"Tiny Adult" Room

My daughter has made the decision that she is an adult now and should do adult things...aside from changing diapers or doing anything that would remotely help me. Her excuse, while sticking to the point that she is in fact an adult, is saying, "I'm an adult, but i'm a tiny adult." I think she prefers it to "big girl" because i've recently started calling my son a "big boy" and, like most nice things, we can't have that.

So, she's a Tiny Adult. And as such, she can't be seen sleeping in a crib like some jerk baby. So she kicked her crib to the new baby's room, spit on it, and began working on her new bedroom.

Luckily,  my dad and stepmom did the majority of the furnishing. They gave us my sister's old twin bed, and two of their own nightstands that they've since replaced. I found the mid-century Basset dresser at a thrift store for $60. We got started painting them all to match.

I decided to chalk paint them, and i made my own by using 1 part plaster of paris, 3 parts paint, and water to mix. And i decided on chalk paint for two reasons: 1. No prep. Like, zero. and B. It gives a softer finish. I'd decided that the "distressed" look isn't for me, since that's the reason most people prefer chalk painting, but i still appreciate the chalky finish.

Now, the dresser is very lightly distressed. I'd made the decision that the distressed look wasn't for me after the fact. Ain't it always the way?

For all pieces, i used Behr's Ultra White in a flat finish for my DIY chalk paint. The dresser and the nightstands incorporate gray, which is Valspar in an eggshell finish which i also made chalk paint with. I got it in the Oops section at Lowe's for $5, and it's the same gray i used in the new baby's closet. I found that the flat finish was easier to work with than the eggshell finish. It also could have been the difference between Behr and Valspar paint, of which i strongly prefer the former.

After painting, i sealed everything with two coats of General Finishes polyacrylic in satin that i applied with a sock.

Here was her room before the transition:

We later on decided to switch out the drawers with the brown Malm dresser that was in the guest room, and it looked like this:

Here's the new Tiny Adult room:

 

I made her new tulle "poofs" to hang in her corner since she stood on the crib rails and shredded the previous tissue paper ones with her retractable claws. I feel like they're not big enough. Also, she'd want me to tell you that she picked out the drawer pulls. She went in thinking pink, but then she saw blue and had to have both. I would have went with a brushed nickel in a nice design, for what it's worth. ...Which is nothing, apparently.

Fun fact: My great grandmother made that quilt for me when i was a baby and now it's my daughters. Love.

Her bag hangs on her closet door, packed and ready to go to her grandparents' house at a moment's notice.

Her "office drawers" are a more preferable form of toy storage than one simple container.

She can actually see what's on her dresser. I will eventually get a large mirror to hang over it.

 I installed hooks in the middle of her closet door to hold her tutus, and her fancy princess dress hangs up a little higher so her brother "won't put his hands all over it."

That is what the room of a Tiny Adult looks like, in case you'd ever wondered.

Back to the Drawing Board.

It seems that i'm pregnant again. Currently six months along and closing fast...thus not leaving me nearly enough time to put together another bedroom, seeing as how we've decided to put her (it'sagiiirrrlll) in the house instead of the garage.

We have dismantled the guestroom and moved it to the basement (oh yeah, we have a basement as of April 2014 because we actually had a tenant living down there since we moved in and no, he didn't convey. The more you know.) So what once was this:

 ...and was turned into this...

...now looks a little like this:

Not pictured: the wall repair from removing those panels because GOOD GOD were those suckers on tight.

I'll first address the elephant in the room and come to the defense of that dresser. It makes sense in my head, ok? Sit back and trust me for a minute. Plus, aren't you ever sick of the color of your furniture and choosing between white and various shades of brown? This dresser needed to be yellow. Here's a look back at it's many stages:

 Original

  Phase 1: first daughter's nursery dresser

 Phase 2: guest room/craft storage dresser - Behr's Swiss Coffee with River Rock drawers

Phase 3: second daughter's dresser - Behr's Lemon Zest with a semi-gloss polycrylic

Moving on, my intense nesting instinct that kicked in way before it should have had me focusing on the only unfinished part of the room: the closet. Still contractor/manilla folder yellow, trim unpainted, etc. Something had to be done, PLUS it wouldn't kill me to go through all that baby gear.

Once all of that mess was cleared out, i dismantled the shelving and had my bare bones:

I used some gray eggshell low odor/no VOC Valspar paint that i got for $5 in the Oops section of Lowe's a few months ago:

My original intention was to paint it and put it back together, but something about a moody blue wall and a dismal gray closet didn't make it feel welcoming to a new life. Call me crazy. It was worth the $12 for a quart of Behr's Wild Watermelon, which is the closest i was willing to get to the color pink. Not that i don't like pink, but i find it difficult to work with. And since i plan to use this color in a few other places in the room (that'll come later...) i decided to use it on the inside of the closet doors. I painted them between coats of trim paint.

Even with bright white trim and a salmon door, it wasn't enough. So i decided to put little on the inside of the closet as well. My daughter was super excited to help with this part. Just so you're not confused, that is indeed my hand holding up the stencil while she dabs the color on. She doesn't have one fully grown adult hand.

 We used the Wild Watermelon as well as Lemon Zest, the color of the dresser, to stencil. And no, i didn't measure or intend any rhyme or reason to the pattern. I thought it would look better at random. Up went the shelves, and it looks like this:

Once i went though the storage (i use diaper boxes because i have tons of both class and money), everything made a little bit more sense.

If i didn't plan to vomit color over this entire room, i would have painted the outside of the doors, too. I'm not opposed to the idea, but it may be a bit overwhelming with what i have in mind for the rest of the room so i'll just play that by ear.

There you have it; the beginnings of the newest nursery. The total cost (considering the gray paint, brushes, and rollers were already on-hand):

$12 Lemon Zest paint for the dresser
$12 Wild Watermelon paint for the doors
$1.30 for the stencil

$25.30. Not bad.