We recently revealed that we’ll be working on a Young House Love nursery… just not for us. We’re super excited to create a fun and functional baby’s room for John’s sister Emily who’s expecting a little boy this October. And of course we have plenty of affordable DIY ideas up our sleeves that we’ll be sharing as we go. The first order of business in Emily’s blank canvas of a guest room was to get some paint up on those bare walls.
But we didn’t just settle for a fresh coat of soft blue-gray, we decided that a cheerful, modern and awesomely random vertical stripe effect was just the thing to get this makeover started with a bang.
The easy one-night process of taping, painting, and peeling was as simple as picking a color palette…
… getting that painter’s tape up on the wall…
… filling in each randomly sized and spaced stripe with one of our four accent colors and peeling off the tape to reveal…
… fresh slices of color around the room (we promise they’re straight, the camera lens just makes them bow out a little).
And we even whipped up this video of the entire painting process with more step by step details and paint color information:
Yes John’s awesomely long arms came in handy for the filming of this video. And that is an Oregon Trail icon on his painting shirt. Good times. Oh and you can watch it here on YouTube .
And since we’ll be keeping a tally of how much our little nursery transformation costs, we’ll share the tally for this phase of the project. For a gallon of wall paint and three sample cans of our stripe colors (we already had the white paint on hand) the room got a totally new look to the tune of just $39. And we’ll also be using the leftover paint for a few more DIY projects around the room so we’ll get even more bang for our buck. Stay tuned…
And because we love a good teaser, we thought we’d share a glimpse of some of the bedding and upholstery choices along with our paint chip color palette so you guys can get a taste of the big picture:
Don’t you love those cute little elephants? Babies are so much fun, even before they’re born. So what about you guys. Any babies on the way? Any nursery makeover details that you’d like to share? Spill the bun-in-the-oven beans.
Looks great – can’t wait to see it all come together. I’m surprised you didn’t use a level to check that the lines were straight…in old homes you can’t really rely on measuring 8″ (or whatever your measurement is) from a wall or door since your lines likely won’t be straight. My painter friends always check with a level.
Hey Heather,
We like to double check things by stepping back and using our eye to make sure nothing got crazy (you can definitely see something veer off course by taking a few steps back) but a level is also a great tool for foolproof double checking! Good call.
xo,
s
I like the color scheme and the elephants. Looks like you’ve selected colors that will grow with the boy!
We’re currently working on a single-wide – trying to get it as close to the way I want it as possible on a tight budget. (With full-time jobs and two little guys to tend to, we only have about 1 hour each night for either my husband or me to spend sprucing up the place.) The hardest, most time-consuming part is removing those el-cheapo vinyl stips that scream “TRAILER” and filling the gaps. It doesn’t look as good as drywall when finished, but it’s a far cry better than the strips!
We’re also replacing (actually covering) the flooring in the kitchen with peel-n-stick tile (with lots of good tips from your “It’s a Stick Up – Er Down” (April 09) — very useful! Thanks!
i’m currently working with my sister on her baby’s nursery, but because i’m in new york and she’s in texas, its a little tricky. i am really looking forward to sending the before an dafter pics when its all done!! nurseries are such fun! you can mix patterns and colors that may not have occurred to you for an other room in the house… so fun!
I’m so jealous! We’re expecting baby #3 in January. But we’re temporarily in a rental until we build again so I’ll be living vicariously through this nursery transformation until I can do my own again! Thanks for the inspiration!
What a beautifully refreshing color scheme! I always joke with friends that my husband and I are going to have a “grown up” baby room. No pastels here! I really like the colors and the fabric you chose and am looking forward to seeing more. In the meantime, where did you find/source your fabrics? I have a hard time finding good looking boy fabrics that are modern and clean and the two you have are brilliant. Thanks so much!
Kendi
Hey Kendi,
We actually got the elephant crib sheet from Target (from their 100% cotton Dwell line on sale for $6!) and the yellow slice of fabric is an arm cover for a thrift store chair that will be in the room (found for just $40 a while back at Love Of Jesus thrift here in Richmond). The geometric blue square fabric is actually the only yardage that we snagged at a fabric store here in Richmond called William’s & Sherrill (on sale of course) and we’ll be creating a super fun little DIY project with that so stay tuned…
xo,
s
At first I couldn’t imagine the colours you picked for a nursery. But when I saw the elephant print beside it – Wow!
And I’ve got a question:
How would you light up a wooden ceiling?
Love your Blog,
Vanessa from Germany
Hey Nenn,
Hmm, have you thought about whitewashing your wooden ceiling? You’ll still get the lovely wood grain texture but it will feel about a foot higher and a lot more open and airy. You could also install some great track lighting or a gorgeous fixture in the center of the ceiling instead (it’ll give off lots of light to keep things feeling lifted and reflective). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
I see that you’re using Glidden’s Vintage Yellow. I fell in love with that color this weekend when looking for a yellow that would accent some art in my living room, without being too bright and overpowering.
LOVE the color palette and the stripes! This for sure is going to get filed in my head for a few years down the road.
I totally agree with your taping method. After putting crown moulding up in our house my husband and I learned that nothing was level! Our walls and ceiling were all wonky so it helped just to step back and double check the measurements and level with our eyes.
Can’t wait to see more
:)
very cute. can’t wait to see the finished product.
just wondering: since you’ve focused a lot on eco-friendliness on your site, i wanted to know if you happened to use low/no VOC paint for this project? just thought it would be something to consider when creating a room for a little one.
Hey Jennifer,
We were waiting for this question to come up! We’re all about respecting our client’s preferences and Emily wanted to go with Glidden so we respected her wishes (she was also on a completely different floor of her house the entire time we painted at our insistence). Glidden is actually one of the lower VOC paints on the market so that’s the good news- although it’s definitely something that some people would still avoid in favor of a no VOC option. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
I don’t use a level for hanging pictures. I use the ‘take-a-few-steps-back’ approach. But, I don’t think I’d be brave enough to create stripes on my wall without a level. It’s just too much of a larger scale for me.
I love the color selection! And I really love how you’re not afraid to step out of the box with some of your design choices!
This little guy is very lucky! I cannot wait for the after pictures!! The color scheme will last for a long time too which is great – Awesome job (as always!) Sherry & John!!
I recently saw the DWELL bedding at Target on sale, both for boys and girls and I was so tempted to buying them even though I don’t have any babies, am not pregnant, and am not planning on it in the immediate future. They are just too cute!!
We recently used Glidden to paint our bathroom. Out of necessity’s sake, we had to close the door to the bathroom for about 20 minutes while we were painting. We did have the ceiling-fan-thing (that thing that sucks out steam…an exhaustive fan?? idk!)…but we were concerned about the VOC. Even after 20 minutes in a small, small room with nearly no airflow, we couldn’t smell a thing and we didn’t have headaches or anything. Glidden is a good choice because of the low-VOC. Yay!
Hey Elaine,
So glad to hear it! That was our experience as well. We had the ceiling fan on and some windows and doors open for ventilation and there definitely wasn’t that typical “paint odor” at all. Thank goodness because I may just have fallen off of that step-ladder. Hehe.
xo,
s
Those sheets have Dwell Studio written all over them! Dwell makes me almost want to have babies. Almost.
loving the non-traditional colors and patterns! cannot wait to see what you come up with! :)
Baby on the way here! I love the bedding from Dwell for Target – so cute! I’m definitely going to use either their elephants or pink birds, depending on what we’re having. We’ll most likely be doing a nursery makeover of our own in the next few months.
Tiki-
I almost did the same thing. I am *in love* with the dwell baby stuff (I have been shopping for NINE baby showers this summer- I feel like I live in that isle of Target). I am totally single with no chance of babies any time soon…and still I was thinking, “well…I might have kids someday…maybe I should just get this so I have it since I love it.”
Wait…what? I have never been that person. So then I was trying to decide if there was anyway to fit the elephants into my room. Nope. No way.
Darn.
That’s a great color scheme for a modern little boy’s bedroom! Also, I love those elephants :).
Is Glidden really low-VOC? I use all Glidden in my home (cost and it is what the old owners used so I just went with it) but I have had the opposite result with smell. I painted my small bedroom (with windows open and ceiling fan on) and I could still smell the fumes a few days later. It took nearly a week before I could sleep in my room without getting a headache. Maybe I’m more sensitive to the fumes?!?
Hey Heather S,
It’s certainly possible that you’re more sensitive to fumes! And although Glidden is one of the lower VOC rated regular paints out there, of course there are even lower eco ones (and ones without VOCs entirely) so those might be the best choice for you. Glidden also just retooled their formula so if you used their paint a few months ago it might have been a bit stinkier than their new stuff. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
You guys are so darn cute!! Love the elephant/stripe scheme. My husband was obsessed with elephants as a kid, he thought he was one and used to put his arm up as a trunk….but I digress.
I can’t get over how creative you two are. I love that you just eyeball(basically) the stripes. I’m all about gettin’ er’ done as simple as possible.
.
You’ve both inspired me to tackle a lot of home decor improvements this summer. Keep it comin’ please!!
Non-traditional nursery colors here in our house! Our daughter is now 13 months old, but we didn’t know boy/girl before she was born. We painted the nursery walls teal with accent pieces of orange and lime green! My mom sewed the bedding set from an orange and white graphic comforter set from IKEA, and we used the brightly colored round rugs from FLOR. All the furniture is white, and we hung a painting I did in elementary school over the crib (my mom saved it because she knew it would look great in a nursery one day!).
I have 4 friends that are expecting right now. Yes count them 4! A few years back I started a tradition of sewing a quilt for new baby arrivals, now I’m begining to regret this as I have one quilt done and 2 in the works right now. If one more person sends me a suprise baby shower invite… i might just flip.
Also in the past 4 months I’ve had 3 others on top of my current 4. My sewing machine is really getting it’s workout!
Love the colors — very yummy! The whole scheme seems wonderful, and I can’t wait to see the transformation! :)
Love your blog! You guys are great!
Absolutely LOVE the color combo!!!
Love it! I just told my husband the other day “slap me if I ever ask you to paint stripes in our house”, mostly because things that require straight lines and levels in this house end up in a fight, we aren’t good with details! However just a few little random stripes wouldn’t be that bad….uh oh!
Love love love modern nursery designs!
I love that you used colors that will grow with the baby! I am also in love with the fabric samples you teased us with! I can’t wait to see the completed project. Babies are so fun!
I actually stumbled onto your site when I was looking for inspiration for our nursery. You guys and MakingItLovely have been major sources of inspiration for me.
You can check out our Nursery mood board here:
http://projectnursery.com/2009/07/a-room-for-ramona/
Those elephant sheets are adorable. Perfect for a little boy. Hurray for not just another pastel blue baby nursery. Fun to see some character!
Love what you guys have whipped up so far. Those Jonathan Adler-esque ceramic elephants that West Elm had a while back would look perfect in that room!
When I decorated our nursery, it was mostly to suit my own comfort and style but I’m surprised at how much my 3 month old Chloe notices. She loves the sparkly things…the fancy chandelier, the mirror. She loves colour and contrast and will just stare at the picture ledge which has a mix of black and white blocks, prints, and books. And she notices textures too… she’ll kick to make sounds on the vinyl change table, and likes lying on the bed with her soft blankie. I guess my tip is to think about the baby’s needs as well as the parents. The baby very quickly gets to a point where they need visual and tactile stimulation so you should think about those things just as much as style and functionality. Oh, and one more tip – black out curtains, and a dimmable light are a must :)
Can’t wait to see how it all comes together!
At first when I started to see the paint selections, I was like, “Have Sherry and John lost it?” Then I saw the final result. Boy, you sure haven’t lost anything! Love the random-ness and the color choices. It’s something that as the child grows, he can keep on the walls without it looking babish.
Good call!
Totally off topic but wanted to ask…
Can your pictures now only be viewed through flickr? I can’t view any of your images as I used to be able to. I don’t have internet at home so I always check your site at work and work doesn’t allow us to access flickr. I can still see the text but I’m missing what I’m sure are amazing photos of the nursery!
Thanks!
Hey Laura,
Bummer! We’re actually in the process of moving many of our images over to Flickr since we’ve always wanted to store them somewhere safe (other than our own server, which keeps crashing) and they have a great interface for organizing everything- and you know how much we love to organize! We’re so sorry that you can’t view Flickr images from your office. That stinks! Maybe we should write your boss a petition letter to get you access! Hehe. One thing you might try is going to http://www.hidemyass.com (odd name, handy site) where you might be able to enter our url there and see the pictures just fine through them. We don’t know if it’ll work but it’s definitely worth a try, eh?
Anyone else having any issues viewing our pics?
xo,
s
Did you remove and retape for every coat? Whenever I use tape and have more than one coat, I always end up pulling up paint with my tape. Should I not let them dry fully between coats? Use a particular brand of tape? What am I doing wrong!>?
Hey Sandra,
We just used good old Scotch Blue painters tape and we applied three coats of paint in rapid succession (ie: nothing dried very thoroughly before another wet coat was applied) so when we quickly peeled the tape off there wasn’t time for the paint to adhere to it and leave an unclean edge. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
fun! can’t wait to see the final product, especially with those cute Dwell sheets. they (almost) make my ovaries do a little happy dance!
I’m expecting a boy in October as well! For the past MONTHS I’ve been browsing flickr, ohdeedoh and other blogs for inspiration for our nursery…and I’ve kinda, sorta got down what I’d like to do. Of course, the house where the nursery will be (which we are in the process of buying) is a short sale that we’ve been waiting on for 4 months on the final verdict already. We’re hoping to get in there before the baby is born, but we’re cutting it pretty close here!
Love the Dwell Studio line from Target – they actually just put up some other cute prints for their clothing, including a baby blanket that I snagged a few days ago, so perhaps some more bedding options are on the way.
Can’t wait to see what else you have in store for this nursery!
Fun! We are expecting BabyBoy2.0 in about 6 weeks. Before we knew the gender, I had fantasies of spiff-ing up the white Craig’s List dresser/changing table we found with femine vintage green glass knobs. But apparently we do not make girl babies :-) so I picked out really fun geometric fabric at Sarah’s Fabrics (my fabric-dream-come-true in Lawrence KS) and my mom is going to town making custom curtains, crib skirt, sheets, etc. The fabrics all have navy/light blue/brick red/sage green. We painted the walls a light sage (Valspar’s Garden Hedge, I believe) and left the trim white. Next up, hubby is going to build a white ledge/shelf all the way around the room for displaying stuffies, piggy banks, vintage blocks spelling baby’s name, etc. Our older son is now 5 and his room decor has easily matured with him. I think we’ll achieve the same fun-but-not-babyish look this time around as well.
Love your blog! Thanks for all the inspiration.
Great video guys! I can’t wait to see what the room when it’s all done!
What a totally mod nursery this will be! I can’t wait to find out what I’m having so that I can start finalizing plans for mine!
Just to add to the VOC discussion, I think the reactions people have to the same paint vary dramatically. I now use Benjamin Moore’s Aura (low VOC) and their newer VOC-free paint exclusively after working with a number of brands inthe past. I’ve never had an adverse reaction to them. However, at the paint store, I’ve heard people say that they couldn’t stand the smell of those same paints. I really think some people are just super sensitive.
I’m loving everything I see so far. The color palette is awesome and the fabric looks even better. Can’t wait to see more!
Love it!
Just curious – can you elaborate on how much Emily is going to be involved in the process? Is she giving you full freedom?
Hey Sophie,
Good question! It’s definitely a group effort. Emily comes with us on all of our shopping trips and has full veto power but is also very open to our suggestions since we helped makeover her daughter Olivia’s room a while back. Her house is a new construction that’s extremely modern with crisp white walls throughout, so the sweet spot is creating a fun and imaginative room that still looks like it belongs in her sleek new home (which you can tour right here). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
This nursery is looking great so far. We are expecting a baby in Feb. and I can’t wait to find out what we are having so I can start making plans.
I really like the nice clean feel of these stripes.
I love those little elephants! I can’t wait to see what else you guys come up with…. nurseries are so much fun! Although my boy never got one…. I just graduated high school & shared a room with him @ the parentals…. it was insane. I think I might be partial to nurseries because of this. Anyways, I’m really excited that you guys are adding this kid-oriented part to your blog!
Love the colors. We’re expecting in January, and I’m leaning toward a sage green/brown theme, with lots of geometrics. I’d like it to look modern, but we have stained wood trim and stained wood doors throughout the house. Any ideas on keeping it modern without clashing with the wood?
Hey Cara,
We always love a mix of classic tones and shapes with modern accents, so we love the idea of the sage & brown scheme (very classic and elegant) with geometrics (a bit of a modern slant) for a cohesive yet interesting layered effect with the wood trim around the room. Oh and sage green looks awesome on walls with wood trim so don’t be afraid to go there! Hope it helps.
xo,
s
Love the stripes! Though I don’t have any kids yet, I’m definitely filing this idea away for the future! :-)
LOVE this video. That bedding is going to be adorable!
I swear, HGTV or some other station is going to be calling soon to give you two your own show.
I LOVE the YHL logo! I think you should start selling painting smocks or “work” t-shirts with your logo on them. I’d buy one!
Love the colors! We’re having a little boy in October too! But our nursery is just a catchall/office at the moment. Plus we’re renting in an apartment, so not too much we can do. I would love to come up with a way of having both the desk stuff and baby stuff without it just looking like a hodgepodge of stuff thrown in one room! We don’t have a lot of space or a huge budget to work with, so I’ll definitely be watching this make-over to see if I can get any ideas!
Baby girl #4 due in September and I have yet to do a real nursery for any of my girls…I have always waited till they were a little older to do there room cause I was afraid of doing it too “baby”, but this has totally inspired me to do a baby room in not so baby colors…thanks!
I don’t know what’s cuter… the room or you two!!
LOVE love love the video. Yes, HGTV better hurry up before TLC snags you!!
The stripes are cute – the colors are perfect. Great job J&S!!
The print gives a whole new meaning to young republican!