Decorating a Nursery Wall Part 2

After installing the Urban Walls decal on the wall above our change table, we were hooked. The decals were super easy to install and we loved the fact that they could be changed up whenever we wanted.

So we went crazy and bought another design for the wall above the crib. We loved the look of the "Seeing Stars" decal and decided to order it in white. The wall colour in the nursery is called  "Pelican" and its a very light warm gray. We wanted something subtle and figured the white decals would blend nicely but still stand out just enough.

The decals are super easy to install. I planned out a grid on graph paper first, so that my decals would be evenly spaced. After doing that, I cut out each decal and taped them onto the wall, to get an idea of how they would look. I started with the top horizontal row and the left hand vertical row:

After I had the first 2 rows set up the way I wanted them, I taped on the rest of the rows. Then I removed the backing and placed them onto the wall. I didn't remove the parchment paper and stick them to the wall just yet (you can see in the picture a light cream coloured parchment paper on top of most of the decals- that is the final piece you remove before actually sticking them to the wall). I wanted to make SURE I liked how the room looked before actually sticking them down:

As you can see, I had a little helper :) (how else do Mom's ever get anything done?!)

You might have also noticed that I added an additional row at the top. I didn't like how much space I had created between the top decal and the ceiling, so I added in another row. I shifted things around a bit, and to be honest, I actually eye-balled putting most of the decals on the wall in the end (due to limited time with a 7 month old!)

Once I was happy with my placement (I stepped back many times, adjusted and re-adjusted), I firmly pressed the decal onto the wall, using an old plastic card (a credit card will do) and made sure the decal was firmly stuck. Then I simply peeled off the parchment paper, and done!

Here is the final product (I love it!):

I absolutely love what it adds to this wall and the overall space. Plus, they look surprisingly even (go figure!). I chose the "Seeing Stars" decal, as I thought it somewhat went with the theme in the nursery. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that we have somewhat of an "outdoorsey" theme in this room with all of the different materials, wood, fur, metal, leather, etc, the neutral colour palette and the animal influences. I also have quite a few "star" themed things in the room (pictures, blankets, clocks, etc) so the stars just seemed suiting. I liked the idea that it made the nursery wall feel like a starry night.

So overall, I absolutely loved using the decals from Urban Walls to add to this space and will definitely be using them again- I have a few ideas in mind for some other spaces in our home!

If you want to see the first post in this series of 3 (about how we did the other wall with a decal from Urban Walls) check out this post here.

And next up, we'll finish up the decal on the previous wall...and then I think we're done!

Stay tuned for the final post in this series :)

Melissa and Ian

Decorating a Nursery Wall Part 1

So now that we've got our hands full with the little guy running around, we don't exactly have a ton of spare time. Regardless, we're both itching to start another renovation project around the house. The powder room reno has been finished for months (despite the fact that it took us forever to blog about it!) and I've been searching for design project to start...when I'll have time to do it, is beyond me.

Anyho, I've always felt that Cole's room wasn't completely finished. I don't know why, there was just something bugging me to add "just one more thing..." (I permanently have design ideas floating around in my head so that might be why).

Since Cole has been able to move around, he's been grabbing at the wall above his nursery change table. So, down came the pennant:

and then we replaced that with a frame of Cole's prints:

but we took that down too. Way to dangerous for a baby who's nickname is now "Bam Bam". :)

The wall felt so bare to me, so I had been searching for something to fill it with- enter: Urban Walls. I came across their newest decal "I will love you....always and forever" and it seemed perfect for the space.

We've had touches of gold in our nursery from day 1 (which I LOVE), so I thought a gold decal would be a nice way to another another "subtle" touch of gold to the space. Urban Walls sent over this gold decal for me and it literally took me about 5 minutes to put up- so easy! (and awesome when you have a very needy baby watching you!)

So this is just part 1 to this wall addition. We're planning on doing one more thing to this wall and the decal (that will be left a surprise until our next post!) and then I think THIS wall is finished. Maybe. ;)

Also, I didn't exactly say we were leaving alone the other walls in this room, so stay tuned!

Melissa and Ian

Powder Room Reno Reveal!

So here it is- the powder room reveal! I know we promised you all this reveal over a week ago, but life got busy and we didn't get a chance, however I know that just helped with the anticipation...right? :)

In the end, we went with a "white" theme for this bathroom. To be honest, it made things easy (we both love white spaces, decor, etc) and in such a small space it made sense. We did try 2 light coloured testers on the wall, but neither of them seemed to be just right.

So we settled on white walls, cabinet and an interesting stone for the top. The accessories we kept simple, focusing on chrome and thats really all we needed for this space.

Lets take a look back at the before photo first:

and here is the after:

Much better! We had to work with the floors that we currently have (although we hate them), so that meant keeping the colours and palette simple. We also didn't want to choose a countertop that clashed with the floors.

We went with a basic vanity base from Lowes. From there, we chose a stone remnant that we liked and had it cut to size. We purposely did not make the stone go all the way to the wall on the sides. Reason for doing that? One day when we can replace these floors, we want to be able to slide that vanity out of the powder room and once the new floors are in, put it back. Cutting the top that way, will allow us to do that. A lot of people thought we were crazy for doing that (we had to fight with the installers!), but in the end, they loved the look of it, as do we. We also thought cutting it that way, made it look like a piece of furniture, which we prefer.

The stone we chose is a granite called "White Reef". We liked the cream, white, grey and green tones to it, and it seemed to blend well with our floors, which was another bonus. The stone will be easy to care for and the slab that this remnant was from, was actually 3/4 inches which we thought worked well.

We installed a new toilet and sink as well. The sink is a Kohler that we ordered from the same place we got the stone. We have the same sink upstairs in our small bath and love it, so that was an easy purchase. The mirror was stolen from our upstairs bathroom, and the towel bar and toilet paper holder are from Home Sense. The picture frames are from Ikea and to fill the frames, I quickly painted some initials (I, C and M) for now. The shelf above the toilet we bought at HomeSense, but modified with some trim and painted it the same colour as the walls..

The white colour we chose is Simply White by Benjamin Moore (everything white in our house is painted this colour), and it makes the room feel so much brighter.

Overall, the space feels much cleaner and fresher and I can stop feeling embarrassed about sending our guests in there!

Here's one more look at the before and after:

So there you have it!

Here is our Source List:

Countertop: Graniteworx- granite called "White Reef"
Sink: Kohler- Graniteworx
Vanity: Lowes
Toilet: Lowes
Faucet: Lowes
Light fixture: Lowes
Mirror: (stole from upstairs bathroom- purchased at Urban Barn sale years ago)
Soap dispenser: Jonathan Adler (gift at a Marilyn Denis show taping!)
Garbage pail: Walmart
Toilet paper holder and towel bar: HomeSense
White towels: Home Sense
Shelf above toilet: DIY project/HomesSense
Chrome Kleenex box holder: gift
Flower: HomeSense
Picture Frames: Ikea

Paint Colours:

Wall Colour: Simply White - Benjamin Moore
Trim Colour: Simply White - Benjamin Moore

If you want a refresher on how we got to this point, feel free to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of the powder room renovation. Also, if you have any questions on anything that we forgot to list, please feel free to comment below!

We hope you enjoyed our nice bright, white space!

Melissa and Ian

Walmart.com

You guys. We have something pretty cool to share. A few weeks ago I was contacted by a representative from Walmart who came across our nursery on Pinterest. She was a fan of our nursery and the fact that we had used pieces from Walmart to complete the space.

So guess who is featured on the homepage for Walmart.com's baby furniture....us!

We're pretty excited about it...well really just the fact that Walmart liked our nursery enough to feature us.

So you can check it out at the link here...look quick or you might miss it ;) I've also pasted the image below.

Thank you (our readers!) again for all of your support on this room that has meant so much to us and been so close to our hearts!

Melissa and Ian

Powder Room Reno Part 2

We left you with this:

and we've come a long way since!

Next step was to choose a wall colour and add in the vanity. The wall colour was going to be picked based on the colours that were in the countertop that we chose. The countertop is a granite called "White Reef" and it has a bit of white, cream, grey and green to it. My initial choice was to paint the room "Simply White" by Benjamin Moore (the colour of all of the trim we've painted in the house), but Ian wasn't on board.

So we decided to look at colours that were light and bright but that would go with the counter. After painting 2 testers on the wall, I convinced Ian that "Simply White" might look the best and he agreed.

We chose to go all white, based on the fact that we wanted the counter to be the focal point and didn't want anything else in the room competing with it. As well, the space is small and we wanted it to feel clean and bright.

So the room was painted "Simply White" by Benjamin Moore and the vanity was installed.

We also added in a new light fixture about the vanity:

So we'll leave you with that for now.
Stay tuned for the final reveal post coming up next!

Melissa and Ian

Powder Room Reno Part 1

So here is what we started with:

It wasn't horrible. However, it was a a bit stuck in the 90's and not really our style. The sponge paint on the walls was going to be the first thing to go. Along- with the super old toilet that gave me the heebie-geebies.

So we started taking it apart...with a plan and a small budget in mind. We planned to overhaul this space for under $1000.00 and I think we did it! More on that to come later.

So first things first. We took out the vanity and had to move the pipes behind  it. We moved the pipes that we coming up out of the floor, so that they were coming out of the back wall. We did this so that we didn't have to cut a hole up into the bottom of the new vanity.

Once we did that, we had to fix the drywall on the back wall and add tiles back onto the floor where the vanity had been.

Since the vanity was going to be going on top of the tiles, we weren't worried about chipping out the half tiles and replacing them with full tiles. We just wanted to make sure that there were tiles under the vanity as the vanity is raised off the floor and some tile will be visible.

Once the tiles were grouted, Ian removed the baseboards and fixed up the drywall:

It was his first time doing drywall, so we figured a wall that would be covered up with a vanity was a good place to start! However, I think he did a pretty good job for his first attempt!

Next, we put the baseboards back on and added some chair rail (because we apparently, really like adding mouldings to rooms!)

We then removed the ancient toilet and prepared to prime the space:

And the priming began:

and once it was done, it was already a million times better than what we started with!

So that's where we'll leave this post at for now. Next we'll talk about picking a wall colour, vanity and all of the other choices for the room! Stay tuned :)

P.S. Dont forget to enter our Giveaway! There's only 3 days left!

Melissa and Ian

WhatThePrint Giveaway!

We are steps away from finishing off our latest project (the powder room reno) and we can't wait to share with all of you! We took a bit of a different direction in this room, and I'm really hoping the end result is what we envisioned.

While finishing off this room, I began looking for some prints for the bathroom wall on Etsy. I came across Chelcey's adorable store called "What The Print?" Her shop is right up my alley- she sells prints, posters, greeting cards, instant downloads, printable home decor (so cool!) and so much more. Here are just a few of my favourites:

source for all images- WhatThePrint Etsy Shop

Her designs are so pretty and would look gorgeous in any room in your home. Chelcey contacted me about doing a giveaway and of course I was super excited to pass this onto all of you!

So one lucky winner will receive one of Chelcey's instant downloadable digital prints (which can be printed at whatever size you choose!)

Contest closes Saturday February 15th and details to enter are below.
One winner will be chosen and the contest is open worldwide.

Goodluck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway