What'sHisFace's Room

I suppose to some people it will sound bizarre or cruel, but as we have not decided on a name for our unborn son, I've taken to calling him What'sHisFace. I rather like it, and my mother has even converted a smidge and refers to him in texts occasionally as WHF, hahahaha :)

The reason for this post, however, is that I have finally made some progress on the nursery! Here are the before pictures:

The colors on the wall were the test spots. Ironically, I initially chose the bottom color, but once it was around the outlets, it looked too much like a teenage girl's room instead of a baby's nursery, so I returned it to Home Depot (THANK GOODNESS for their policy to accept returned paint, they saved me a fortune, a heart attack, an angry husband, and an embarrassing emotional breakdown in the middle of a hardware store), and got the top one, which is a Disney BEHR color called "Pooh's Favorite Things" (the one I decided against was called "Atta Boy Blue").

Whether this was insanity or not, I had seen several photos of nurseries online with horizontal stripes that I sort of went ga-ga over. I had frequented Project Nursery and searched google images, and horizontal stripes just seemed to be in my future.

Before her daughter was born, I helped paint a friend's nursery, and we did vertical stripes on the top half of the room, and bead board wallpaper on the bottom half. I wish I had a picture of that, but I didn't take one, because I am lame like that. Maybe I can get one from her soon. However, because I had the experience painting stripes from that occasion, I had more than enough confidence that I could tackle this beast as well.

While I'm very pleased with the end result, painting this thing was a NIGHTMARE. Read it, NIGHT-MARE!!! First, I painted the entire room with an eggshell finish.

Then, the hard part started. I had to measure out nine 8.5" stripes around the room. I tried to do it the right way, with a tape measure, and a level, and once I finished the first wall, I realized that I had sloped down a full half an inch from where I started :insert hormonal meltdown here:

Once I regained my composure, I'm fairly certain I spent at least four hours attempting to tape off the next wall, and figure out how to make the lines straight and even. Sadly, it took me until I got to the last wall and a half before I came up with a very efficient way to tape off the wall. Like I said, nightmare.

Here's what part of it looked like while I was taping it off:

Once the stripes were taped off, I used paint the exact same color as the wall, but in a semi-gloss finish to paint them. The result is super subtle, but I love it.

Sometime in the midst of all the taping and measuring, I also painted the outlet covers Krylon Cherry Red in gloss. Normally, I'm a Rustoleum girl through and through, but the color just matched the bedding I've picked out perfectly. I used a dark gray auto primer, and it darkened the color, which I didn't expect, but it still works.

I also picked up two ceiling fan pulls (I don't know what their technical name is, or if they have one), and I love them! How cute are they?!?!?

And here's the rest of the room, striped and ready for the next phase:

As you can probably guess, the colors for the room are aqua and red. I intend for the furniture to be black, and the theme to be a tasteful Dr. Seuss (by that I mean not covered on all surfaces by Dr. Seuss characters -- just with some artwork I intend to make myself). I had considered doing a mural, but I didn't think I would ever be able to bring myself to paint over it.

Next week, I'll be refinishing a glider, a dresser, and a desk/hutch for the room!

Of course, I'll also be working on the garage and the storage unit...so we'll see how much I get done in regards to nursery furniture :)

I can't wait to get a crib, so I can put the bedding in!

This is what it looks like!

It's so bright, colorful, and I love it!
Well, whaddya think?