Caroline’s nursery is not actually a nursery. It’s really not even Caroline’s right now, since it’s full of toddler toys and doesn’t have a crib. But it does have nice carpet, a very comfy nursing chair, lots of pretty colorful things and a big closet full of little girl clothes. I’m pretty excited about the room in general, since in about a week I’m going to be staring down the barrel of taking care of two kids on my own (I have been SOOOO spoiled with E home and my mom here) and a fun place for all of us to hang out is going to make that a lot easier. Plus it will be PERFECT for play dates. Who wants to come over?!

Welcome!

My mom wrote “Caroline” in place of “Baby Girl” on the chalkboard tray before we brought her home.

View from the door

This room really needs to be painted. The paint is like primer, totally flat, and there are a zillion scratches and chips and scrapes on the walls. But I sort of figure it’s only a matter of time before someone colors on them in permanent marker anyway, so painting it now would be an exercise in futility. Also, I freaking hate painting.

From behind the glider

My favorite corner

The chair is from Babies R Us (this one is better than the defective one, but the seat is ALREADY kind of lopsided so I don’t recommend it, no matter how comfortable it seems in the store) but the ottoman came with our old glider that’s still in Little Evan’s room. My mom recovered the ugly beige with one of the cute fabrics I bought. Curtains are Ikea, pillows are from Target, blanket on the chair was a gift from my friend Amanda, tutu (hanging on the wall) and ribbon mobile are two of my craft projects.

Man, those moldings REALLY need a coat of paint. Yikes.

Here’s the most important nursery planning tip ever: BUY A DRESSER INSTEAD OF A CHANGING TABLE. Or at least buy a changing table with drawers. Those open shelves are useless. This one is from Ikea and it’s just the right size. Lamp and shade also from Ikea. If you can’t read the banner, it’s actually Charley Harper Flash Cards spelling out “Caroline” held on a ribbon by wooden clothes-pins. There mirrors were on clearance at Target for $1.25 so I bought 4 (the other two are on another wall) and painted the frames in bright colors to match the room. I hung them at toddler-height so Little Evan can play peek-a-boo with himself. (p.s. The child sized broom courtesy of a toddler who felt it REALLY belonged in this picture.)

The wall behind the main door

The floor pillows are my FAVORITE thing about the room. The fabric on top of the front pillow is what inspired the color scheme and the pink and orange fabrics were from Caroline’s baby shower. I’m terrible at sewing but my mom is AWESOME and after I tracked down some nice big fluffy pillow forms (Ikea! $6.99! It was cheaper than buying poly-fill!) she whipped these right up for me. Now they’re perfect for lounging around on the floor during play time. Mirrors are the other two I bought at Target and the baby hats/bows/booties are all just hanging on a ribbon with clothes pins. I went a little clothes-pin-crazy in here.

TA-DA! This is where the whole room started. So in case you were wondering, the theme of the room is orange, pink, green, blue, brown, birds, nature, vintage, nursery rhymes, and transportation. I have a hard time making choices.

I bought a yard of this fabric at Ikea. But it wasn’t at my local Ikea, it was during my super awesome fantastic amazingly amazing trip to Minnesota so it’s extra special. The frame was another freebie from after a garage sale that I spray painted orange.

Toddler play corner

Built-in book shelves. Please note my awesome variety of pretty much every book series ever written for children. And maybe one TOTALLY CHILD INAPPROPRIATE book by Edward Gorey.

Evan is in love with his little table and chairs (a Christmas gift from his grandma and grandpa)

Other stuff in this corner: Lamp & shade, easel, and abacus from Ikea. Animal shaped bins are from Target, various plastic toys from EVERY PLACE IN THE WHOLE WORLD THAT SELLS TOYS.

He really wanted to be in EVERY picture.

The canvas on the wall was super cheap at Target (on clearance, less than $5). It was bright and happy and figured I couldn’t even MAKE something for less. The table my doll house is on is actually an old dining room table from Ikea (this one, purchased by E at least 7 years ago, painted by me 5 years ago) that he shortened the legs on to make it toddler height. Hanging toy storage in the corner also from Ikea (they should really pay me commission or something for plugging their stuff, right?) The rocker Little Evan is sitting in was my mom’s when she was a child. It had an unfortunate run in with her dog that left it a little worse for the wear but it’s still functional. Plus it means a lot to have vintage stuff like that used by my kids.

A few details...

1. Vintage airplane mobile (my brother’s when he was a baby) It plays “Fly Me To The Moon”
2. Bebeh feet!
3. Vintage fabric birds hanging in the window over the doll house
4. Beautiful hand-made teether from Little Alouette. LOVE LOVE LOVE everything from Amy’s shop, plus she is an extremely nice person (I met her at The Creative Connection). I’m sitting on my hands right now to keep from ordering this little owl shaped teether. Or just getting three for $35. But Caroline can’t even see her hands yet so it seems a little excessive. For record, I’d get the owl, the hippo and the fawn. Just, you know, FYI.
5. Vintage tea cup from my Aunt Susan
6. Vintage dress (mine when I was little) hanging on the wall. Too pretty for the closet!
7. The “LOVE” sign is a wood cutout I bought for $1 at Joann’s and spray painted with a little help from some blue painter’s tape. The bird has a pull string that makes it play music and flap it’s wings (vintage from my childhood).
8. Easter ducky (also from Aunt Susan) sitting on nursery rhyme books from the baby shower

Thanks for visiting!

So in the end, it’s not really a design-magazine worthy kind of space but I’m totally in love with it. Better yet, the kids seem to really like it.

Oh my God, saying “the kids” sounds so weird. I have KIDS.

If I missed the source for anything you’re wondering about, let me know and I can tell you where it came from. Full disclosure: the two or three Amazon links do go through my associates account so I get like, 4 cents or something if you purchase the item by clicking through my link.

I need you to go ahead and ignore the piles of clothes, the bed-skirtless mattress, closetless doors and lack of curtains, art on the walls, etc. We’re still finishing up the transition but had to take a break today to clean the 1st floor of the house so I didn’t die dead of embarrassment when E’s hockey team comes over later for a cookout.

Really though, considering how horrifying the “before” pictures are, I have no idea why I’m bother to put disclaimers on this at all. ONE MILLION PERCENT BETTER.

Before and After: New Master Bedroom

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

In case anyone cares:
The trim is Glidden White on White
The walls are Glidden Shell White
The ceiling got two coats of Behr Pure White ceiling paint
The carpet is called NRF Sail Away Cedar Brown (Yeah, I’m not a carpet expert, we said “We want something mid-grade” and they said “We have a crap-ton of this stuff, we’ll sell it to you cheap.”)
The closet organizers are from Home Depot
We replaced every outlet, outlet cover, switch, switch plate and blank cover with white ones.
We put in 2 four foot electric baseboard heaters, also white, with a matching white thermostat

Today is Carpet Day here in the bebeh-house, which is both extremely exciting and extremely awful, because I have to be here all day to…I don’t know. Supervise or something. Make sure they aren’t casing the joint (do people still say that?) Give them permission to take all the pictures off the walls so they can get the carpet roll up the stairs. I never know what to do with myself when we have people here working. Watch? Offer to help? Just stay out of the way? Do I need to feed them? Should I offer them drinks? Oh God, what if they need to pee? What if they need to pee and they notice how dirty the baseboards are in my bathroom? What if the need to pee and notice the dirty baseboards and then judge me?

And that is why I woke up in a panic at 7 am and spent an hour giving my upstairs bathroom the most thorough cleaning it’s had in months. Then I sprayed extra cleaner in the shower just so it would smell clean. I think this might be the first sign of a mental breakdown.

It’s also a cold, wet, miserable rainy kind of day so not only are Little Evan and I trapped AT the house, we’re trapped IN the house. I’m preparing myself for an exhausting, nap-free kind of day. Meltdown usually starts about 11:30 with full on screaming and hitting by noon on the days we don’t get out for Stroller Strides/playdates/shopping/ANYTHING. But I planned ahead and have not one but two new baking recipes to try and absolutely no qualms about bribing good toddler behavior with fresh from the oven pumpkin bread. If I don’t cover it in cream cheese and shove it all in my face first. NOM.

I’m also making the most bastardized version of crock-pot chili EVER, which will either come out incredibly delicious or totally inedible. I’m guessing the later. Because that’s what happens when you’ve already thrown half your ingredients in the crock-pot before you realize you don’t HAVE a 29 oz can of tomato puree. Or chili powder. Or kidney beans. So you use tomato sauce. And taco seasoning. And a packet of microwavable black beans. And I can’t run to the store because I have to be here for the carpet steam cleaning specialists guys. Totally inedible.

Also, here’s today’s brilliant idea: Someone should start a company that installs carpet/renovates kitchens/fixes plumbing/does all that other home repair and installation stuff but promises their employees are 100% NON-SMOKERS. Because seriously, carpet dude? You’re going to make my whole house stink like cigarettes and somehow think you’re NOT leaving that smell in my brand new carpeting? Not cool.

Tomorrow is “frantically put the house back together day because E invited his entire hockey team over for a cookout on Saturday” day, so I should have some after pictures of the renovation by the afternoon. I can’t wait to show you just how livable we managed to make the ugliest room ever!

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The winner of the $30 credit at Taradara is…

EMMIE BEE!!! Although I’ve entered literally every giveaway she’s ever done and never won anything, including the one where she was giving away a store credit because she was too lazy to drive to the mall and use it* so I’m not sure I WANT her to win my giveaway. But she’s having a bad week so I’m glad she did. Em, I’ve sent your contact info to Tara so she can set you up!

*For the record, by “lazy” I mean “has three kids under the age of 2″. So, not at all lazy.

Ok, so maybe not quite half way, but the old carpet is up, the new carpet is ordered and we’ve got all day Friday to paint. every. single. surface. of this stupid room. But to truly show you how much progress we’ve made since we bought the house three years ago, I had to track down my ancient LiveJournal account and steal these pictures.

This is the wallpaper I found under the OTHER wallpaper. Sadly, it was just on this one wall or I might have kept it. Jungle animals are so hot right now.

I *intentionally* painted that futon orange. You know, to match the room. Yikes.

And then in the past three years, we’ve thrown out most of the furniture, dragged a guest bed up there and turned it into a giant junk hole.

I also painted the walls a color that should have been called "dirty band-aid" and hung up dark polyester curtains. Because who wants to really SEE a room that ugly?

Since Wednesday afternoon, THAT has turned into this:

Ugly room, now with less stuff!

Which now looks like this:

That's my dad, who ripped up all that carpet entirely by himself. Before I had finished breakfast. No, he is not for sale or rent.

Next up, paint ceiling, paint trim, paint moldings, replace electric baseboard heaters, repeat all of that in the stairwell, buy new closet doors and THEN we can paint the walls.

The carpet guy comes Thursday.

And then we get to move all our bedroom furniture UP.

I need to go lie down.

TOMORROW!!!!

I wanted to let you know that although the next week is going to be INSANE at the bebehblog residence (my folks come Thursday to start new nursery/master bedroom renovations) and here on the blog (giveaways every day) I’m going to keep up posting regular Little Evan and Baby Sandy type updates too. So even if you’re not interested in giveaways please don’t delete me from your reader just yet.

Because, trust me, you’re going to want to see if we can make THIS…

…into livable space.

Also, if you’re local and have any need for:
1. End table shaped like a dock piling with burn mark on top
2. Giant Stonehenge style speakers
3. Former radio console with all the speakers and doors ripped off
4. Size 5 black satin pants covered in sparkly black mirrors
5. 400 square feet of orange carpet that may be soaked in cat pee

LET ME KNOW! IT’S ALL YOURS! I CAN DELIVER!!