Nursery Pinspiration

From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I was thinking about the nursery. I even created two secret boards on Pinterest to post Boy and Girl nursery ideas. Originally, I had a set theme in mind for each gender but decided I really didn't want to wait to get started.What can I say? I never claimed patience as one of my virtues.

So we opted to paint the nursery a gender neutral gray several weeks before we found out Baby H's gender.  I narrowed it down to two colors: Valspar's Coastal Jetty ( bottom) or Valspar's Wet Pavement ( top).

While I originally liked the bottom one more, it looked very blue in the daylight. So I ended up using the Coastal Jetty test pot on the bathroom ceiling and went back to Lowe's to purchase a gallon of Valspar ultra's wet pavement in satin finish. My dad was also a contributing factor since he knew the vision I was going for and thought the darker paint would provide the best contrast.

Aside from the gray paint, I knew I wanted to add moulding to the bottom half of the bedroom. I didn't want to use traditional Wainscoting though ( we have that in the guest bath). So I turned to Pinterest for some ideas. I loved the look of this moulding but didn't want to go quite so high. But when I came across the picture frame moulding, I was sold! I know it is more traditionally used in dining rooms but I  LOVE the look in a nursery.

So, we set out to paint the bedroom. I knew I wanted my moulding a minimum of 36 inches in height so we just painted to that point because everything else would be white.

One of things I forgot to mention in my post about our nursery challenges is the texture of the walls. Due to the bust, all of the walls were re-textured and they are not smooth. So while many people can get away with faux paneling, I wasn't sure if I could pull it off. See, if you read A country farmhouse's blog that I link to above, she did not panel the bottom half of the wall. It is painted white and they added picture frame trim. It totally looks like paneling though due to the smooth texture of their walls. YoungHouseLove was able to pull off a similar look with their board and batten wall.

So, I took out some white paint to see how things would look:

Too much texture! So we had to come up with plan B for the walls ( more on that later).

A little more about the nursery plans. My parents wanted to buy the baby's crib. We selected this crib from Babies R' Us.

Which served as my color inspiration for our dresser renovation I shared a few weeks ago.

People keep asking me if I think it will be too much white but I really think it will balance out. We have the dark gray on the walls, dark wood flooring, the dark trim on all the furniture and I will add color in the accessories to break up the white furniture with the white on the walls.

Oh and I also ended up getting this rocking chair.

I really wanted a plush upholstered chair but I wasn't crazy about the space they took up nor the price tag. If I wouldn't spend $700 on a dresser, I am certainly not going to spend it on a chair!  I think we were able to get the chair down to around $180 after a coupon. I checked Craigslist first but the prices were $30 less than a new chair and not in very good condition.

So that is the direction we are going. I am in the process of writing up our "how to" on the picture frame moulding. I still can't get over how good it looks so far! :)