By now most of you have probably seen the boys' room "after" since it was featured in the Sunday Globe Magazine, and given this was the first room I deemed "finished" I've definitely shared this transformation much more than the other rooms in our house. What most of you haven't seen (with the exception of you amazing readers who have been here since the beginning) is some of the before pictures. I'm not talking the before when the LM was in a bed, and gray was in his nursery... but rather the before before when the LM was still in infant.
Yes, we are going way back.
Here she is, in all her glory, the LM's nursery.
Well, the LM's nursery that lasted for about a year until I realized that sweet squishy infants grow in to feral little toddlers in the blink of an eye. When I imagined what it would be like to wake up in the middle of the night to nurse my newborn I had visions of lambs, bunnies, and for some unknown reason GREEN?
Listen, even I don't know what was going on there.
When we designed the nursery (and I use that term loosely) we were moving in to a rental that had gray/ green walls and I basically walked in to Pottery Barn Kids, and bought the entire bedding suite from the only option that had green in it. I gave the whole "concept" about 3 minutes of thought, and in the end the room really showed that. Once we purchased our condo I was tasked with picking out the paint color, which consisted of me heading over to the nearest hardware store, grabbing a green swatch that looked similar to what we had in the rental and leaving with two gallons of paint for our developer. When we moved in I was devastated, not only was the room not the color I was envisioning but damn, it was just so SO GREEN in there. It seriously looked like kermit the frog threw up, and no I'm not exaggerating.
As the LM continued to grow, my taste was slowly developing as well. I saw the little grom my boy was growing in to and in an effort to give the room more style I tried to insert a little "surfer" in the space by just switching out the crib sheet, adding a wall map and purchasing a new quilt for our old ikea bed that was basically just a placeholder in the room.
Around this time I slowly started to add more color, and a little texture with a rug and some wall art. This was around the time the little man was a full grown toddler, and by now all signs of an infant were erased from the room.
I knew eventually we would be getting a new bed for the room, or possibly twin beds if we had another baby (at this time we were starting our IVF journey) so I attempted to dress up the simple platform bed by painting the base navy and nailing in some old shutters that I picked up at a local flea market.
A coat of bright paint did wonders on the shutters, and this was pretty much how the room remained (but with a new coat of paint after we had to re-do our downstairs) until the boys moved in together.
Now the "afters"!!!
Clearly the biggest and best change was the new paint color. I went with Farrow and Ball Parma Gray which actually is an incredible shade of light blue. I know it looks like everything in this room is new, but actually very little except for the beds, bedding and light fixture was purchased for this space. All of the accessories come from either the LM's room or the Nursery, and the bottom line was that by the time I designed the nursery I just had a much better idea of what I was doing and I picked things that I knew would look great in their future combined room. The curtains in the green room were just sewn on the base of the white (an inexpensive way to get drapery if you have high ceilings) and I just swapped it out for a navy in the same fabric.
Not shown is a toy shelf on the opposite wall, and a large wood painting of superman I purchased for the LM a few years back on his birthday. I also have a few large canvas storage bins which hold their bigger toys. That room has a huge closet and we were luckily enough to have built ins made which hold the bulk of their toys and clothes. The dresser was the one that used to be housed in our room and I simply spray painted the top and changed out the knobs. I had an idea of what I wanted to do with the bedding, so I would just wait until each store had their seasonal sale and snap some at the discounted rate. The priciest part of the space was the framing of the Swiss flag, but it definitely is what makes the room and is a welcome nod to my husband's Swiss heritage.
The writer of the Globe piece did an incredible write up of the room (with sources!!!) so if you would like to know where you can shop to get the look, I suggest checking out her post here.
This room truly was a labor of love, as in first I did the labor, and then came the love... but I wouldn't have had it any other way. This was the room my husband gave me full discretion in, and it allowed me to prove (to him) that I did have a good eye so he would allow me more leeway in making the big decisions in the rest of our home. The boys absolutely love sharing this room, and I hope they continue to do so far in to the future. Most of the accessories can be switched out as they age, and I think the pieces that make up the foundation are ones that will absolutely be able to grow with them.
The room is most definitely my favorite in the house because when I see it, all I see is our two little boys snuggled up in those beds at night. Sometimes the wake ups are about an hour earlier than I'd like, but knowing that they share such a warm space together really makes me so unbelievably happy. If that's not good design, I'm not sure what is!
This concludes the tour of our house! If you'd like you can see the transformation of the other rooms down below. All after photography by Sarah Winchester.
The Kitchen
The Master Bedroom
The Living Room
The Guest Room
The Bathrooms
I'll be back tomorrow with a giveaway of my new #BOSSLADY tote!!! Have you gotten yours yet?
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