Matthew's Room

We FINALLY finished Matthew's room! Wowsa, was it a lot of work!! Thank goodness I am pretty happy with how it turned out. Marc stained and hung hooks on this unfinished shelf I found on clearance at JoAnn's. We painted 2x2 blocks and then glued wood letters on them to make his name blocks. Then we hung the blocks from the hooks with ribbon.Stenciling.....Ahhhhhh! If I never see another stencil in my life it will be way too soon! After stenciling flowers above the chair rail in Abby's room , I swore I would never do it again. Well, I did, and I hated it even more this time around. Not sure if you have ever stenciled, but it is not like you can just run a roller over the stencil. Your brush has to be very dry and you literally have to tap the paint on to the wall so it doesn't bleed under the stencil. Each circle required about 5-10 coats of paint. I thought I would never finish! I think my total time spent stenciling was about 16 hours. Marc's biggest project for the room was this dresser I found on Craigslist for $40.00. It was a hideous beast, but I knew it had potential. Marc spent countless hours in the garage sanding all the nasty forest green paint off it and then staining it to match the crib. We finished it off with some pretty new knobs and then Marc stained the chair rail to match the crib and dresser.Here is the before picture of the hideous beast....ICK!! The sides were the most work because they were painted completely green. Lots and lots of sanding to get it all off.Although not ideal space wise, I really wanted to keep a full size bed in the room since this room used to be our guest room. Not sure how many guests will ever get to use it, but I am sure I will get a lot of use out of it until Matthew is sleeping through the night so I don't disturb Marc when he has to get up for work.These squares were originally intended to be hung as a headboard for the bed but I decided I liked the idea of using them for the whole wall instead. I took 12x12 Styrofoam squares and then covered them in this super cute dot material.
I had this comfy recliner in Abby's room for the last 3 1/2 years and it has been amazing. It was so nice for the countless hours I spent nursing her as a baby and then to read books in every night before bed ever since. She has grown quite attached to the chair and shed some tears when I told her I needed it in Matthew's room. It took some serious bribing to get the chair out of her room and she still keeps asking for it back, but I am hoping with time she will stop missing it so much :(.I love, love, love the words we put on the wall!And to finish the room off, we did a wall of stripes just like Abby's room.