Since these photos were taken, we've added a chair, a big old steamer trunk in place of that puny Ikea table, and a large dresser. Drew has been using the closet and dresser for his clothes which means, ahem, that there's usually workout clothing, loose change, collar stays, and other miscellaneous stuff strewn about. (There's also the entire bookshelf full of Nazi books. Just remember that Drew is a historian, not a white supremacist.)
I don't know about you, but none of this says "baby's room" to me.
To save poor Drew more painting, I tried my darndest to find a way to decorate the room that would suit a little girl and keep the blue walls. I figured that I would find a fabric or a piece of wall art that I really liked with blue in it and base the rest of the room off of that. Easy, right?
NO. Not easy. This country is so darn gendered that it was really, really tough to find cute stuff that didn't absolutely scream BOY. I found several pretty calico fabrics that were flowered and had the right blue in them, but they were very pastel-y overall and we wanted to use bright colors in the room. I did find this fabric at Ikea and thought we might have a winner:
But then Drew said it was too sixties (seventies?) so that was out. It's not that I object to a blue room for a little girl (and I certainly don't want a room full of pink either) but then I realized the real problem was the walls - the blue has always been my least favorite paint color in the whole house. It's sort of blah and doesn't really go with any of the other colors. Given that we'll be spending lots and lots of time (much of it in the middle of the night) in this room, it seemed to me like a paint job was in order. I presented all of this to Drew and he begrudgingly agreed to paint the walls. Once that happened, the fabric hunt was much easier. After more searching, I found this fabric in a quilting magazine at Drew's mom's house:
Eureka! Girly but not too pink, lots of great colors (red! turquoise!) to use elsewhere, kid-friendly but not stupid, etc.
I decided to use this fabric to make roman shades (which, FYI, turned out to be a terrible idea - more on that later).
Jumping off from there, we chose this cheery green indoor-outdoor fabric ($7 per yard!) to reupholster our much-loved rocking armchair:
Drew has painted the walls a light gray-green (picture a color in between the green in the dining room and the gray in the bathroom), which has brightened up the space considerably. Once I get the roman shades finished and hung, we'll post a few photos of the actual room.
Until then, please send me good sewing vibes. I'm armed with a seam ripper and a steady supply of curse words, so I think it'll be okay.
