I'm needing help decorating our daughter's room. First, the colors - we're going with a light turquoise, grass green and yellow. Yes, not exactly very "girly", but the inspiration came from a giant tablecloth I fell in love with and bought at anthro last summer for this very purpose. It has a light turquoise background with grass green and ivory (really simplistic) paisley and flowers - the pattern is pretty girly. The best part is that there is 2" grass green cotton crocheted lace around the edge.
So, I'm using this fabric for a simple curtain (with an ivory roll up shade thing to block light) and for a pillow sham (both will have the green crocheted border). Then, with what's left of that fabric, my mom is making a quilt for her bed...together with a yellow chenille (forgot to mention, when I bought the fabric/tablecloth, I also bought two hanging picture frames that are made from the same fabric and two other fabrics that incorporate yellow), ivory small print, yellow gingham, and turquoise cotton lace-y fabric. Now, if you can picture all of that...congrats! ;) My mom is also making a few throw pillows out of some of these fabrics and some different fun trim I've found.
Since she'll be 18-20 months old when we travel to China to bring her home, I decided on a toddler bed for her. It slides out and becomes a twin size bed for when she's bigger. It's dark brown metal with decorative curliques (?) in the same metal/color. The other furniture in her room is painted off white.
I don't have a rocker/glider yet...and I need help choosing one that is inexpensive and will go with the rest of her room. Also - this is where I'm really looking for help - I'm totally stuck for how to paint the walls. I was considering turquoise on the bottom, with a chair rail and ivory on the walls above, but that just seemed kind of plain and boring. Ideas? Help?
I would love to do some kind of cool stencil (like hotcocoa's on the ST home board) but am totally clueless as to what to choose.
here's where i got my stencil: http://www.stencil-library.com/docs/catalog.htm
there is a section on the site that has "as seen in" that shows tons of ideas from magazines using their stencils. i have a whole folder of images on my computer that i snatched from the site. have you ever stenciled before? i do not recommend doing a whole wall stencil like the one i did unless you have a lot of time and patience. i had no idea what i was getting into! i must about 30+ hours of work into that ONE wall. (not including the solid paint job underneath — just the stencil part)
another idea i have for you is to do one wall in stripes of various widths using turquoise, grass green, pale yellow or ivory and maybe a cocoa-y brown. then you could paint the other walls a solid. i've done stripes like this in what is now our son's "play room". i purposefully made the stripes a little wavy and imperfect at the edges so i didn't have to worry about getting clean edges with tape (although i did tape the walls to make sure the stripes were nice and parallel) i can snap a picture if you're interested or go into more how-to detail. i used a pale green, a chartreuse green, brown and pale yellow)
also — a note on the rocker. i'm a big believer in re-use of furniture, so i'd skip the glider (although they are really nice and comfy to sit in) if she's already going to be 1 1/2, you might not get much use out of it anyway. we bought a rocker (and people are suprised that it's a rocker when they see it) that looks like a normal armchair and we've moved it into our master bedroom to use as a reading chair now that we no longer have a nursury/baby room. gliders are nice, but i think they are sort of a waste of money since they look silly anywhere BUT a baby room. just my 2 cents on that one.
I like the stripes idea...and would love to see a picture of your son's playroom to get a feel for your stripes. And thanks so much for that link....those are the most beautiful stencils I have ever seen!!!
I wonder how it would look to do some of the "border" stencils at about a chair rail height? Maybe do one color on the bottom of the wall and behind the stencil and then the stencil in a second color and the top of the wall in a third color? Goes back to the chair rail idea, but with more added interest....?
And I totally agree with your point on the rocker/glider. It's just been hard finding an upholstered armchair rocker that is inexpensive. But, that's definitely a good point...I'll keep my eyes peeled. I actually ordered one in yellow - but it ended up being the most wrong color yellow possible. I'm now thinking an ivory would be better anyway...it would blend easily enough into other rooms until I could get it recovered later on.
I would also like to see a picture of this table cloth it might help visualize things a little better. Instead of stenciling have you thought about maybe doing wall decals? They are fairly easy to use and they do have various different shapes out there...might be something to consider.
Here are some sites with wall decals.
http://www.wallcandyarts.com/
http://www.whatisblik.com/walldecals.html
not really wall decals but I think they are pretty cool
http://foldbedding.com/
I also agree with her about the rocker/glider situation.. definitely get something that can be used as regular furniture anywhere in the house.. I'm still on the hunt for the perfect one...the ones I've been finding have looked a little too "nursery" for my liking..
