Monday 4 August 2014

Decorating the Babies Room | Part Two

About six months ago my two ‘toddlers’ started sharing a bedroom. I’m calling them toddlers now as my twelve month old started walking last week - we’ve hit another milestone!
The age gap between them is beginning to feel smaller and smaller, so much so that they now feel more like twins. I know what you’re thinking. “That must be hard.” But no, I’m definitely finding it a lot easier.


When Alex was born and Callum was still just a baby (having just turned one) I was busier than I had ever been in my whole life. Feeding time was the most difficult, possibly because that’s what they both seemed to do all day long - eat, and never at the same time.

But now.. now that they nap together, eat the same food, play the same things, interact with each other (both upright), even wear the same clothes, it has gotten so much easier, and a lot more enjoyable. I still wouldn’t say a glorious walk in the park (more like a breathless run!) but we’re definitely getting there.

In my blog post last week ‘Decorating the Babies Room: Part One, I wrote about my babies sharing a bedroom. We needed to put them in the same bedroom out of necessity but I had my doubts about it and wished we had the option to sleep them separately. However from day one it’s gone brilliantly and I couldn’t wait to get started on decorating their room as a shared bedroom.

It’s been over a month since I embarked on my project, you can see the 'before’ post here. It took several evenings and weekends of painting and decorating while saying things like “don’t touch that brush!” to two curious toddlers, but now their bedroom is finally finished.

Here’s what I’ve been up to since starting when I painted their chest of drawers Pure white by Annie Sloan…

I recently purchased some wooden letters online spelling their names which  I planned to paint (with the same Pure paint I used on the drawers) and attach to the wall.

There’s a lovely company I placed the order with called The Wooden Letters Company. Their product is great, and they have a huge range of letters and finishes to choose from.

When the time came to paint the surface of the letters I applied the paint with a roller, I discovered that this technique was a lot faster than using a brush after painting their chest of drawers. I secured them to the wall with blue tac, they were a lot easier to paint this way, plus I could see how well they attached to the wall without being nailed on.

When the fronts of the letters had been painted with two coats of Pure paint it was time to do the sides. The next part was a little bit trickier. I needed to use a brush to paint the edges as there were so many ridges and grooves. Plus I had to take the letters off the wall and paint them on the kitchen table where little hands could reach!

After all the edges were painted and dried I secured the wooden letters back onto the wall with blu tac, and they are all still attached! That saved me the time-consuming job of using panel pins and hammering each letter on.

Once the letters were in place I rehung the picture frames from Ikea that were proudly displaying Ross’s art work. The frames were originally white but a few years ago I painted them Pitch Blue by Farrow and Ball, I had some paint left over after painting Ross’s room and the frames were my next victim!

A few weeks ago I made a trip to House of Fraser to get a few final items to pull everything together in the boys bedroom.

My first stop was Laura Ashley. I already had a patchwork quilt I bought for Callum from there when he was a baby. I wanted to get a second quilt for Alex and some bunting for the wall.

The next port of call was the bedding department where I got two navy check pillow cases from Lexington. I love this brand. They make top quality bedding, which is especially good for decorating boys bedrooms as they do lots of blues, reds and navies in their collection. They wash really well and have that classic Hampton’s look I love. I have Lexington bed covers in Ross’s room, I must have bought them at least 5 years ago and they still look like new.

Then just as I was walking out the door I spotted navy striped cushions that I thought would look really cute in their cots, so I got those too.

Opposite the cots is an Ikea shelf displaying books and toys all at toddlers height. I picked out their most colourful toys and displayed them around the room. I wanted to use colour to break up the vast amounts of white I needed to brighten up the north facing aspect of this room.

I briefly considered painting the walnut wood cot to match the white one (which is kindly on loan from our neighbours), but in the end decided against it. The wooden cot used to belong to my two younger sisters, I was 8 when my sister was born and I still remember her bouncing up and down in her onesie looking over the side like it was yesterday, so for sentimental reasons I left it as is. Things don’t always have to match, right?! You may also notice I’m missing some handles from the drawers in the next picture, I’m waiting for them to come back into stock so I’m afraid you’ll have to use your imagination for now!

A room is never really finished in this house, and I’m sure there’ll be a lot more “one last things” but I’m very happy with how the room turned out and most importantly the boys seem to like it too.

My next house project is an exterior one and again involves paint. Watch out for that in the coming weeks… I hope you all had a great August bank holiday weekend.


SOURCES:

Laura Ashley lamp

Mothercare cot mobile (Similar product)

Cot sheet, 100% pure silk - www.theethicalsilkco.com

Tesco baby blue fitted cot sheet

Laura Ashley bunting 

Laura Ashley patchwork quilt 

Lexington pillow case

Linea navy striped cushion

Annie Sloan chalk paint 'Pure’

Moss Cottage - suppliers of chalk paint

Farrow and ball wall colour 'White Tie’

Ikea picture frames

Farrow and ball picture frame colour 'Pitch Blue’

Homebase satin nickel plated cup handles on drawers

Homebase stainless steel round ball door knob on wardrobes

Ikea kallax shelf

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