One Room Challenge Link Party

I saw the lovely group of ladies headed up by Linda at Calling it Home were doing another One Room Challenge, and decided to join in via the link party.  Nothing like a little 6-week deadline as a motivator, right?

For those of you I haven't met - my husband and our three kiddos just "repatriated" back to the US after living in Brazil for five years.  It's been a long time since I've had a house of my own to work magic on, and I have plans for just about every room.  It's been a little overwhelming to be honest, so this here little challenge should be a great way for me to focus my energies and target one room.

So....our three month-old baby girl, Skylar, needs her nursery done STAT.  It's a wee room, for a wee person - only 10x10, so I have to balance out the need for some practical furnishings, without overwhelming the space.  It's also a dark room - only one window, and surrounded by trees.

Poor baby, it's also been the holding place for the luggage menagerie we returned with from Brazil.

 Did you ever see a more sad "before" pic?  Should be easy to make an improvement ;)

So, here's my plan:
1)  Paint and/or Wallpaper to brighten up the walls, and add detail.
2)  Hang window treatments
3)  Install an overhead light fixture
4)  Buy coordinating baby bedding
5)  Buy a rug
6) Hope our furniture arrives from Brazil in time for the 6-week deadline

I've been all over the map when it comes to the design for this tiny little room, but I keep coming back to this wallpaper from Anthro.  The worldly-whimsicalness of it seems to fit our story of living overseas, especially since Skylar was born in Rio de Janeiro.

Other than that, we'll have to see where the road takes me, but here's some nurseries with wallpaper features that make me go, Ga-Ga.

 

Next week, I'll have a design board, and a "where I'm at" update.  

In the meantime, I'll be scoping the other ORC participants, and likely pinning like a madwoman.

Pinterest

Instagram at alison_giese

Week 2

Have I mentioned I'm a little indecisive these days? Welcome back to the One Room Challenge link partaaay: Week 2.

As of last week, I had jumped on this ORC bandwagon as a way to focus my energies on getting one room in our house more or less completed. We moved in from Brazil in August, and the "to do" list for our circa '70s builder-grade home is long and distinguished.
Giving myself a six-week time limit via the ORC may or may not put me on the road to madness. Either way, it should be fun for you to watch.

As promised, I put together a design board, with the key feature of the room being the c'est magnifique wallpaper from Anthro. The more I put the sample against the wall behind the white crib, the more I thought there wasn't enough contrast. A quick polling of family & friends furthered that notion.

So, I kept thinking what other papers I love that would be a better contrast.
Perroquet, duh.
I do love me a good parrot.

And so it shall be.
Since I'm using the black colorway, I'll pay extra attention to lighting choices in the room to keep it from being too gloomy. Maybe I can get the hubster to spring for some sconces.
So.
Paper ordered.
Rug ordered.
Hope I can get my paintin' pants on sometime soon!

Week Three

Week Three. (ORC, hosted by Linda at Calling It Home)
More like Weak to See.
Not a ton of pretty progress to feast your eyes upon this week.
Sorry.
The rug did come in, and I'm fairly pleased with it. The colors are slightly different than they appeared in the product image - more purply-lilac than the pinky-lilac I was aiming for. Then again, it could be that the sweet, mauve color currently on the walls is giving the rug the heebs.
For a wool rug, in the odd size I needed, and the under $300 clams category, it'll work just fine. It also offers such a nice, plush contrast to my (ahem, haven't been vacuumed/mopped in over two weeks) hardwoods.
No judging.

 In other news....Our stuff arrived from Brazil - woo hoo!  We're still up to our ears in unpacked boxes.   Progress is sloooooow with three Little People in the mix.

BUT

My old changing table made it through Giese customs.  Sweet. 

 I have big, shiny plans for her - hope you'll approve.

And, that's about it.  I really, rully gotta get the walls painted.  I don't mind painting, and the three itty walls should be easy to knock out, it's just a matter of getting the ball rolling.
Thus, the call of the ORC.

Week Four
I'll make this snappy...

If I were a gambler, I'd put 70/30 odds on Skylar's nursery being finished by week 6.

Yesterday, paint went up on three walls.  Major, MAH-jor improvement.   The back wall will be papered next week.

Full Disclosure:  I had them painted.  I fully intended to do the painting myself, but we had painters here working on another project, and when they agreed to paint the nursery for $150, it was too good to pass up.  They had it done in less than two hours, too.  Would've taken me two days.

Ask and ye shall receive.

 You can see the new, BM Mint Julep compared against the old, murky mauve and feel the life being breathed into this room.  When the Perroquet wallpaper goes up on the back wall, I think this tiny room is gonna positively SING.

Since that's all the progress there is to report, I'll do a quick little prop to Sherwin-Williams, and their Harmony paint line.

Since this is a baby nursery, I wanted low or no VOC paint.  The Harmony line is no-VOC, and actually has formaldehyde-reducing properties.  The sales guy at SW told me it would actually make the room smell good after painting.
It's true - there was a pleasant, fresh (not perfume-y) smell coming from her room as the paint dried.
I approve.
Up next:  Wallpaper, light fixture, window covering, and a redo of the changing table (I hope)
Until then..