Big Changes For The Boys' Room

Nesting seems to have kicked in in full effect. Our original plan was to continue to have the boys share the smaller bedroom with blue and white striped walls and put the baby in the guest room which has black floral wallpaper. We couldn't afford to have the wallpaper striped, and we don't want to go through that process again ourselves, and the condition of the walls beneath is an unknown that has the potential to increase the project costs dramatically. Plus, a baby doesn't care what his or her walls look like, certainly we could get by with what we currently have.

But we have transitioned Baby Boy to the toddler bed, and while that kinda works, it is still pandemonium every night in their room. During nap time, when he is home alone he prefers to sleep in his big brother's big twin bed. Mr. W and I debated whether we should just go all the way and set up the matching twin bed we purchased him. And when Mr. W suggested out of the blue that we go buy a new refrigerator last weekend, we also bought a twin size mattress. It turns out that we ended up getting back more money from our tax returns. Nice!

The more I thought about it though, it seems so silly to have to two boys sharing the smaller room and putting the baby in the much larger middle bedroom. With the knowledge that we had a bit of money to work with I had the paperhanger who did most of the work for us at the Laburnum Bungalow provide an estimate for stripping and painting. He didn't anticipate too much work to the plaster beneath the wall paper. Mr. W found the estimate reasonable, and they had an opening right away. Very exciting, but like the fireplace project, it was happening sooner than I had had time to have a proper design in place.

Just for frame of reference, here is the guest room before.

 

 A close up of the lovely irises on black background wallpaper.

And here the room is liberated from the wallpaper. I actually really liked the wallpaper beneath the black, but I didn't get in in time to take a photo of it for posterity.

 
You can see there were significant cracks on the outside corners of the bay and a couple of plaster blow outs from nails being driven into the plaster. (Not sure why nails would have been used in the walls when there is a perfectly good picture rail in every room. The mysteries of previous owners...)
 

After the plaster repair work was done and the walls were primed and painted. The ceiling is Benj. Moore Cameo White and the walls are #HC-149 Buxton Blue. Both in a Regal Matte finish which is a washable flat. A flat finish is best in an old house to help conceal any imperfections in the walls, of which these have many, as well as being more historically appropriate. I specified that he wall paint be applied above and below the picture rail. Bringing the ceiling color down to the picture rail is more of a Colonial Revival treatment.

 

The boys' old room will become the new nursery. The blue stripes were primed and painted over. The ceiling is also Cameo White and the walls are #2034-50 Acadia green. I haven't quite decided which direction I am going to go for this room's theme. I I initially wanted to do a sage green, but flirted a bit with jadite green and turquoise for the walls. Of the 6 options I gave Mr. W, this was the one he liked the most. It is a little cheerier than the HC-119 Kittery Point green which was the other sage green option.