Rustic Renditions: Nifty Nurseries - Part 1

When I found out I was pregnant I was so excited to do the nursery (like what parent isn't?). I'm pretty sure I had the bedding picked out before we even knew the sex of the baby. So when the ultra sound showed we were having a boy, it was on... time to get crackin'! Part of my inspiration came from the picture from the website where I purchased the bedding. But they had all kinds of things hung on the wall above the crib... and being a first time mom-to-be, I was all paranoid that he would pull something down on his new little head and ruin him. So I had to come up with a way to highlight the crib wall without jeopardizing the health and well-being of my son.... and to save a little bit of money since the bedding was expensive. What better way than with PAINT! Okay, so I went a little crazy and brought home like 200 paint samples - No Joke! Originally I was only going to do 4 squares which was featured on the website from where I purchased the bedding, but the wall is really long and why stop there, right? So I picked 6 coordinating paint colors and did 6 squares.... here's how it turned out.

(bedding)

Good, but why stop there? It just needed a little something else. (Although I think this would look great in a master bedroom in lieu of a headboard, with some cool frames or photos in each square). But anyway, so taking a que from the bedding (see pic above), I decided on some more squares. (I don't have a photo of this part of it.... but just wait!). Well that looked good too, but why stop there? Call this my NESTING phase... or OBSESSION! So more squares it is. Here's the final product.

Now you may be wondering how I accomplished this.... especially since I was HUGE! All you need is a measuring tape or long ruler, pencil, level, painters tape and trowel, and your coordinating paint colors.

Measure the wall and mark center. Determine how high you want the top row to start (depending on your ceiling height). In this case I came down a few inches from the ceiling. Each of my original large squares are 24" x 24" and I simply mapped them out measuring each one and marking with the pencil (using the level to trace the lines)... starting at the center and working out. Once you have the outline drawn on the wall you need to tape it off. Start by taping off the outer edges. Use your trowel (or fingernail) and run it along the tape. The heat generated by the friction will adhere the tape to the wall and give you a nice clean line with minimal touchups required. NOTE!: If you have freshly painted walls before doing this... let them dry for at least a couple of days before taping. Otherwise the paint will pull up when you take the tape off. Trust me, I've done it and it's a big fat mess you don't want to deal with!

Okay, so next you will have to do this part in sections. I started with the upper 2 corner squares. When you put the tape on, you have to put it on the outter edges, so you can only paint 2 at a time because you want a perfect 24" x 24" - make sense? Once you've painted them remove the tape and let completely dry... again you want to avoid the tacky paint syndrome for the next steps. This part was hard for me because I just wanted to get it done, like now... but trust me, just walk away and work on something else.

Next do the bottom 2 corner squares. Same deal people... remove tape, let dry and walk away.

Then the top middle... dry, dry, dry. And finally the bottle middle.

So you could totally leave this as-is. But like I said, why stop there? So now comes the easier part. I actually used a spare piece of wood that was a perfect 12" x 12" as a template to trace the inner square. But if you don't have anything like that... you can get your trusty measuring tape and map it out. This time when taping the inner part of the square, cut the tape down to form a perfect line. Switch up the colors a bit and paint!

Lastly!... the tiny little inner square is a 3" x 3". Measure, tape, paint and then have a much needed cocktail after all of that!... Unless you're prego then you might want to rethink that.... or get your doctors permission, haha!

Okay, so part 2 of this segment I think you'll really like. It does involve painting, but no tape is required! I will post that soon :)