When thinking about our girl, I knew I wanted something preppy and bright. Southern and girly. I didn't want it to feel vintage or bohemian. It's a well known fact that I'm a color lover, so I figured I would go big in her room and design a space that I would love to live in (aka, wake up every three hours to feed in, play in, etc..). Here's my original inspiration board for her nursery-
1. A preppy Pink + Green color scheme.
2. Buffalo check in a cheerful pop of color (bubble gum pink, preferably).
3. A couple of fun accent prints (loving the palm print and a pop of watercolor floral).
4. Monogram all the things!!
5. Sweet and/or feminine decor (maybe a flamingo mobile, or pom pom trim, scallops, pink/white seersucker and/or bows)
And here's a bit of the progress along the way.
Gingham Accent Wall:
The first phase was cleaning out and repainting her nursery. No small task. We have been using her room as a guest room/pile all the moving boxes we haven't really sorted through kind of room. Or mess. Whatever. So I spent a lot of time in there sorting through that.
Then, paint. The previous homeowner sponge painted the entire space and had purple butterfly border (that was a nightmare to remove!!!). Soooo, yeah. I spent a good week peeling border, priming the walls and painting the entire room a clean, bright white. Our guest bedrooms aren't that large, so I wanted to keep it bright and as light as possible.
I decided to paint one accent wall (the wall behind her crib) in a fun bold pattern. I debated ordering wallpaper for that wall, but the one I selected would have been upwards of $350 for just one wall, so yeah. I nixed that because what?? Home girl can paint. Plus there are other things I can spend that on (bedding!).
After I made up my mind that I wanted the buffalo check, the first order of business was deciding on a scale for the print. I decided to go with a 4" scale because I didn't want it to be too large, OR spend the rest of my life measuring 2" squares. Ain't nobody got time for that. Did I mention I'm a messy, impulsive creative?? Totally.
I grabbed a trusty yard stick (no fancy level for this DIY'er) and started from the top right corner. I started there because that would be most visible and right above her crib once finished. I measured a few rows across, then down. Over and over. Annnnd over and over again.
The next step was taping and painting all of the horizontal stripes. I only did one coat of pink paint on these. I also mixed in a tiny bit of the white wall paint to tone down the horizontal stripes and (hopefully) create more dimension.
Let the paint dry for a few minutes and remove a mountain of green frog tape (verrrry carefully). Also, MOST IMPORTANT NOTE. Anytime you're painting stripes or a pattern, be sure to score the frog tape with a credit card to really seal the edges. I spent a lot of time doing that because I didn't want to have to go back and do a bunch of touch ups (boring).
I loved how the pink stripes were looking and really debated on stopping at this point. But I wanted gingham, so I pressed on and next I taped all of the vertical stripes. Seriously a pain in the rear. So much tape, and re-taping to get the lines straight.
((To be honest, I just eyed it at this point. Some lines are straighter than others but that doesn't bother me personally.))
I waited a couple of hours in between two coats of pink paint on the vertical stripes. I needed a little dimension since I only used one paint color. Two, or better yet three paint colors would have given more depth to the gingham pattern, but who has time to tape off yet another set of squares? Mmm, not me.
After both coats of paint were dry I removed the last bit of green tape and let it dry overnight. You can see the effect below. The vertical lines are slightly darker than the horizontal. I think it turned out so perfectly adorable. I can't wait to show you guys the outcome and more progress later this week.
