NURSERY

Before we moved into our house I knew I wanted a real nursery. One worthy of a bragging blog post. A sanctuary where I could rock my new little one. So I showed Evan a few pictures and I bought him a bunch of tools for Christmas and his birthday. He set off to Google university for some training and the results did not disappoint.

 (My vision)

BEFORE-This is what the room looked like when we bought the house.

We painted before we even moved in, but didn't touch the room again for nearly 5 months

(Before again)

I thought we'd keep the baseboards. Evan thought we shouldn't and since Evan went to Google University we scrapped them. And a good thing too. It just added lots of time to the project.

Autumn helping dad remove the old base boards.

Evan and I switched cars a few times so Evan could use my trunk space to load materials for the nursery.

Installing the new baseboards.

The difficult corner piece. He had to make a special cut to make it look professional...and that it did

[I bought a coping saw and coped the joint instead of a 45-45 degree. This you do because walls are not always 90 degrees...so said the videos on youtube]

Next up...the hardboard to make the walls smooth.

Even though I'm not in any of these pictures this is where I helped out a lot. Don't get me wrong Evan did most of the work, but at 35+ weeks pregnant I was arguably more tired than Evan. I did lots of measuring holding/carrying and moving supplies.

[I couldn't have done it without her and she was definitely more tired than me. I was just sleepy which didn't hit until the next day but not physically tired. I am not pregnant I know.  I think this night it snowed and after finishing around 11:00 PM, she helped me shovel the driveway (our cars were not in the garage because that was being used as our shop) which we finished around midnight]

Then the "finishing work". We had to putty where the nails went into the board.

[Not gonna lie, I was a little trigger happy using my new nail gun which led to more finishing work. We even used liquid nails on the boards but sometimes it just wasn't flush enough...so I popped in another nail...or two or three. Now it's not gonna move]

[The board we finished during the week. The following Saturday we finished the chair rail. I spent a lot of time around the light switch. Originally planned for the chair rail to be above the light switch but it didn't work out. So I spent a good chunk of time making small cuts with the miter saw to get it to look right...and it does.]

[The following Monday we painted the hard board]

Priming all the walls and vertical slats.

Cutting the vertical slats to length and shaving a little off the top to add more character and a better fit.

[I did not do a good job at explaining how the vertical slats were going to protrude out from the chair rail and base board since neither had much depth and the wall had hardboard up...until I brought them home and we started working on spacing. It actually worked out well. I found some 1/4' inch mdf panels that the guy at HD generously cut 33 pieces of 48x2.75". Because the 1/4' caused the slats to protrude out from both chair rail and baseboard, I made a 45 degree angle cut at the tops and bottoms so that instead of protruding out perpendicular to the wall plan, it sloped down 45 degrees. It took a lot of extra time because I had to do it twice for each slat, but it looks so much better than If I had not done it that way]

Slats up

Caulking the slates after painting. I didn't realize how time consuming it is to paint baseboards and chair rails. Yuck.

[Amber pained the chair rail and baseboards. She was unsure how it was going to look and quite honestly I had just a little more confidence. I remembered being unimpressed when the youtube videos got to this point, and then how much better it was afterwards. Caulking the top of baseboards and bottom of chair rail really did make a difference. However, it still didn't look finished until the corners got caulked. It was at that point Amber became convinced.]

Finished...pre caulking

Outlet covers in place.

[The hold cut-outs were larger than outlet plate to give it a more recessed look]

Autumn helping on conference Saturday to do some of the "finishing" work

[I even let her squeeze the caulk gun...she didn't get much out but she had fun...or I had fun working on it with her.]

All done!

]This picture was actually taken Thursday night before finishing the outlets...but you can't see the outlets so sure, All done!]

On to crib assembly.

[We didn't really debate but discussed white vs gray crib. I felt we needed more gray at the level of the wainscoting and both of us feel like it provides a good contrast]

I didn't take any pictures of my project but I refinished this dresser. Autumn used it as a baby. She then shared with Violet for a year. It use to be a light honey color. I paid an 11 year old from church to come over after school to play with the kids so I could get some projects done. It is amazing what I can get done in 90 uninterrupted minutes. 

New crib arrived. These curtains came with the house. I thought we'd keep them, but after a trip to hobby lobby I changed my mind on colors. So I guess final nursery reveal is yet to come.

[The nice thing about the white and gray is that you can change out accent colors which it looks like she might do.]

I see a lot of this though. Evan is so proud of his handy work! We both love the room. It feels so peaceful. I'm so lucky Evan was willing to learn lots of new skills to give me my dream nursery.

[I have never been a tool guy or a handyman...that was more my younger brother. I mean, I build a toolbox (never used it) in 3rd grade cub scouts and a bird house. 24 years later and with much help from a seasoned carpenter and former contractor neighbor, I built a subwoofer box for a future 24 inch diameter subwoofer. Then Amber shows be a picture of what she wants for a nursery...and now here we are. Being a homeowner has changed me in this regard. That and frequenting the dedicated home theater thread on AVSforum.com along with DIY subwoofer, speaker section. Anyhow, it is nice creating something and then looking at it, hence the picture above.]

[P.S. I have already considered doing crown molding as there is none now but is present on Amber's "My vision" picture]