I've Looked at Clouds from Both Sides Now...

We have made much progress on Baby's room! We've gotten a lot done in the last few weeks. It's been so exciting to watch things come together just like (or better than) I imagined!

 I think I mentioned before that we had bought the crib and the changing table/dresser. The dresser needed painting so that it would no longer look like a purply-gray Dalmation. We did indeed paint the dresser, a chest of drawers, a corner cabinet, and a wall shelf Sherwin Williams' "Dover White." All of the pieces look revived, refreshed, and relieved from years in a sad coat of paint.

While we had the furniture in the garage for painting, we also painted Baby's bedroom walls. When my husband and I were dating, and I would visit his family, I was always placed in what used to be my brother-in-law's bedroom. His room was on the second floor, as far as you could get away from everyone else (the privacy was appreciated in a house full of boys), and the walls were bright blue with clouds everywhere. My brother-in-law had planes and dragons everywhere, and I could see how cool it could be as a boy's room. BUT as a girl, staying in that room, surrounded by clouds, I always felt like a princess living in the highest room in the tallest tower. I could easily have made that room into a fairy castle in the sky. So, all throughout dating my husband, I always thought that if we ever had children, we'd paint the room just like that. And since my mother-in-law (former Art Studies major) had painted the room by herself the first time, we should have no problem recreating the paint job.

Fast forward seven years, and my husband and I were ready to paint the room blue with clouds. Except this time, I didn't want bright, little boy blue; I wanted soft, soothing, baby blue since we aren't finding out the gender of this baby. Sherwin Williams was helpful enough to carry "Aviary Blue," which was the perfect shade.

The technique to make the clouds was rather unusual. Usually when you think blue with clouds, you think, paint everything blue and then paint white clouds on top. My mother-in-law had a better way. We painted the entire room bright white first and let it dry. Then, I went around the room and marked where I wanted the clouds to be. She would roll on some blue around the cloud area, and then wipe off the blue with a wet rag to make the clouds. It sounds confusing, I know. I couldn't visualize how it would be done beforehand. I just trusted my mother-in-law. She'd done it once. I assumed she could do it again. 

You are in luck. I had took a video (of marginal quality) of my mother-in-law "finding" a cloud. You can see for yourself how we did it:

Isn't that amazing? It turned out perfectly! I'm so in love with the room! Here are some pictures of it in progress.

Brown-to-White Day

Brother-in-law helping

 

Mother-in-law painting

Husband on a ladder

Cloud Day!

I marked where I wanted clouds with blue tape.

Pregnant me wiping clouds with MIL 

MIL painting

And so we had our blue cloud baby room.

Since we aren't finding out the gender, I've decided to go with yellow accents for the room. I found some lovely yellow damask canvas fabric that my amazing mother-in-law helped make into a slipcover for the rocking chair I already had. I recovered the ottoman in the same fabric that I found at Hobby Lobby. At Lowe's, we found the same color yellow in a Valspar spray paint, which my wonderful husband used to paint a lamp we already had yellow. Also at Hobby Lobby, I found some yellow fabric that was already gathered with stretchy thread. I used that fabric and this lady's idea to make a crib skirt. We moved back in the furniture, cleaned out the closet, and soon will work on window treatments to filter the light for naptimes. Mostly, we're just waiting on Baby. We're are so incredibly happy!

Here's the (mostly) finished room!