window coverings, which I knocked out over the last couple weekends. So: DONE.

It all started at the end of last August, when the guest room still looked like this:

We'd been trying for awhile to get pregnant, and my thought was that once a new baby was on the way, we'd move Rowan from the nursery into the guest room/office, since the nursery is so small that a twin bed would barely fit in there (if at all). I wasn't sure how to introduce the idea to her, given that she was completely happy in her crib in the nursery. Thankfully, one day, she waltzed into the guest room and announced, "I want this to be my room!" It's always better when kids think big transitions are their idea, so I jumped on the opportunity and said, "Awesome! Let's plan it! What do you want it to look like?"

She actually had a big hand in the room's design, which was so much fun to do with her! Her main requests for her big kid room were: pink and yellow walls; glitter on the walls; a big kid bed; one pink lamp and one yellow lamp (harder to find than you'd think, omg); and pictures of her family (aww). We were looking through Pinterest one day and she added one more request - a white tent over her bed. 

This all sounded easy enough, although I was a little wary about the pink and yellow walls. I wasn't sure how to pull that off without it looking...I don't know, oppressively fluorescent? And wouldn't pink and yellow clash with each other? Luckily, I stumbled on this picture from the Land of Nod website, and it sparked a paint idea:

Source

I LOVED that diagonal paint swath, and I figured it would allow for enough white space to offset any mega-bright colors. Plus, as much as I've never really appreciated pink, I am super, super into the dusty rose that just happens to be trendy right now. I could make that work with a mellow shade of yellow, right?! 

So I got to work, first selling most of the furniture from the guest room and moving all our office stuff down to the basement (as if we have room down there for it, but whatever). Then I primed the walls...with a little help:

Once the walls were ready, I got stuck for awhile trying to figure out the optimal paint design. I used painter's tape to test out a couple ideas, but nothing was really gelling. I ended up having two of my friends (who both have amazing eyes for design...thanks, Kendal and Katie!!) come over to help me plan the paint patterns, and also to choose the right shades of pink and yellow. Then I kicked Rowan and J.J. out of the house one weekend day and spent way longer than I'd anticipated taping everything off.

I used a laser level to get the straightest lines possible, which was super tricky around the windows, because the window moldings cut the laser line off. Taping everything pretty much took longer than the actual painting did. That was super frustrating - but totally worth it. The design ended up looking perfect, with flawless lines (tip: rub a damp washcloth along the painter's tape and let it dry before you paint - makes for extra-crisp lines with no bleeding). It was especially worth it when Rowan came back that evening and saw her "pink and lellow" walls for the first time.

Unnnnnfortunately, this face was quickly followed by, "But I wanted the WHOLE THING to be pink and lellowwww!" Meaning, she was not happy with parts of the walls staying white.  -_-  I mitigated her disappointment by showing her that the pink paint is actually glitter paint. The glitter is awesome - you just add a packet right into your paint can, stir it up, paint away, and voila, you get a subtle sparkle all over the wall. It's super hard to photograph, but I got a (admittedly mediocre) video of it:

Rowan also loved being my construction assistant. She helped build her new bookshelf, her new bed (a birthday present from Grandpa), and her new double glider (a Christmas present from Gramma, which is awesome and big enough to fit all three of us - soon, all four of us).

Oh, and she loved "helping" J.J. measure when we hung the wood cornices this past weekend:

But anyway - enough with the boring descriptions. How about some more pictures? I'll go around the room clockwise, starting from when you look in the doorway. (Ignore that light on the ceiling...yes, it's a porch light; yes, it's from the previous owners; yes, Ikea discontinued the light I'd planned on replacing that one with; yes, I'm too lazy to find another one that I really like, so yes, it stays for now.)

Aaaand because I'm a total dork, here's a video with a 360-degree tour:

I'll list all the sources at the end of the post, but some details about the details: She chose her bedding from a few photos I'd pinned for her, and I looove her comforter. It's super cute, and it helped guide my paint color choices. (Although it's possible I started out with a different shade of yellow that looked too orange and eventually re-painted with this shade. POSSIBLE.) Oh, and just so you know, to fulfill Rowan's wish for one pink lamp and one yellow lamp, I had to buy two pink lamps and spray paint one of them yellow. It was impossible to find affordable lamps that came in both pink and yellow! I did score some awesome white lampshades from Target that are even glittery, much to Rowan's delight.

I made the canopy over her bed using some sheer curtains, a large embroidery hoop, and some battery-operated LED twinkle lights from Amazon (which I neglected to take a picture of, but trust me, they're up there!). 

Her nightstand drawer is where she stores her ever-growing
comic book collection. Only Robin is allowed to read them with her.

Per her request for pictures of her family, I got a bunch of free square prints from Parabo Press (I only paid shipping, which was like $8 or something). I don't love the way they're arranged right now - I should've done them in straight lines instead of following the diagonal paint line - but I can't bring myself to take the time to rearrange them, so there you have it. 

I made the paintings over the bookshelf, with Rowan's guidance. She asked for specific lyrics from "This Little Light of Mine" and "Bushel and a Peck", and she very much wanted a picture of Baby Kermit, who was her obsession back in the fall, when she pretended she had an Invisible Kermit in her hand at all times. She doesn't really care about him anymore but claims she still wants the painting.

I also DIY'ed the cornices over her windows. I didn't want to do full curtains in her room because I had visions of her pulling them down while playing in her bed at night (accurate...she's already snapped the roller shade up while messing around and scared the crap out of herself), so I went with cheap blackout roller blinds from Lowe's and livened them up with the wood cornices - again, props to Katie and Kendal for the inspiration on those. I followed these instructions (found via Pinterest) to build them. The wood is stained with Minwax's Classic Gray stain, which ended up matching the bookshelf and glider perfectly. A pretty easy project overall!

And yeah, I chose to leave her closet doors off. Remember how I removed them to make the guest room closet into our office?

I wanted to leave the doors off for a few reasons. First, I love love love the way her dressers turned out. I initially thought I'd wallpaper the back of the closet wall, but when I did a test run, it just didn't look right. Plus, I was going to have to buy like double the wallpaper I'd already bought to cover the whole back wall, so I nixed the idea and put it on the drawer fronts instead. Second, those closet doors are stored in the basement somewhere and are still the plain orange-y wood color that all our other doors originally were, and I didn't feel like finding them, painting them, and reattaching them. Third, I considered hanging a curtain over it (like we did in the nursery), but I really just wanted her dressers to be visible! I think they're my favorite part of the room. Maybe I'll hang a curtain eventually, but I'm happy with it for now.

My friend Katie made that awesome macrame wall
hanging! She's one of the most talented people I know -
check out her Etsy shop for adorable bonnets.

All of her clothes fit into the six dresser drawers with room to spare, although I do hang up some of her dresses. I use the white bins on the top shelf to store the clothes she's about to grow into and the ones she's just grown out of. That gray-brown box on the shelf below the white bins is her memory box, which is basically where I throw all the stuff that would go into a scrapbook, if I were one to scrapbook. Which I'm not. So she has a box.


And, finally, just a couple more befores and afters, since this post doesn't already have a million pictures:

Before / After

Before / After

Before / After

All in all, Rowan's big kid bedroom turned out even better than I'd hoped. It's cozy, colorful, and so totally Rowan. Plus, I think it'll grow with her for awhile instead of needing major updates in just a couple years. Not to mention that it was a nerdy dream come true to plan the room with her. Hope you love it as much as we do! 


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Source list:

:: Bookshelf (from Target, although I'm not seeing the color I have there anymore...)

:: Paintings over bookshelf (aka my Etsy shop)

:: Frames for paintings (Ikea RIBBA)

:: Double glider chair in dark taupe from Walmart (the beautiful quilt on the chair was made by Gramma)

:: Nightstand (Windham Side Table from Target's Threshold collection)

:: Bed (from Amazon)

:: Sheets (from Target)

:: Comforter (Land of Nod's Fly Away Quilt)

:: White pillow, pink flower pillow, lamps, fabric bins (can't seem to find the same bins, but they're just pink bins from Target's Pillowfort collection, like the rest of these items)

:: Instagram prints (from Parabo Press)

:: Dressers (ASKVOLL from Ikea)

:: Removable wallpaper on drawer fronts (from Walls Need Love)

:: Rug (Rugs USA's Tuscan Moroccan Shag)

:: Blackout roller shades (from Lowe's)

:: Glitter for paint (from Target)

:: Paint colors:
   -- darker pink (wall behind bookshelf) = Riviera Rose from Olympic
   -- yellow = Banana Mania from Behr
   -- lighter pink (closet area) = Pink Sangria from Olympic

Rowan's room.

It's been a long week or so. Not the days, so much; just the nights. Rowan had a cough and stuffy nose that were mostly absent during the day, but woke her up multiple times a night. Of course, she only wanted Mama. That meant I spent a lot of time staring around her nursery, the bedroom that she's going to move on from in the next couple months, after we complete the "big-girl room" that she and I are excitedly planning together.

And while it's so much fun to dream up ideas for her new space, I'm still a little bewildered by the idea that somehow, in the last three years, I went from ferreting out the perfect hues of gray and turquoise paint to researching glitter add-ins that will make various shades of blush and bashful pop on the walls.

Each night this week, while I rocked her in her chair, I looked at her room and just remembered. All of it.


:: I remember hoarding paint chips from a half-dozen stores, trying to narrow down the exact color scheme to take the room's vibe from "random piles of crap" to "soothing, gender-neutral nursery."

:: I remember painting the west wall gray and feeling the flutters of her kicks for the very first time.

:: I remember how J.J. and I diligently followed the Ikea instruction booklet to assemble Rowan's dresser. It was the quickest, easiest, least-contentious Ikea project we'd ever attempted, and we high-fived each other in satisfaction when it was done. I remember I then eagerly turned to the crib, still in its box, and - thankfully, wisely - J.J. suggested we wait for another day to try that one. I remember thinking, "Holy shit! We're finally smart enough to recognize when to leave well enough alone. We're totally ready for a baby!"

:: I remember coming home on a grumpy day to find that J.J. had wrestled the freshly delivered rocking chair all the way up the stairs and into the baby's room by himself, even perching Mosby upright with a book for effect.

:: I remember my mom seeing the finished nursery for the first time and exclaiming over how much she loved the gray. She hadn't been able to picture the color in her head and was pleasantly surprised at how good it looked, how bright, how cheerful.

:: I remember a photographer snapping newborn photos in the nursery, and I remember being in pain from head to toe because I was only one week post-C-section. I remember I still couldn't stand up straight with out my stitches pulling and burning. I remember crying when the photographer asked if I had a different shirt I might want to wear, because no, I didn't, because I couldn't figure out how to wear a bra with my nursing tops, but I had to wear a bra to avoid irritating my scabbed nipples (!). I remember being nauseated from exhaustion by the end of the photo session, and I remember seeing and loathing the pictures of myself from that day. I remember looking at those pictures again a couple years later and feeling a rush of affection for myself as a new mom, with bruised post-IV arms, ill-fitting clothes, triple chins, puffy eyes, and unwashed hair.

:: I remember that Rowan didn't sleep in this room for many months. I remember being totally taken aback by that. First she was in a co-sleeper in our room, then a Rock 'N' Play in our room, then a Rock 'N' Play in her room, and finally in her crib...sometimes.

:: I remember the surprise of discovering her first tooth while changing her diaper. She was four months old. I remember I cried.

:: I remember snapping at J.J. one night when he tiredly suggested letting Rowan cry it out for a bit, which I saw as a parenting decision-abyss that we weren't ready to leap into. And I also remember when she woke up again not twenty minutes after finally falling back asleep that night. I remember knowing that she was not wet or hungry or in pain. I remember tucking her in and hearing her shrieks as I climbed back into my bed. I remember looking at the clock and saying, "I won't let her cry for more than twenty minutes. I can't." I remember crying and shaking as I listened to her wail. I remember she slowed her cries at minute ten. I remember she stopped at minute twelve and slept the rest of the night, and the nights after that.

:: I remember when she started waking up happy instead of waking up crying, and that we could let her chill in her crib for twenty or thirty minutes while she babbled and gurgled to herself...and while we got just a little more sleep.

:: I remember the first time Rowan rolled over onto her belly in her sleep. I remember taking a picture and frantically messaging my Mom Group to ask them if this was acceptable, or if I should flip her back over. I was terrified.

:: I remember screaming - literally screaming - "Why won't you fucking SLEEP?!" when she was around nine months old and wouldn't nap one morning, because I had to pump again, again, again, and I needed her to nap so I could do that. I remember feeling horrible when her face crumpled and she began to cry...but I also remember not having it in me to comfort her in that moment. Instead, I turned on my heel, went to the guest room, and pumped. Again, again, again. She did not nap that morning. I remember I apologized to her.

:: I remember opening the door to her room after her nap one day; she was signing, "Book, book, book," and staring at our pile of books on the nightstand. I was ecstatic that she had not only executed her first spontaneous baby sign, but grasped the concept that when we wake up from nap, we cuddle and read books. A genius baby, clearly.

:: I remember the first time she started boogying when I read aloud, "'And now,' cried Max, 'let the wild rumpus start!'" and started singing our rumpus song. I remember being startled and thrilled that she was soaking in the meaning of the words, our personal twists on routine bedtime stories.

:: I remember singing our nap songs dozens and hundreds and maybe thousands of times, ever since the day Rowan decided she was no longer on board with our naptime routine of "put in the crib drowsy but awake." The new plan, apparently, was for me to rock her to sleep. Every nap, every day, every time. Still, now, two full years later, that's our deal. I walked her to sleep for more than a year and a half, until she grew so long and heavy that it was literally giving me carpal tunnel syndrome to hold her in my arms like that. Now she lets me rock her in the chair. She used to prefer "Mary Had A Little Lamb," all five (dubiously recalled) verses, sung until she drifted off. Currently, it's "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." She's usually asleep after eleven rounds of it. Worth it.

:: I remember more than a few nights of her pathetically weak cries reaching me wherever I was in the house, and me scurrying up to rescue her from her frustrated attempts to sleep with a stuffy nose. I remember easing us into the rocking chair, wrapping my arms around her, fear and gratitude accompanying me with every rock forward, every rock backwards. I remember her profile silhouetted in the blue half-light of the baby monitor. I remember universal parental prayers transferring from my heart to hers: feel better, feel better, feel better.

:: I remember thinking time and again that it's a good idea we never put a clock in the nursery, because I did not want to know what ungodly hour it happened to be as I changed her diaper or gave her a bottle or tucked her back in.

:: I remember dashing up the stairs and hiding in Rowan's room after discovering that the chain was latched on the inside garage door, even though J.J. had already unlocked that door and left for the day. She was napping, just a few months old, and in my sleep-deprived, postpartum-anxiety-clouded state, I was convinced that someone had broken in the house and chained the door shut, trapping us inside. Why else would only the chain be latched?! I remember listening intently at her door and mapping our escape route (out the east bedroom window and onto the roof)...and I remember eventually realizing that I was the one who had chained the door shut earlier that morning, acccidentally, subconsciously, when I took the recycling out.

:: I remember scooping her up from her nap on May 1, 2015, when she was one and a half, less than an hour after finding out about my mom's cancer diagnosis. I sobbed and rocked her and recognized both devastation and peace in me. No matter what, there would be constants: me, her, a mother's love. My love, and my mother's love. Constant. I remember.

:: I remember waking her up from naps and holding her close as she emerged from sleep, and I remember inhaling her post-nap scent so deeply that she'd giggle and ask me why I was "niffin" (sniffing) her. I remember her perfectly crazy naptime bedhead.

:: I remember our bedtime routine evolving over the years to where it stands now: bath, books, songs, bed. I remember when that whole routine took less than twenty minutes. Lol.

:: I remember when her crib was completely empty except for her; and I also remember, much more recently, trying to sneak some of her stuffed friends out of the crib when she wasn't looking, since they were taking over the entire mattress. 

:: I remember when she was two and three quarters and woke up screeching from a nightmare. J.J. happened to be having a simultaneous nightmare and leapt from our bed, hollering. I remember he kicked open Rowan's bedroom door with his foot and then ferociously karate-chopped invisible intruders next to her crib. I remember ushering him back to bed, giving Rowan a hug and laying her back down, and returning to our room to find out from J.J. what exactly he thought he was defending her from. I remember trying to fall back asleep, but swelling with laughter again each time I pictured him karate-chopping the air.

:: I remember sneaking into Rowan's room every night before I went to bed, just to see her sleeping form. I remember stifling giggles when I'd see her snuggling her latest bestie: Bunny, Baby, Brachiosaurus, BB-8, Invisible Kermit. I remember pacifiers strewn everywhere, and I remember crossing my fingers that she'd sleep through the night even after we took the pacis away. I remember how gazing on her would wash any frustrations from the day, my heart swelling with gratitude and love and disbelief that this amazing creature was mine, forever.

:: I remember just now, running up to interrupt the very end of Rowan's bedtime routine with J.J. to show them the rainbow blooming outside her window. We sang two rainbow songs, and Rowan exclaimed, "I know! In the morning, you and you and me - all of us together - can draw pictures of rainbows!" A perfect idea.

********************

Now we're planning the next phase, the big-girl room. This time, though, it'll really be Rowan's room, the room that represents who she is and what she loves. She's requested yellow and pink walls; glitter on the south wall; a canopy over the bed; and pictures of her family. I'll do my best to create another space for her to cuddle and dream and grow, to feel safe and loved and content.

Rowan's room.

weekend update: modernizing interior doors with paint & moulding.

The summer before Rowan was born, J.J. and his dad spent a few weeks in the backyard staining and installing a bunch of secondhand fence pieces we'd bought from friends. It drove me bananas not to be able to help with this process, considering (a) I love doing home improvements, and (b) I'm the ultimate control freak, but I wasn't allowed anywhere near the fence stain in my delicate (lol) condition.

So I had to unleash my control-freakiness somewhere else, and our upstairs doors took the hit.

We have four doors upstairs: three bedrooms and one bathroom. They were all scratched, grimy, and stained from decades of use...and hollow, which means they don't do much for noise reduction. Wanting a more modern design and color, I shopped around to see if I could find new, solid-core interior doors. Well, I could - at around $100 a pop. Not only was the cost off-putting, but I was intimidated by the prospect of finding the perfect fit, especially in an older house.

It looked like solid-core doors were out of the question, but I wanted to at least brighten up the hallway and make our existing doors more attractive. I took matters into my own hands and gave the doors the same treatment that our kitchen cupboards and master closet doors got - the über-simple paint-plus-moulding trick. I've done this enough times by now that it's a relatively quick and painless project!

:: Step 1: Remove door; remove hardware

I started out by removing the doors (I labeled them to make sure they were re-installed in the right spot) and bringing them to my makeshift workspace in the garage. (My third-trimestery-ness meant that J.J. had to help with the door transportation, even though they're not heavy at all.) I unscrewed the hinges, doorknobs, and door stops from each one. I planned on replacing the old brass hardware, so I tossed those, but I put the doorknobs and screws in plastic baggies to prevent anything from getting lost.

:: Step 2: Prep doors for paint

J.J. had to help with the first step of prepping for paint: using a liquid sander-deglosser. It's easy and quick - you just pour a little on the door and wipe it off with a paper towel, which removes all the grime and build-up - but I didn't feel comfortable exposing mah fetus to the fumes. Once the doors had fully dried (I think I waited a half hour), I primed each one with primer (I used Zinsser Bulls-Eye water-based primer in white) and a foam roller.

:: Step 3: Prepare moulding

I wanted to add a simple design to each door using half-round moulding. I purchased a bunch of eight-foot, pre-primed pieces, which I prepped while the primer was drying. Prep included measuring and cutting, a quick sanding with high-grit sandpaper (to smooth out the cut edges and also help the flat edge get a better grip when I glued it to the door), and a coat of the same white paint I was using for the doors (off-the-shelf Behr Premium Plus in white semi-gloss). 

As for measuring and cutting - I just eyeballed where I wanted the rectangular design to be, measured the lengths (measure twice three times, cut once less often), and used an ancient hand saw and miter box to make 45-degree cuts. I almost always mess up these cuts a few times, usually by cutting the same angle on opposite ends of the same length of moulding - so instead of looking like this: /__\ , it ends up looking like this: /__/ . (I'm so technical, I KNOW.) Still, it didn't take too long to have all the lengths I needed...which was a lot: two short and two long pieces per side, per door. That's thirty-two pieces altogether. My sawing arm was pretty sore.

:: Step 4: Apply first coat of paint to doors

Here's where you could theoretically start varying up some steps of my oh-so-technical process. I wavered on when to attach the moulding - before or after painting? I'd learned from doing the kitchen cabinet doors that painting around the moulding is way more time-consuming than just rolling over a plain door, but that I have to do at least one coat of paint after attaching the moulding to cover up wayward glue and caulked touch-ups (we'll get to that in a minute). So I split the difference and did one coat of paint before I added the moulding and one coat of paint after. Oh, and I went with semi-gloss paint, as I mentioned before, after Googling around to see what finish people usually use on interior doors.

:: Step 5: Attach the moulding

Before attaching anything, I used a pencil on each freshly-painted door to mark where the corners and edges of my moulding design would go. Then I got down to business securing each piece in its new home. Because half-round moulding tends to warp in places, I've found it best to attach it to doors using both wood glue and some tiny finishing nails (maybe two per short piece and three per long piece). I haven't had a piece pop off yet, so it must be an effective technique! Oh, and I always drive the finishing nails in using an inexpensive nail punch set (like this one) to avoid hammer dings on the soft moulding pieces.

:: Step 6: Touch up the moulding

I let the moulding pieces dry and cure overnight, although you definitely don't have to wait overnight. I just needed a break...and it was getting dark out. The next morning, I used some paintable caulk to fill in the tiny divots where the finishing nails went in, as well as any gaps in the moulding. It's typical to end up with gaps where the corners meet, and I always end up using some caulk to fill in gaps between the flat edge and the door (again, moulding doesn't tend to be perfectly straight or flat, so you have to compensate). Easy to do, and it makes the finished product look more professional.

:: Step 7: Final coat of paint

Once the caulk dried, I did one more coat of paint, taking care not to leave roller marks. I also had to use a brush in some places to smooth out paint around the moulding design.

:: Step 8: Attach new hardware; reattach doors

I picked out new hinges and door stops in brushed nickel to match our doorknobs. Surprisingly, the new hardware made a pretty huge impact on the doors. They just looked so much better than the brassy, greasy, paint-splattered, scuffed, and (in the case of the door stops) bent-beyond-recognition hardware pieces from before. 

Once the hinges and door stops were screwed in, J.J. helped me hang the doors back on their frames...and we were done!

(master bedroom on left - guest room in center - nursery on right)

(nursery door - then closet door, which had already been painted - then bathroom door)

It was great having doors that weren't so plain (or dirty), but the best part was how much the white paint brightened up the whole hallway - and each bedroom. Here's the master bedroom and nursery with the orange-y wood doors, and then with the white paint:

It only took a weekend to give these doors new life, not to mention brighten up our upstairs hallway and bedrooms! Someday I'll get my act together and tackle the interior doors in our kitchen - the bathroom, garage, and basement doors. I get Mr. Burns fingers just thinking about how awesome they would look with fresh white paint...yesssssss...