The room used to be completely---and I mean baseboards to ceiling ---a sad faded purple. It was in obvious need a of serious paint job no matter what the gender. I wanted to do a Gamma Phi Beta (my sorority) theme for a daughter, and we both knew it would San Francisco Giants baseball theme for a son.
The obvious answer was paint the black and orange. But the more I thought about it, I realized a black nursery might not be the most smooth thing for a baby. And the BRIGHT Giant's orange would be too stimulating. Then I remembered the home jerseys: off-white cream and a lighter orange. That seemed more like nursery colors!
After some inspiration on Pintrest, I came up with a two-toned wall idea. Then I saw another Pin with baseball seams on a white wall. Michael loved both ideas too.
There are a lot of organic, non-toxic paints specifically for nurseries, but they are really expensive. If you have the money, I really suggest getting them. We unfortunately do not, so we had to shop for paint on sale. If this is the case for you too, I suggest painting early so the room has months to air out all the fumes.
By the way, a friend asked me if paint was vegan....at first I thought she was kidding. I explained paint is made from chemicals mostly, so unless you are using squid-ink-based paint, then you are good.
Ideally, pregnant women should not paint due to the fumes. And, not to mention it's exhausting and it's already exhausting enough just being pregnant. My wonderful husband did majority of the painting. I did help a little bit, but made sure the windows were open and the fan was on first.
Now for the actual painting process....
He used a roller with an extension for majority of the walls and a medium-sized brush (came in a set) for the corners.
We didn't want the purple to show through, so we primed everything first. He used Valspar Interior Latex Primer High-Hiding from Lowes. We really like this primer and have used it in several rooms now. Not only did it cover the purple, it covered the dark wood panels in the living room perfectly.
For the colors, we selected Duration Home Latex Paint in Navel from Sherwin Williams and Behr Premium Plus Ultra Latex in Moon Rise from Home Depot. Both are semi-gloss finish.
The wall facing as you enter is orange, the rest of the walls and ceiling are off-white. And the trim, inside the closet and inside the door frame are orange for contrast.
He primed one Saturday night, then did most of the painting the next day. He went back a month later and did the touch-ups.
Then three weeks ago, my nesting instincts really kicked in so I asked him to please do the seams so the room is finished.
We started by having me point out how big/far-out I wanted the seams to go on the wall. Then he measured out that distance and cut a piece of string to that length.
Then, using a small angled brush, Michael drew the first stitch freehand, and didn't like it (though I thought it was fine). So he made a stencil so they would be more uniform and the process would go faster.
He ended up refining his stencil a few times, cutting it smaller so it did not smudge the previous stitch and create better spacing.
Then he repeated the process in the other corner. Once the stitches dried a little bit, he drew the seam line through the center of the stitches. He used just the very tip of the same angled brush.
Then the next day we touched up the edges and lines with some white paint.
I am very happy with the results! It's not totally prefect, but if you really look at a baseball, not every stitch is exact. I would rather have a pretty good looking nursery done with love than a picture-perfect one done by some stranger or a machine.
 |
| source |
After some inspiration on Pintrest, I came up with a two-toned wall idea. Then I saw another Pin with baseball seams on a white wall. Michael loved both ideas too.
There are a lot of organic, non-toxic paints specifically for nurseries, but they are really expensive. If you have the money, I really suggest getting them. We unfortunately do not, so we had to shop for paint on sale. If this is the case for you too, I suggest painting early so the room has months to air out all the fumes.
By the way, a friend asked me if paint was vegan....at first I thought she was kidding. I explained paint is made from chemicals mostly, so unless you are using squid-ink-based paint, then you are good.
Ideally, pregnant women should not paint due to the fumes. And, not to mention it's exhausting and it's already exhausting enough just being pregnant. My wonderful husband did majority of the painting. I did help a little bit, but made sure the windows were open and the fan was on first.
Now for the actual painting process....
He used a roller with an extension for majority of the walls and a medium-sized brush (came in a set) for the corners.
We didn't want the purple to show through, so we primed everything first. He used Valspar Interior Latex Primer High-Hiding from Lowes. We really like this primer and have used it in several rooms now. Not only did it cover the purple, it covered the dark wood panels in the living room perfectly.
For the colors, we selected Duration Home Latex Paint in Navel from Sherwin Williams and Behr Premium Plus Ultra Latex in Moon Rise from Home Depot. Both are semi-gloss finish.
The wall facing as you enter is orange, the rest of the walls and ceiling are off-white. And the trim, inside the closet and inside the door frame are orange for contrast.
He primed one Saturday night, then did most of the painting the next day. He went back a month later and did the touch-ups.
Then three weeks ago, my nesting instincts really kicked in so I asked him to please do the seams so the room is finished.
We started by having me point out how big/far-out I wanted the seams to go on the wall. Then he measured out that distance and cut a piece of string to that length.
He attached the string to a pencil. I held the string in the corner while he pulled it tight. He then drew a quarter circle from the based board to the edge of the wall. I suggest doing this with a colored pencil close to color of the paint to avoid a black pencil mark from showing through.
He ended up refining his stencil a few times, cutting it smaller so it did not smudge the previous stitch and create better spacing.
Then he repeated the process in the other corner. Once the stitches dried a little bit, he drew the seam line through the center of the stitches. He used just the very tip of the same angled brush.
Then the next day we touched up the edges and lines with some white paint.
I am very happy with the results! It's not totally prefect, but if you really look at a baseball, not every stitch is exact. I would rather have a pretty good looking nursery done with love than a picture-perfect one done by some stranger or a machine.
I will do more updates about our nursery soon, including a review of the crib, the decorations, a custom sign, and wall letters.
No comments:
Post a Comment