Major Nursery Redo!

Happy Friday!!

As much as I looove the month of October, I cannot wait for this particular weekend to be over with. As a young girl, I was shown the movie "The Entity" at a sleepover (I'm asking the same thing... where were the parents?). That movie scarred me for life. I hate scary movies. Hate. And I am not one that uses that word often. Now, every night when I am seeking some down time and turning on the TV, what is showing? Scary movies. UGH! Can we hurry up and zip past Halloween already? 

On a happier note...

WE ARE DONE WITH THE NURSERY!

sorta

This is what our nursery looked like when we moved in...

please excuse all my notes. This is what I do when I take the "before" pic. If I write it on a paper, I will lose it. haha.

Anyway, the room, which is small, needed a paint job and flooring redo. We painted the walls "Italian Villa" by Behr which I love, love, LOVE! It is the palest pink without looking white or pepto-bismaly. I am new to color on the walls so this was a safe choice for me and it ended up being such a precious, gentle pink. love.

When you're painting a room, you need to remove all the switch plates and socket plates. This is what they looked like before:

These plates are sold at Home Depot for cheap, but since I have to change every single one in our home, the price was going to add up. So, to save money (!) this is what we did. You lightly sand all the plates, just enough to get rid of the sheen. Then spray two coats of this guy:

and voila...

"new" plates!

So, after we painted the walls (ceiling update is further down on our list), we removed the carpet, tackboard, and baseboards to install our tile.

Here in the desert, where summers reach triple digits, tile in the home is a plus! There isn't any step-by-step I can explain for laying tile. It would be too overwhelming.

Basically what we did is had people give us quotes, and we found that the price to lay the tile was double the cost of what we paid for it. So, we found a friend who has experience in doing tile herself and she showed us the ropes. She had us do most of the work ourselves and that was the best way to learn. Nothing online can prepare you to tackle this on your own. My advice... seek assistance for the first room and then you can do it on your own for the next room. We picked a small room that would be covered with toys most of the time (i.e. hide imperfections). I am amazed at how well it turned out!

Like I said, small room. I was standing on a ladder to take this pic. We installed the tile, which took 7 hours, and put the grout in the next day, which took 2 hours. Word of advice: stick with a light color of grout.. it makes the job so much easier.

I painted the baseboards and windowsill white to update the room and have yet to nail the boards back in. I had a little problem with the board splitting, which I think is because my nails are too thick. Hopefully I will have a completely finished room by next week, with white baseboards and toys and a TODDLER BED! Goodbye crib!

Before:

After:

I am linking this to:

Show and Share Day, Flaunt it Friday, Feathered Nest Friday, Show and Tell Friday