Eleanor's Nursery

In honor of my sister Emily having her baby October 12, 2019 I have decided to show the bedroom that I did for her as my baby shower gift for Miss Eleanor Jean. What you will see are the before and after pictures of not only the bedroom but some vintage furniture that our mom passed down from her childhood. The furniture I was paid to redo, and the room, like I said, was my gift.

These are the pictures I took of what will be the babies room after Emily had her gender reveal party at her house. 

I love that Emily gave me total control over the whole project. I did inform her throughout the process, sharing ideas, color swatches I chose etc. She never objected to any of it.

The room had lovely hardwood floors. However, I knew she was getting carpet. I mention this because if you are painting a room, any room, you want to be careful to not get paint on the floors. I treated the floors as though she was not going to be getting carpet when it came to painting and moving furniture around.

Change of subject real quick, last minute I decided to make some shirts for Erik and myself for the gender reveal party. He thought she was having a boy and I thought girl. We had these underneath our regular shirts and come reveal time we took off our over shirts for this little surprise.

The reveal was done at the end of April and I knew my kids got out of school the 2nd week of June. My own personal deadline was to be done before the kids got out. Well between my own business, and home I had to keep up on, I did not meet that goal. I was going over for a few hours twice a week, and took off one week in May for one of my girls birthday party planning, so overall, not too bad.

Day 1 was my longest day. I spent 12 hours getting the room prepared and taking the furniture out to be sanded and cleaned. My sister doesn't live far, only a 25 minute drive, but I like to make each trip worth it haha.

This is the end table. Cute little mid-century piece. Original plan for all the drawers were to remove the handles since some were loose. That quickly changed when I saw they were tongue and groove into the drawers themselves. I didn't want to risk breaking them as my mom wanted me to preserve the piece as much as possible. I just knew that I would be doing a lot of taping since I wanted the handles a different color.

I still sanded down the tops to all the pieces even though they weren't real wood because I wanted them stained. 

Note: When sanding down fake wood DO NOT go deep or you'll end up at the particle board and staining the piece will not look like it's real. 

If you sand enough to get off the top stain then it'll still look like real wood and you'll be good to go. See up close picture above.

Another way to get the same results is to use furniture stripper. I would much rather sand furniture all day than to strip it. I hate stripping, but that's just me.

The drawers were real wood which was great but I had to remove the veneer first. There is veneer that comes off by getting underneath it and pulling, or if you're not so lucky you will have to soak it off. I have had both. I will share on another piece where I did the soaking process. These pieces were fairly easy and lifted to where I was able to get a flat metal scrapper under to finish lifting them up. 

I would say it was about half and half when said and done where I could pull most of it off and what didn't come off, I sanded. I could have soaked, yes, but again, I would rather sand than to do anything that requires a wet mess even if it's just water.

As you can see, the first coat of new stain is on. Anything I was able to do at my house, I did, like the drawers, hardware and some décor for the room. That saved me on having to be gone so long as things need to dry before re-coating. Besides, being in the comfort of my own home allowed me to work while working on the room.

Well worth the cleaning to bring back that natural shine. They turned out perfect and just as expected. I regret not taking before pictures of these but you can see how they looked from the before pictures of the furniture (see above). They were dark and had lost their patina.

My sister agreed to keep the room top secret from everyone but those who obviously live in the home.

By posting this I hope to not only inspire others to take on projects but I am now sharing my process with my own family members who will read this. Hi family!

Furniture can appear so clean at times until you really get in there. I couldn't believe all the build up that was under the handles.

Each day I left Emily's house I took pictures of my progress. For time sake I won't show every single picture. I am going over the process with you though.

Here I painted the closest the same as the room. I did 2 coats and felt something was off when I came back one day for more work. So I ended up painting it one of the other room colors.

The trim I used primer on before I painted it white. Let me go ahead and save you from potential mistakes. When going white, you want to primer first. If you do not primer, especially when the piece has stain on it, you will end up with bleeding (as I call it) later down the road. Bleeding is where the original stain starts to seep through and cause discoloring. Learn from my mistakes here folks. I have been painting furniture and stained wood for years now and since most of my pieces are white I have learned how to handle white. So again, furniture or wood trim in a bedroom that has stain on it will need primer.

Something you won't like hearing but will save you in the long run. If you are painting a piece white, after you've cleaned and have applied primer once, once may not be enough. That's right. You will need to keep applying primer until the stain under no longer tries to bleed through. If you think that you'll be fine with one coat, or 2 coats and move on, if there is still ANY discoloring coming through, the white color you choose to apply next will NOT cover it. It will cover temporarily, sure. The second you go to clear coat your piece, guess what's back?! Learn from others mistakes.

Yes I know in these pictures the darker shade is uneven. My hubby helped me hold the tape measure one day when he was over. How I achieved this was by measuring the wall from left to right. I drew a little line at the center point. Then from ceiling to the floor drew another line for the half way point. That's how I was able to get perfect lines.

You probably can't tell but even the "whitish" color was a totally new shade of white though in pictures it appears the same.

Speaking of colors let me tell you the color palette I went with. I knew I wanted a grey as the primary color, I needed a dark color but black was not it. I also wanted a white and I knew Emily wanted coral. So bam, that's easy. Those colors work well together.

I couldn't believe when I found the grey I wanted. The name of it was Elle Grey and the baby was going to be named Eleanor, Ellie for short. I fell more in love with the color at that point. All colors were Sherwin Williams and I went with 2 shades of coral and you'll see why in later photos.

I am going to tell you right now, I do not buy paint that are "made" for furniture. I use regular paint on all my furniture pieces and they have all stuck, applied nicely, and is able to be distressed. Just throwing that out there.

I knew the décor I wanted in the room and thankfully Emily paid for a few things I thought would look nice because I couldn't afford the little extra things. I have 5 kids and I was already spending my time and money on paint. The rest of the stuff I wanted in there I made. Let's start sharing those.

I up-cycled 2 drawers from a dresser I threw out to make a shelf. I wanted her to have a spot to place diapers while blending in all the colors of the room. Not only that, later when diapers are not needed she would have a cute shelf to place little knick knacks.

I hand painted the flowers just like the flowers I painted on the accent wall in the bedroom that I will come back to shortly.

On to another piece I made for the room. I took pallet pieces, cut them down to size, sanded and clear coated them for a hamper!

If you don't know already, babies are tiny! Tiny people equals tiny clothes, hence my tiny hamper. I thought how cute to have a little rustic hamper that could be used as a trash can when she out grows this.

I was going to make some shelves almost identical to these I found at my parents house. I asked my parents for them and they didn't object so here I began painting them. Every nursery needs a place for books.

These ended up being the first things I hung in her room too.

I made the following sign for décor. Yes, that's in my handwriting. 

It's the simple things you do that when all put together, makes all the difference.

My sister had these items for the room and asked me to do something with them. Not everything needs to be painted, or redone, and I knew they would be fine as is. So I only dressed up the horse a little hehe

This little piece I threw together from some wood pieces I had. I thought how cute to have a little caddy for baby lotion, a few diapers, ointment etc. handy for when she is changing Ellie.

I could have wood filled screw holes and done a really nice piece, but that was not the look I was going for here. Not to say I wasn't going for something nice, I was, rustic nice. :-)

I made this tissue box and feeding sheet for the room as well. The lamp you kind of see came from my grandmother and it's a bunny. Bunnies was also the theme going on in Miss Eleanor's room. Our grandmother passed away suddenly years ago and I love that my sister had this lamp for her room. I also love that she decided to give her daughter our grandmother's middle name for her middle name. So sweet.

I don't know about you but I'm getting anxious to get to the reveal. So let's move this right along.

The end table, remember how I sanded the top? Well you do not need to sand it if you are painting it. I changed my mind on staining it and chose to paint the whole thing.

I also ended up painting the tips of each piece which is why I'm showing this one up-close. 

To achieve that look measure from the bottom up and draw some lines so you know where to tape off for painting.

I have to say these pieces were my least favorite that I have done up to this point because I love taking furniture completely apart to really get a good clean. 

Drum roll please. Time for the reveal. My sister was so cool to keep this from everyone so we could have a bedroom reveal day.

Our sweet Ellie October 20, 2019

It was a true honor to be able to do the room for Emily and husband Kyle. I will admit when the process was done I found myself crying one day because it was over. I had enjoyed going over so much, and seeing my sister more than usual that it hit me, and I was emotional over it. I love my sister and my family and God has blessed me with the talent of creating, designing and having a vision on things. Without God none of this would have turned out so well. Thank you Jesus for all that you do and all the strengths you have given to me. Thank you again Emily and Kyle for the total control of her room, and opening up your home to me when you weren't even there.