Bowie's Room hits Prime Time!

Priming is complete in Bowie's room! Of course, nothing ever goes as smoothly as you hope. First, we found that our fancy-shmancy power sprayer that we used once and packed away 3 years ago was not working. Steven made an emergency run to Home Depot and picked up a new one. After splatters and drips, he found that the extension wand he bought was not working. Finally, he was able to spray everything down with Kilz.

It actually took multiple coats of primer to get good coverage in the room. The walls are walnut planks that Steven salvaged from the hay loft of a barn being torn down. The gorgeous blade cuts made us swoon -- but the yellow cast seeping through the primer was just nasty looking. A few coats later, we have a nice white slate to apply our room color to. Since we haven't used the new Martha Stewart paint at Home Depot yet, we were not sure how forgiving the paint was... and we would be very upset if the yellow came through our top coat. Better safe than sorry.

Here you see 2 gallons of Salt Glaze, 1 gallon of Glass of Milk, and 1 gallon of Pure White mixed into flat enamel. (Home Depot was nice enough to mix the Martha Stewart color into Behr paint since MS doesn't have a flat enamel). The bottles are sprayer cleaner and some type of paint additive for the sprayer.



After days of sanding, caulking, cleaning and wood filling, we were ready for the big show! Bowie inspected Daddy's work before priming began. I must draw your attention to the windows... See all the paint on the panes? We did NOT do that. The previous owners were apparently not big on scraping paint off windows. Such an easy to fix eye sore -- why did they leave them like that?


Here is ceiling and big shelf that runs over the window all nice and primed. It is still drying here, but I cannot wait to see color go up!



Bowie checks out the bookcases. Steven took the shelves out to paint.


Here is the closet side of the room, to the right of the windows.

And the bookcase side, to the left of the windows.

Up next, a bit of sanding to catch the runs the sprayer left, and then spraying the ceiling our pretty pale cream color (Glass of Milk).

Bowie's Nursery... with a twist!

Bowie's room is in the home stretch. Hey, it was only 4 years in the making, right? Steven is applying the final coat of primer as I type. But life likes to throw us a curve ball every now and then, right?

All along, my vision for Bowie's room was pale blue, with cream and brown accents. We bought a black lifetime crib ("Emma" by Munire from USA Baby) that converted into a full-size bed. I snatched up a vintage dresser and nightstand to paint black. We had a glider rocker custom upholstered in brown with pale blue piping. Slowly, Bowie's room has been taking shape...

Those who follow my tweets on Twitter know we recently found out we are expecting a new baby. We hoped and prayed for a baby girl. In my excitement (denial), I bought all things pink. Liberty of London dresses, little pink crochet hats with giant floppy gerber daisies, pink wellies... It was a sickness, really.

My vision for the Baby Girl room was really coming together. We bought a non-dropside Jenny Lind crib with a Babies R Us coupon. We ordered the most gorgeous orange and yellow giraffe bedding from Rikshaw Design. I was painting test swatches of pink paint on the walls.

Baby Girl's Room was shaping up to look like this:


Alas, we went to our big ultrasound appointment. I informed the tech that if this was the wrong kind of baby, Steven was in big trouble. (He may or may not have been wearing a cup.) A quick pass over my tummy and, bam! Before the tech could even declare, "It's a boy!" we saw it ourselves plan as day. Let's just say this kid was not a bit shy that day.

Don't worry about Steven. I didn't kick him in the junk as I originally threatened. I admit, he did stub his toe that night and I told him it was karma. He got off lucky, folks.

I decided that with all the rooms in progress upstairs, it made the most sense to have Baby Boy #5 shake up with Bowie. Emery keeps his loft room. Dane and Satchel share the other large room. This meant the orange crib bedding was now wildly clashing with the blue and brown scheme. Hmm... Back to the drawing board.

Now I am seeing this:

Instead of the full-size bed, Bowie will get a twin. The room is really not big enough for two twin beds in the future. When the baby outgrows his crib, we will either do a trundle or a bunk bed.

Instead of the blue and brown star bedding, I ordered Bowie some blue and orange robot bedding from Land of Nod. He loves robots, so it really is a bonus for him.

The paint colors are staying the same. Pale blue (salt glaze) on the walls, pale cream (glass of milk) on the ceiling, and pure white on the trim.

We still have the brown glider rocker to deal with... I am really not sure where that is going to land since it will clash with the room... (taking suggestions on that one!)

Poor Steven has quite a honey-do list going, since I cannot help with the painting:

• prime entire room with power sprayer
• paint ceiling "Glass of Milk"
• paint walls "Salt Glaze"
• paint trim and bookcases "Pure White"
• do any touch-ups
• pull up drop cloth and pray nothing got through to the floor
• install switch plates
• install ceiling fan
• paint furniture "Francesca"
• hang artwork
• bring up all cool stuff we bought and have stored in basement
  

In progress pictures coming soon...