Progress!

April was a very busy month for our little family. We had visitors two different weekends, then came Easter. Easter is probably my favorite holiday. In the past, I've invited friends who don't have family locally for a big Easter dinner. But this year we kept it low key and just took our little group of four to Cracker Barrel and relaxed. We gave the girls Easter baskets each with a book (from Nana & Papa), a white eyelet sunhat, and a flower headband. It was really a nice day. 

And now somehow May has slid right by us, too! It's amazing how time flies!

House progress is going quite slowly. I have lots of vision in my head, but, of course it takes time and money. My current focus has been the girls' room, and we've made a lot of progress since our upstairs tour. Everything has been reoriented and we now have two cribs! The girls seem to be handling the separation pretty well, thank goodness! 

Our bedding is called Sweet Stitches by Kenneth Brown. The colors I am pulling out to put in the room are hot pink, light pink, aqua and kelly green. I know that's 4 colors, PLUS the wall color which is a neutral yellow shade. But this is a kid's room and I think an injection of fun colors is important! Hopefully it will all pull together!

So let's get started with the Progress Tour. This is a WAY before shot, but it will give you a better idea of how far we have come! Notice the trim is painted tan, and there are dusty tan mini-blinds on the windows!

And here's how she looks from the door today! The wall colors actually ARE the same, it's just the lighting and trim colors that are different. 

We still have some work to do. On each of the following progress shots, I've typed in what's yet-to-be-done. 

When you walk in the door, the left wall has 12 built-in drawers. Well, 10 drawers, 1 laundry chute and a fake drawer.  Many of you may know that I am on the hunt for drawer pulls. I need 24 matching pulls. I made the mistake of finding 8 of a style I really liked and buying them on ebay, thinking that I could find the other 16 relatively easily. This is not true. I'm looking for porcelain back plated bail pulls. It sounds complicated, but it really isn't! They were pretty standard back in the 40s, and somehow the style has completely disappeared. I intend to paint/glaze the porcelain back plates a fun color. 

I made the roman shades using mini-blinds and some guidance from Jennifer at The Newlywed Diaries and a tutorial from Jenny at the Little Green Notebook. It was a great project, and if anyone is interested, I'd be glad to give you some tips that made it easier for me. However, since both of those gals wrote such great pieces on the project, I won't rehash it here on Cottage1910. 

Here's the wall you first saw when walking through the door. I would like to put up some large-scale art (I have an idea, and I've even bought a portion of the make-my-own art, but you'll have to wait for another post!) and then make some simple bookshelves to mount on the wall. This is another project I'm going to make you wait for, but trust me, it's going to be great! 

I will eventually make a lumbar pillow to go in the rocker. I would like to someday get a proper side table and lamp for reading bedtime stories, too. 

Here is the area above the cribs. We have a friend in Atlanta (Thanks, Micah!) who painted the custom canvases for us, and they match the bedding set really well. You can see in this picture how perfect the blue she chose goes with the blue on the bumpers!  I want to find a way to tie the entire area together. I'm not sure if this will be using some fun initials (as pictured) or another idea I've yet to find, or even a combo of those two. Can you spot the project from this post?

And yes, I know I may have to move the cribs away from the dresser when the girls are big enough to crawl out onto it. 

And here is our final wall, looking back at the doorway and down the stairs (baby gate coming soon!). Because the windows in this room don't reach anywhere near the ceiling, I'm thinking of adding an interesting border around the room. I'm not saying I'll be using a standard wallpaper border! I'm thinking of anything from pom-pom garland to starting a collection of the girls' artwork to scalloped wood molding. I'll be sure to keep you updated! 

I already have a photo of a beautiful flower by my friend Megan Floyd to be framed and hung on the wall with growth charts for the girls. 

So, in Young House Love style, here's a bulleted list of what is left to acquire and do:

• find, buy, paint and install handles on all 12 drawers (24 handles total)
• finish large art project for over rocking chair area
• make and install wall-mounted bookshelves
• side table and lamp for reading
• initials or other art project for over the dresser
• frame and hang flower photo
• hang growth charts
• buy and install a light fixture. I thought I had my mind made up with this birdy orb, but I'm wondering if the color is right. So my other option is this daisy chandelier.  
• Decide on a border (if any), make/buy/acquire it, and install. 

Considering that we started in a blank and empty room with tan trim, federal style drawer pulls and dusty mini-blinds, I'm actually feeling pretty good with how far we've come! 

 What do you think? Are five colors too many? Which light fixture do you like best? Any ideas for inexpensive garland or something other than wallpaper border to go along the top of the room?