Emily's Big Girl Room: from nursery to toddler room

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With great joy HHM and I welcomed our sixth grandchild,
 Audrey Ryan Edmonds on October 26, 2014.  

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When an ultrasound revealed another girl, Ashley and Ryan decided to keep the nursery as is and convert one of the guest rooms to a "big girl" room for Emily.  The room they chose, shares a Jack and Jill bathroom with the nursery so the girls will be able to share a bathroom as they grow.

Ashley immediately began pinning ideas for Emily's big girl room (here), as did I (here).  Ashley pinned several mood boards, but in the end, loved the fabric in this board she found on the blog, hellobee.  As it turns out, this was a guest post by one of my favorite bloggers, Camille of Effortless Style.                                   

Unfortunately, this beautiful Kate Spain fabric, Honey Tea Rose, was sold out everywhere we looked on line. Soooo, we both started pinning other fabrics in a large scale floral in a similar color palette. Neither of us found anything we liked as well.  In desperation, Ashley decided to call Kate Spain headquarters to see if the fabric was discontinued or just out of stock.  Although it had been discontinued, they found us several brick and mortar stores that had enough fabric in stock for the drapes!  Wow, what customer service!  Ashley immediately ordered the fabric and we had our inspiration piece.

Using the Honey Rose fabric as inspiration, we chose Sherwin Williams 6512 Balmy for the walls.  Ryan hates to paint but sweetly agreed to paint the walls, even though he insists the beige the builder chose is a neutral and should go with anything.  He also conceded to my insistence of a pink ceiling if RayRay (also known as HHM) would paint it.  In the end, Ryan helped paint the ceiling as he felt guilty sitting downstairs watching football while RayRay painted the ceiling Sherwin Williams 6595 Amour Pink.

Emily LOVES pink so we decided to go ahead with the pink velvet headboard.  Although we loved the headboard featured on the mood board, we decided this was a good place to save money and went with the Target Juliette Tufted Headboard in pink.  The full size we used is on sale now for $169.00 with free shipping!

People thought we were crazy to pick white bedding for a toddler's room, one word:  Bleach. We were also searching for a tucked duvet cover as we knew keeping a smooth duvet looking neat would be impossible with a two year old.  Hooray for built in wrinkles!  We researched many different white tucked duvet covers, before I stumbled on the Kasey Duvet Cover at the Nordstrom's Summer Sale.  The detailing is gorgeous and with the sale, the price was similar to some of the lower end options.  Sold!

After an extensive search, we came back to the rug on the mood board, the Spectrum Trellis GD40 rug.  This gorgeous rug is 100% wool, gets great reviews, and was a steal with the 75% off and free shipping offer they were running pre-Black Friday.

A quick trip to Ikea and we scored the lack wall shelf, ribba picture ledges, a Kallax shelving unit to use as a window seat and six white picture frames,

The Pottery Barn dollhouse I had in my nursery was the perfect shade of green to match the Ikea storage bins!  (I cannot find this color on the Ikea website anymore, but they may be available in store).The pink pouf was a splurge from Restoration Hardware Baby and Kids.

The chair is a hand me down from GiGi's condo and makes a perfect place for story time or for Mom to nurse Audrey while Emmie plays.  Wall mounted lamp. green throw and brass sea urchins are from Target. All our an additional 10% off right now.  The urchins also make great additions to your bookshelf or coffee table.

I painted several of the E's from Emily's nursery to match the night stand.  They were okay, but didn't quite work for me.  Enter HHM, some reader's digest books and a band saw,drill press and router table.  For 3 dollars each, we created these Anthropologie knock off Library Letters.  LOVE them!  You can now purchase the book letters at my booth at Factory Antiques or email for custom orders.

Sweet bunny was a birthday gift from Audrey and "Who."

The princess and the pea doll, a gift from my sister, also used to reside in Neena's nursery.  I donated it to the cause when accessorizing Emmie's nursery shelves.  She loves playing with it so much it followed her to her Big Girl Room.

We knew we wanted a ceiling fan, (we are in Hotlanta) but the options are so limited!  Everyone is looking for attractive ceiling fans, why isn't this market expanding?  A drum shade from Home Depot, a yard of fabric and some spray adhesive (and lots of clothespins) were all I needed to give this stock fan a little more personality.  The navy blue rug and drum shade are a nice counterpoint to the pastel walls and ceiling.

A target basket houses Emmie's collection of stuffed animals.

Neena's Lulie Wallace calendar was sacrificed for the wall above the bed.  Someday I hope to own an original piece by Charleston artist Lulie Wallace.

Using the leftover fabric from the drapes and drum shade, I made a pretty neck roll pillow for the bed.  As much as I love pillows, we wanted to make maintaining the room simple.

I headed to Anthropologie in search of a flower knob like those we used in the nursery, but ended up choosing this white milk glass knob instead.  Perfect with the white bedding!

A small dresser and some closet organizers in the walk in closet allow space in the room for Emily's play kitchen, also Pottery Barn.  

A floating shelf from Ikea adds space for some accessories. The chalkboard is a door inset picked up at an antique show in Charlotte.  We added a smaller matching one to Audrey's room.  Decoart Americana Clear Chalkboard Coating was used to give them a chalkboard finish without changing the original color.  Artwork purchased on Etsy and a pink corduroy bear she received from her Gigi made the move with Emily

Originally, the princess in the pea doll was supposed to be part of the vignette with her monogram.  However, Emmie loves playing with her so much we made some last minute substitutions by shopping other rooms in the house.  Eventually the candlesticks will return to the foyer when Neena completes a project that needs a little time to process in her imagination.  The pink crepe paper flowers are from her first birthday party.

Hooks for purses and aprons were incorporated to make it easy for Emmie to pick up.

Whew, you made it to the end of the post!  Lots of details to include.  If you would like help with your little one's room, Chapin Group would love to help.  Contact me at chapingroup@gmail.com.

Wendy

I Love Display Ledges

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Ledges are a versatile tool in decorating your home.  They can be adapted for any design style and the possibilities of where to use them and what to display are endless.

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Mixing accessories with artwork on these wide ledges

 from Pottery Barn adds dimension to this gallery wall. 

 Track lighting is the perfect addition to highlight both.

 

 

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Narrow ledges with black and white photos 

make a statement in this modern office!  

Varying the width and color of the mats 

adds visual interest to the wall.

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 White ledges against the dark wall add architectural interest!

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Artfully arranged displays on small 

ledges fill an unused corner.

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 A gallery wall does not have to be composed of

 pictures. This collection of mirrors is stunning! 

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Artwork of varying sizes suits this country home.  

Ledges allow you expand or edit your collection 

without adding additional holes to the wall.

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Rustic ledges with a chalkboard backdrop allow this 

collector to label his vintage cameras.  Notice the 

outline and label of the camera that is either being  

used or has not yet been added to the collection.

 

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Using ledges in the bath makes the most

 of narrow spaces. 

 

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Ledges can be made from all sorts of materials 

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Great storage for craft supplies.

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 In a nursery or young child's room ledges allow book covers to face outward, allowing easy selection by little hands.

 

 Chapin Group Interiors

The possibilities are endless:

Spices or cookbooks in the kitchen

Collections of all types

Children's artwork
Bar accessories

What would you like to display on a ledge?

Wendy

 

Chapin Group Interiors Etsy Shop is Live!

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Our Etsy Shop went live today!  We are learning the best way to photograph our products and list them, so only six items so far.  We will be adding more daily so be sure to check back.

I fell in love with this sweet poodle's face and bead poufs - not sure of the correct term in coiffing dogs.

These beauties just made me smile when I found them in Mt. Dora, Florida.  So many fun ways you could use them.

I love to use interesting architectural pieces in vignettes on bookshelves, mantels and tabletops.





Here is another set used as bookends on some shelves I was styling.  (Forgot to  take another picture after I centered the books!)

How about a bowling score sheet print plate for the bowler in your life?  Father's Day is coming up.

My Dad was an avid fisherman so I am always drawn to antique fishing lures.   These primitive, sculptural pieces would look great in a printer's tray or shadow box.

 

Watch for more great items coming soon!

 

Wendy



Abacus Nursery Art

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The oversized abacus in Baby M's Nursery is probably my favorite item in the room!  I had seen CB2's version several years ago and fell in love with it.  One of my client's original inspirations for her nursery was the alphabet.  This was a great jumping off point, and I expanded the idea to include vintage school items, hence the abacus.  (See sneak peak for more on the original inspiration.)  The abacus fit the gender neutral nursery and it combined vintage with modern - two things on my client's wish list.

Here is the original abacus wall art from CB2, which is no longer available. Hunky Handy Man (HHM) to the rescue! I found  great plans on Anything Pretty blog which he used as a starting point in his construction. 

HHM made a few adaptations to the original plan as he wanted the joints on the top and bottom rather than the sides.  He also did not add the outer frame.  I felt this would make the black frame too heavy, detracting from the graphic sculptural statement of the piece.

The drill press he inherited from his Dad allowed HHM to drill perfectly aligned holes for the dowels.



Pipe clamps helped keep everything square during the construction process.  (HHM will be so proud that I know the correct names of all the tools he used during the building phase!)

Figuring out how to paint 100 beads was a dilemma that HHM pondered for several days.  This first idea of using coat hangers was abandoned due to the fact that the beads could  easily slide around and possibly smudge.

  
A box from Costco became the paint booth.  If you look closely, you can see that a square peg in a round hole was the solution to the sliding problem.  This allowed HHM to space the beads so he could get all angles and rotate them without the beads moving and smudging each other.  Brilliant solution, HHM!

The square dowels (for lack of a better description) could also be suspended between two sawhorses to allow the beads to dry.  



After looking at many pictures of abaci (or abacuses, either is correct according to Merriam - Webster, although spellcheck does not seem to recognize abaci), I decided to go with 10 different colored beads rather than 5 colors repeated twice.  Little did I know what a challenge this would provide!  Finding the ten paint colors I wanted in a satin finish, sent me to many different Lowes, Home Depot, Michael's and Hobby Lobby locations.  For some reason, matte seems to be the most popular finish in spray paint.  We did eventually end up going with gloss in the pink and could really not tell much difference.

What a great addition to Baby M's School House Rocks Nursery!

Custom orders available.  Contact me at Chapingroup@gmail.com