Movin' On Up

We are officially out of guest bedrooms in our house, and it fills my heart knowing that in a few months all of the rooms will be occupied by our 3 sleeping babies. I never liked having a cold guest room with the vents closed and dust settling on the unused furniture. With 10 short weeks until the arrival of #3, I decided to get started on converting the spare room into Norah's big-girl space. She's not quite ready to be out of her crib just yet, but we're hoping to have her fully settled in a bed before baby comes. My lovely mother-in-law, who is a speed-painter, offered to come and help me paint and ended up doing most of the work while I tried to keep the kids out of her way. I was inspired for the walls by a Lowe's magazine article showing how to create your own tree-art canvas with painter's tape and spray paint. The original idea was just to make a 12" X 12" art piece for above the bed, but then that seemed a little boring and I decided to magnify the concept onto an entire wall. I was pretty apprehensive as I was pulling off the painter's tape at the end, but the tree wall turned out great and I love the way it ties into her tree bedding. I was working with a very limited budget for this room so I did a lot of re-purposing and repainting of items we already had around the house. I painted the lamp and nightstand, wrapped the shade with ribbon, updated the hardware on the dressers, dug out the yellow curtains from our cedar chest and spray painted the bird cage that I bought on clearance. The books ledges were an Ikea bargain and the wreath above the bed cost a total of $5 including the "N" and the flower, which was an old pair of Norah's pants I cut up. My biggest splurge was on the bedding, which I found at the Pottery Barn Outlet and was still a great price.

Norah likes to jump on her big bed and read books in there but that's about as far as we've gotten for now. And for now, having her contained in a 4-walled crib makes this pregnant mama's life a heck of a lot easier!