The Boys' Room: Progress Update

I haven't forgotten Orthodoxy 101: Part 2, the forthcoming response to yesterday's Orthodoxy 101: Part 1. Believe me, this whole conversion thing is the only thing on my mind, besides baby proofing, our shortage of diapers, laundry, and what in the world I'll feed my kids for lunch. But I need to take a respite from thinking too deeply, and so I will instead direct your attention to the progress we're making on J and B's aqua and chocolate-striped bedroom.

(Sorry for the poor lighting. Lots of sunshine hits their room in the morning.)

The boys' color scheme has always been chocolate and aqua ("chocqua," apparently, is an accepted term over at Better Homes and Gardens), before the combination was popular and wide-spread and easy to find in nursery bedding. I got my inspiration for the fabric from a diaper bag my mom bought me at the crib store where we bought the sleigh crib and matching changing table. (The story behind the mismatched cribs is that I picked out the gorgeous and very expensive sleigh crib and changing table well before I knew I was having twins. Once I finally found out, at 5 months, I didn't have enough money to buy a matching sleigh crib and had to instead opt for the matching but much less pricey Jenny Lind version. Thus J looks like our favored son.) Anyway, I wanted the fabric from the diaper bag used in the nursery, and so I turned to my Grammy, seamstress extraordinaire. The lady who made the diaper bag gave me all the links to the fabric online, and so I ordered it, found patterns, and sent it all to my Grammy, who churned out two beautiful valances, two quilts (with Minky fabric!), two crib skirts, and two bumper pads, all in the coordinating toile/polka dot/striped brown and blue fabrics.

(See C poking around in B's inferior crib?)

Obviously we're not using the bumper pads right now. Also obviously, we're still not finished with the room. We have lots of stuff to hang on the walls (they did have a complete nursery once upon a time, when we lived in Oxford and thought we'd be hanging around for awhile), but I'm holding off on that until B and J transition to their big boy beds and I can give C some of their baby furniture. This will happen soon, and I'll post more in the future when we have a more permanent set-up for them. They are so patient with me.

The bright blue actually works really well in this room. It's a small bedroom with weird lines and angles that could very easily look much smaller with the wrong paint. I was afraid the dark brown and the black of the alcove (see below) would feel claustrophobic, but the blue balances everything out. I lucked out on that one.

Oh, and did you see that lamp? I'm proud of that. I made the cover for that lamp using remnant material and ribbon and hot glue. Just don't look too closely.

Also, that chest and the nightstand in the next photo were in my room when I was a baby.

OK, that's the partially finished alcove. See the painter's tape? It's still there because one quart of chalkboard paint wasn't quite enough. So we need to run out and get another quart and slap on one more coat before we can get busy with the chalk. I have grand plans to transform that alcove into a reading nook, since our boys seem on track to be true blue bibliophiles.

They make us very proud.

Here's a slightly dark shot of what the fabric looks like. Again, we've used three coordinating patterns: striped, polka dot, and toile. It works really well. I used to have all the links for this particular fabric, but I seemed to have deleted them from my bookmarks to make room for all of C's bedding links. If you're interested, I can do some digging for you. And the paint is Sherwin Williams. I have the names of the colors somewhere, too, if you want to know them.

Finally, little J, curled up in his crib and forever convincing me that he's not ready, not ready at all, to transition to a real bed. He slept through the entire photo shoot, despite the shrieks of joy coming from his brother (B likes to wake up and play) and the gurgles of contentment coming from his sister in the next crib over.

I just love making babies.

(This has recently become a point of contention between my husband and me, as he is determined to stick to his "No Babies in 2009" New Year's Resolution. I argue that I can get pregnant in 2009 and not deliver until next year and still fulfill his resolution. He disagrees. Let me know where you weigh in on this argument.)

And... hurray for chocqua!