makin' way for baby, part 2

My friend Christine came over to help me line the walls of baby's room in fabric - Christine is the queen of making things look pretty with fabric.

The room is as tall as it is long, so it was a little difficult to find space to cut. The jumble of hose for the pneumatic stapler didn't help much..

For the ceiling, we wrapped the end of the fabric around a long, narrow piece of wood and stapled it from the underside. The fabric kept slipping, so we taped along it first, then stapled.

After this side was up, we pulled the fabric across the ceiling, taped it to a piece of wood on the other end, and stapled it up.

We did the ceiling in 2 sections, with the overlap in the middle of the room. There's no light in there, so this way I can get a hanging light and put it up in the middle of the room. The light will poke out of the fabric, and I can tuck the cord behind and run it down to an outlet

Then came the first wall.. this was a bit of trial and error because of the oddities of the room. There's exterior paneling, drywall and trim in varying combinations around the room. We wound up stapling the fabric to a piece of trim that runs all the way around the room, and we pulled gathers in it so it looks very curtainy (and girly!).

I decided to cover the door, even though there's a window in it. That's had the interesting side-effect of making the room seem just a little bigger. Even though we never open the door, and the litter box has been sitting in front of it for a year, visually it still seems like there's more space in there now.

I haven't decided how to do the curtains in here yet, so we just pinned the fabric up over the window to let light in. Once there's a curtain plan, I'll actually cut and staple the fabric around the window.

And then underneath the window, we stapled the fabric from the underside right up to the frame and then let it fall over the sill.

It's a very green, girly wall

The back wall we did more like the ceiling, wrapping the fabric around a strip of wood and stapling it up. We spent awhile getting the pattern to line up (I've never hung wallpaper, but I imagine this aspect of it is a giant pain!), but I pulled it a little off when I went back and stapled the fabric up to the window (the white gap between the window in and the fabric started bugging me after looking at this picture)

It's a little flowery-er than it seemed on the bolt, but it's very, very cute.

I'll get a soft, fluffy rug in one of the flower colors (I'm leaning towards purple, but both Christine and
Dan vote for hot pink), and it should be a nice, cozy room. I plan on stapling the fabric at the floorline too, so the little on can't go crawling back behind there.

Two walls down, 2 to go!

makin' way for baby

Dan's been working on the heat - installing venting and attaching and pressurizing the manifold.. that will be another post. I've been a bit distracted with wanting to get the nursery started, so in case she comes early there will be a reasonably clean and safe place for her.

<-- To illustrate how not-clean, and not-in-any-way-safe, the room we're planning for the nursery used to be.. here's a shot from when we first bought the house. A hubcap makes a great baby toy, right?!

This is what the room has looked like for most of our time here.. It's the sun room off the kitchen, which has been functioning as a catch-all storage place and the home for the litter box.

Most recently, it's evolved into our clothes drying area/mud room. The washing machine is right where I'm standing to take this picture, and it's also right by the back door so when we're soaking wet from riding home, our rain gear can be stripped off and hung right up.

Ultimately, the space will be a stairwell between the first and second floors of the house.

This is the view looking back out towards the kitchen. The big window faces south, so it's a favorite hang-out spot for the cats, who can usually find a patch of sunlight somewhere in there.

The door on the left of this picture leads into our bedroom, which also makes it a pretty ideal spot for a nursery

And this is from the bedroom doorway looking back towards the window. It's a small room - 6' x 9' - but babies are pretty small, so it seems like it should work fairly well.

The door in this picture leads out to the back stairs, but hasn't opened since the foundation was done. That's not a problem, because there's another door just on the other side of that little wall. When we redo the kitchen, we'll be getting rid of one of the doors, although we've gone a little back and forth about which one will be going away.

Everything in the room found a new home, and I headed back in with my handy bucket of bleach and cleaner and gave it a good scrubdown. It was last scrubbed before we moved in, and wasn't too bad except for over the doors and the floor.

Because every wall in the room is being either removed or replaced within the next year, it doesn't seem worthwhile to re-drywall. My plan is to cover the walls with fabric to get a nice clean, solid surface.

Here's a sneak preview of the fabric.. which will be a project for another weekend