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Around the House: Vera’s New Room

By Dawn Sailors In Around the House, Second Bedroom

Well, as I’ve mentioned in the past (here) I’ve been wanting to get Vera into her ‘big girl room’ for a while now. And I’m happy to say that we’ve finally done it! And that she loves it and has been doing so well in her new room and bed.

Without further ado, here is the new space:

I should note here, that the wall colors in this room are insanely hard to photograph. In real life, the blue wall is a deep inky blue with an aqua tint, and the light walls (which look weirdly blue in these photos) are actually a cool gray. Here are the actual color swatches from Valspar’s website:

You can see in this (crappy phone) photo from when I was painting the previously blue walls to gray, that the gray really is gray, and not blue:

And in case you’re curious, here are a few old shots to illustrate how far this room has come:

 

The first shot is from when we first walked through the house. The next from the point when this room was a catch all for laundry and project supplies. And the third was what it looked like after I finally cleaned it up, but it was never used.

I tried to reuse as many things as possible from Vera’s nursery, both to keep costs close to nil, and to help her feel comfortable and surrounded by her own familiar things, even though it was in a new room. In fact, the only new things I did buy were a curtain rod (from Target), the tall book shelf in the corner (garage sale find), and the alphabet print (also Target). I should note here that I rarely buy mass produced artwork. I much prefer to either make it myself or buy prints from talented artists on Etsy or other unique shops. That being said, this lovely canvas features artwork by the late Eric Carle, one of my favorites, and I just couldn’t pass it up. Plus the colors and style were just perfect for the space.

I will be continuing to add to the gallery wall above the bed over time, when I make or find things that fit the space or have special meaning. It looks a little bare to me right now, but eventually all the holes will be filled in with pretty things.

Even though it was my goal to reuse as much as possible, I did want to change it up a little for fun. So while I LOVE (really love) the dark gray walls of the nursery (also used in our master and guest rooms- seriously, love), I decided against it in here. The other reason for that choice was the size of this room, which is smaller over all than any of the other bedrooms.

Because of the smaller size of this room, some of the furniture isn’t ideal. With that in mind, I consider this ‘phase 1’ for this room. I plan to switch up some of the furniture in here with some other pieces around the house that will hopefully fit a little better and give some breathing room. The other thing that will change is the height of the bed. Right now the box spring is just sitting on the floor (which is why the bedskirt is tucked under it) so it isn’t too high if Vera were to fall out in the night. Eventually I’ll put it up on rails so it’s a regular sized bed for her. I’d also like to switch out or otherwise update the ceiling fan, and still need to finish painting all the trim white, but for now, I’m enjoying the coziness, not to mention the fact that V loves it.