Nolan's Nursery

Well, it has been a while! The past year has been busy to say the least. We have worked on a few projects around the house, and I think it is about time I catch up on the blog! Let's start with Nolan's nursery!

When I talked to Bri Moysa of Emerson Grey Designs about designing Nolan's nursery, I really didn't have a lot of guidance to give her. We'd seen some neat stuff at a Restoration Hardware store for kids, but the rooms they had set up were not exactly what we wanted. I scoured the internet for inspiration but there wasn't much that stood out. Luckily, we have amazing Bri who put together an awesome design for Nolan's room.

This is the design board provided by Bri | Emerson Grey Designs

The one project I've already shared with you that's a huge focal point of the room is the ceiling. It really sets the tone and makes his room a warm and inviting space. I still can't believe we did it, especially as pregnant as I was at the time, but am so glad we did! Going along with that rustic element is a subtle, masculine airplane and travel theme. I love the rug in his room - Bri is so good at picking the perfect rug, which really ties all the parts of the room together.

I keep trying to type out my favorite part of the design for Nolan's room but I can't choose! So I'll just explain each of the corners of the room.

Crib 

Sagan had a white Jenny Lind crib in her nursery, which Bri suggested we paint green for Nolan's nursery. I would have never thought to do that but love the splash of color and character it provides. But - we had no clue how to paint the crib with all of its spindles to a quality we'd be satisfied with. Luckily, we have some awesomely talented friends.

The husband of one of those friends paints cars and had a sprayer he offered to use to paint the crib (or maybe his wife "voluntold" him to do it...ha!). Regardless, he did a fantastic job. We got the Advance paint from Benjamin Moore, which was perfect for the sprayer and provided a strong, high-gloss finish.

Above the crib hangs an airplane print and an airplane mobile with a vintage look. The bumper softens the corner, as does the neat tree print on his crib sheet.

We purchased this vintage plane mobile from Restoration Hardware

Fun fact: at the foot of Nolan's crib is where the door to the playroom was before we finished his nursery. (Read the details here.)

Another fun fact: the door to this room is one of two we've stripped and stained so far. I love how it looks! (More on that here.)

Trunk & Closet

On the opposite side of the room against the same side of the wall as the crib is Nolan's trunk. We have had this trunk for probably 12 years, and got it at World Market. When I shared it with Bri, she was sure she could find the perfect spot for it in Nolan's room. It's great storage now, and will grow with him, providing storage for years to come. Above the trunk, David built two wooden shelves made of a wooden floor joist that came out of the house of our friends, the Youngs who I've mentioned before are working on another old home in Murray. They are always so gracious about sharing some of their finds as they're working on their home!

One of my favorite items on the shelves is his crocheted name, which was done by one of my sweet coworkers (we have a similar one for Sagan too). The airplanes came from HomeGoods, the globe from my awesome sister, and the little crocheted pilot's cap was purchased from Etsy. Also - can you sneak a peek at the schematic of the Millennium Falcon?

This side of the room is also home to Nolan's closet. Previously, the closet wasn't very functional. The folding doors were annoying, the closet was dark, and there was a single shelf that was so high you could barely fit anything on it.

Not the greatest photo, but the only one I could find of how the closet was prior to David fixing it up.

David took care of all of that for us! He lined the walls of the closet with white bead board, added two new rods and a new, lower, more functional shelf, and wired a light in the closet so we could actually see in there.

Again, not the greatest photo, but I love the bright, clean, well-lit new closet!

David also removed the folding doors and replaced them with an old wooden door from his Granny's house. The door was solid, so David cut it in half, added hardware and handles, and gave us a much more functional door that allows us to easily access all the sweet clothes in Nolan's closet.

The now-double-doors prior to being painted.

Dresser

I fell in love with this dresser as soon as I saw it online. It's from West Elm, and I didn't mind splurging for it because Nolan can have it in his room for years to come.

Bri picked some great art for above the dresser, including a map print that we gave our own twist. As soon as we found out we were having a baby boy, David said he wanted a print in there with one of his favorite lyrics by Jimmy Buffett: "Read dozens of books about heroes and crooks and I've learned much from both of their styles." I reached out to a former coworker who has created an amazing design business, Jessica Mitchell of Howl Creative Co., and she created this perfect addition to Nolan's room.

Chair

We have spent many an hour in this corner of Nolan's room. One of my favorite parts of Sagan's nursery was her chair, so I knew we had to have the perfect one for Nolan's nursery too. I searched high and low and finally found an old chair I thought had good enough bones to be recovered. It's the perfect size and the arms of the chairs are just right for sweet cuddles (at all hours of the night, as Nolan preferred during the newborn stage...).

I got this chair for $50 from a local thrift store

The sign above his chair was an addition we made after Nolan was born. Ashley Young made the Nolan sign for us and as soon as she gave it to me I knew we had the perfect spot for it above his chair!

The sweet curtains hanging in the room were made with love by Nolan's grandmother Bonnie. With three windows in the room, it was no easy task, and I love the dramatic effect they have on the room.


I'm so excited about how Nolan's room came together. We went from being unsure what exactly we wanted to having a plan from Bri that couldn't have been more perfect, especially with some extra touches we were able to add by updating the ceiling and using old elements from other homes, like in the shelves and the closet door. I love the warm feel of the room, and know this room will fit Nolan for years to come!

A Big Project: Tackled

I have some catching up to do! My last post was the day before Nolan was born. I can't say much has happened to the house (aside from being covered in baby gear) since he was born, but soon...very soon...I'll update on the living room, Nolan's nursery, and Sagan's big girl room. Lots of exciting stuff to share, but we need a few finishing touches before I start snapping pics.

One of the things we knew before we ever moved into the house was that the roof needed to be replaced. Our inspector of course pointed that out, but even a quick glance showed it was no secret the roof had more than its fair share of repair work needed.

Replacing a roof isn't a cheap task, so we budgeted accordingly. I got quotes from around town and after the first one about made my heart stop ($23,000!!!!!!), we found a reputable, reasonably-priced contractor to replace the roof. A big thanks to Ben Mathis and his team at Mathis Roofing for helping make our house more solid and for giving it a much-needed facelift! We chose some higher-grade shingles than were previously used and instead of going for a light gray/green like the roof previously was, we went with a charcoal color, which provides the perfect amount of contrast to the trim and paint on the house.

Before:

After:

Now that we have replaced the roof, we will move on to some other projects on the exterior of the house in the spring. A few boards of siding need to be replaced, we need to tackle the "chippy-ness" of the paint, paint, landscape, and more! But for now, we are just excited to have a new roof over our heads.

A Lesson in Never Painting Brick

We've talked about this project previously, but I have to say that one of the most time-consuming things we've done in our olive on Olive is to remove the paint from the brick stack in the kitchen. But now that it's complete, I couldn't be happier! And a note if you're thinking about painting brick: don't!! The look of exposed brick (if it's a good color and in good shape) is full of so much more character than painted brick. And if you ever change your mind about wanting it exposed/original vs. painted, it's a nightmare to get that paint off!

We started this project in late January. I researched online and found that Citristrip was a recommended choice for paint stripper. It doesn't stink as bad and is effective at removing paint.

Stripping paint is slow and not fun. But we do like Citristrip for those times when you have no choice but to strip paint.

So I taped off around the brick, grabbed an old paint brush to apply the stripper to the brick, and went at it. I wore heavy gloves and used a scraper (for lack of a better term) and a stiff-bristled brush to remove the paint. And it took FOREVER.

I spread plastic out on the floor to protect the brick, and poured the stripper on a large piece of aluminum foil to "slop" it up with my paint brush.

After an hour or two of scrubbing at this section of wall, I had managed to do this:

I quickly realized this wasn't going to be easy. So I worked for several hours over the next few days, scraping away at that brick. I found you basically had to remove the top layer of the brick to really get the paint off. The stiff bristled brush would leave marks in the brick (which were kind of soft) so I used it sparingly. When I did have to use it, afterward I would go over that brick with a stripping pad to smooth it back out.

Several days later, I'd managed to get us to this point:

Which is how it stayed for quite some time. We transferred our Baby Nolan embryo in early February, so I immediately stopped using the stripper and didn't need to be around the fumes.

Enter my mom and dad. I have to poke a little fun at them here because they said they'd come up and work on the brick to help us out. Dad kept saying it wouldn't take long at all. Then they came and tried to work on it and realized how painstakingly terrible it is to remove paint from all porous brick. They talked to a local paint shop that recommended a different stripper, tried it, and it was no better.

So life happens, and the brick stayed partially uncovered like this for several months.

Fast forward to a couple months ago. I'm very pregnant, and Dad is getting ready to have knee surgery. He and Mom decided they were going to get that brick uncovered before he'd been down and out for several weeks after having his knee replaced. With a renewed sense of energy :) they tackled the project again. This time, they brought out the heavy machinery. I believe a Dremel, a rotary tool, and a sander were all used to tackle the brick. The work went much faster this time. They figured out not to let the stripper stay on the brick for as long and that helped as well. In a matter of a few days, the brick were uncovered!

I was so excited to come home and see this progress!

The beautiful exposed, not painted brick!

This project had been a thorn in my side because I wasn't able to get it done before we got pregnant. I hate leaving things unfinished, and I hate feeling helpless, but it obviously wasn't worth risking Nolan's health for me to strip paint off of brick. We really appreciate all of Mom and Dad's work on getting the brick uncovered! It's so nice to walk in the house and see that punch of color and character that before had just blended in with the walls and cabinets. 

There is a hole in the brick stack where a pipe was previously installed. We do plan on getting a brick mason to fill that hole when we have one come to help with the upstairs portion of this stack and some work we want to do in the dining room. Until then, we've covered it up with a flue cover, and are enjoying our beautiful finished kitchen!

The finished product - we love our exposed brick!

Raising the Roof...well, the Ceiling

We took Labor Day weekend literally and worked our tails off all weekend long! I'm really excited to share this update though. The work we did was well worth it once we could sit back and take in the finished product.

Our focus was on Nolan's room, and specifically on his ceiling. You'll remember from my last post that we had planned to expose the shiplap on his ceiling, but once we tore down the sheetrock, there was too much coal dust for us to leave that wood exposed. So we moved to Plan B, which consisted of sealing the ceiling using some insulation, then adding our own shiplap on top.

This has been our view for the past few weeks - the insulation that we placed to seal the ceiling.

As I mentioned in my last post, we found some old wood at our local lumberyard, and David stained the large planks. He then ripped them on the table saw to get them as close to the width of the shiplap we have throughout the house while minimizing waste of the boards. Once he had ripped them down, he used a dado blade on his table saw to cut the 1/4-inch lap so that the boards would fit snuggly together. (We decided to cut lap instead of tongue and groove to help make the install much easier - and I'm glad we did!) We then stained the lap on either side of the board so you wouldn't see raw wood once the boards were on the ceiling.

We attached the boards using a pneumatic nailer. We figured out a pretty good system for getting them up there, which involved the use of two ladders and some scaffolding that David would walk across to get from one side of the room to the other so he could nail the boards in place.

We started the install on Friday night and were very excited at how easily the boards went up!

I can't believe how easy it was to install the boards. Install took us probably 6 hours total. We had no idea going into it how hard it would be. Probably the hardest part was getting all the boards from the garage up to Nolan's room!

David nailing the final piece in place.

We only had to make a couple of cuts: one for the center of the room where the wiring is for the light; and the other to rip the last board so it would fit.

Once we took a quick break from the install, we started working on the crown molding. If only it had been as easy to hang...

This is a 100+ year old house. It's not square (even if it was a year old it probably wouldn't be square!). So we knew installing crown wasn't going to be easy. But we did it, and with a little caulk here and there, it looks amazing!

The finished product, with crown installed.

I didn't let David rest much after installing the crown. We installed a ceiling fan, hung the curtains (beautifully made by David's mom), and moved a couple pieces of furniture into the room. It is starting to feel like a little boy's room, and is making us more and more ready to have Baby Nolan here!

I need to steam the curtains now that they're hung and do a million other things, but here's a little sneak peek of Nolan's nursery decor.

More photos to come once we finish his room, but for now you can find me rocking in his chair, enjoying his room and being so grateful that the ceiling and crown install is complete!

Starting on the Nursery

We have three bedrooms upstairs, and one of them has been used as the guest room thus far. Now we are transforming it into Nolan's nursery.

We had two major projects in the room: exposing the shiplap ceiling and closing in the door that exists between the room and the sleeping porch.

Exposing the Shiplap Ceiling

From our experience with the ceiling in the sleeping porch/playroom, we knew that exposing the shiplap in Nolan's room could prove to be a big undertaking. But never ones to shy away from extra work (ugh), we thought we'd give it a shot anyway. Our biggest concern, again from our previous ceiling experience, was the potential for coal dust to seep through the shiplap. That concern was very valid, as evidenced by my soot-covered husband and dad as they worked to tear down the sheetrock. The sheetrock came down easily, as did the cheesecloth and wallpaper that was over the shiplap. As did the coal dust.

A little bit of cheesecloth, a little bit of paper, a little bit of sheetrock, a lot of coal dust

This was a very messy job!

We immediately knew we would need to cover that ceiling and install our own shiplap. We installed a foil insulation to provide a barrier between the attic and the room, and to seal the coal dust so it wouldn't filter through the new boards.

We knew we wanted to stain some wood to match the shiplap throughout the house, so headed to our local lumberyard. We had no idea that they had some old wood on hand, but when we found these old floorboards, we knew we had just what we needed!

The planks on the left are the raw wood we got from our local lumberyard.

David has stained and polyurethaned the boards. We're letting them air out in the garage, and plan to rip the planks down into three boards, mill a lap onto either side of the board, then install on Nolan's ceiling this weekend!

Removing the Door

There was a door that connected Nolan's room to the sleeping porch/playroom that we just didn't need. The hall right outside our bedrooms leads straight to that room. We've never used it; in fact, the guest bed and nightstand sat directly in front of it. So we closed it in. David removed the door and frame, attached new studs, and sheetrocked over the space, then mudded and sanded and mudded and sanded and mudded and sanded. As for the playroom, right now it's just open studs where the door used to be. When we tackle that room, we will add shiplap there to match the rest of that room. That's another project for another day!

Nolan's nursery as our guest bedroom, with the door to the sleeping porch on the left.

Studs in place and ready for the sheetrock

The doorway patched up and ready to paint

Painting
Nothing makes a room feel better than a fresh coat of paint. It's an instant facelift and room brightener. I've mentioned before that Bri Moysa with Emerson Grey Designs designed Sagan's nursery, then several spaces in our old house, and now several in our new (old) house. I struggle to make decisions on decor without her help! So as soon as we knew that baby #2 was a boy, we requested Bri's help with designing Nolan's nursery. More details on that to come, but for his walls she chose Benjamin Moore's Seattle Mist. It's the perfect neutral for his room, and makes it feel so much lighter and airier.

I've sung its praises before, but Sherwin William's Pro Classic trim paint is amazing. Painting the trim is the first thing we do in a room, and it's amazing what an instant and dramatic impact it has. When I know we will be priming and painting the walls, I paint the trim and even up onto the wall to make sure any stray wall color is completely hidden.

I love the bright white (left) we have chosen for the trim throughout the house

The lighting in this picture is terrible (while the ceiling is down, we are using a couple of shadeless lamps to light the room) but the paint in Nolan's room is finished!

We have a few more projects to tackle in Nolan's room, then we can finally start placing furniture and art. This mama is ready to start nesting in there. We can't wait to see the room start to come together!

Built-Ins, Crown & Baseboards

The past couple of weeks have been filled with working on the house. A lot! It's insane and exciting how much progress we've made toward finishing the living room and on the nursery. A couple of highlights are below:

1. Living Room Built-Ins
Next to the fireplace in the living room, we will place two cabinets with drawers, and then above those will be shelves lining the exposed shiplap to the ceiling. In order to finish the baseboards around the living room, we have to get these cabinets in place. In order to install the crown molding around the living room, we have to get these cabinets in place. So David has tackled those.

We started with standard builder's grade cabinets from Lowe's. They were a bit too deep, so David cut the backs off of them. We also wanted to build them up in height so the baseboards could wrap around the front of them, so he attached the cabinets to each other and then built a base on which they could rest, raising the height.

He also added trim on either side to extend the built-ins to fill the space. This weekend Dad helped David get the cabinets moved into the living room, then David set them in place, leveled them, and attached them to the walls.

Sliding the cabinets into place. They haven't been painted yet; just primed.

We didn't want to go with the standard grade doors and drawer fronts that came on the cabinets. We'd looked into buying custom fronts, but they're so expensive that we looked into some alternatives. One such was buying a router bit that he could use to make the cabinet doors look like those in our kitchen. He finished the doors last night, and I love how they turned out! Next up we need to sand, prime, and paint!

David made the cabinet doors for the built-ins...can't wait to see them installed!

Prior to placing the cabinets in place, we ran wiring to above the mantel which is where we'll hang the TV. The Xbox, cable box, and all that fun stuff will sit in the cabinets, and the wiring runs through the wall to get to where we'll hang the TV. Progress!

2. Crowning the Windows and Doors

Have you ever found something you really like, can't find it anywhere locally, try to find a suitable replacement, and had no luck? That was us with this piece of trim. Check out Windsor One trim if you are super nerdy and want to see some beautiful stuff! Their catalog is what David based the window and door trim in the living room off of. It's gorgeous! And what makes it really gorgeous is the top piece of header crown. Which is nowhere to be found locally. Or anywhere in the four-state area. Trust me - I called every dealer and distributor. I ended up calling Windsor One direct and had the most helpful gentleman give me the name of a couple stores that he knew would have it in stock and would work with us. I spoke to a nice gentleman at Horner Millwork, and for a very nominal shipping charge, we received six 8-foot pieces a couple of days later from Massachusetts. I'm sure he thought we were nuts, but we love the finished product. 

So now that we've installed it and seen how it's the perfect cap to our new window trim, how will we get it for the rest of this old house? The fine folks at Windsor One have offered to help us work with their local-ish sales team and distributors to find someone who will get it for us without charging us the not-so-nominal shipping price of $250+ that we first ran into (Horner shipped it to us for $40, so much more reasonable)!

We haven't painted the window trim yet, but love the new crown piece we added to the top!

3. Began Installing Baseboard

Trim might be the bane of our existence. David is great at it, but it's tedious work! As you may recall, we took up a couple runs of shiplap around the bottom of our living room walls, allowing us to seal with spray foam insulation and caulk, and allowing the electrician to run wiring to install new outlets. We put sheetrock back over that months ago. Fast forward to a couple weekends ago when we wanted to install the new baseboards. And couldn't. Because we couldn't for the life of us find the studs. Stud finder wouldn't work. Measuring from the windows or known studs wouldn't work. So we got smart. We pulled back off those pieces of sheetrock, cut them down into small strips, and reattached those strips at each stud (had to do this to ensure the wall depth was consistent with the remainder of the wall). And voila! We were able to easily see the studs and attach the bottom piece of the baseboard. Quirky? Sure. Successful? Absolutely!

Our baseboard is a little complicated. David got a router...need I say more? :) The baseboard is actually three separate pieces that attach to one another then attach to the wall. David ripped the main board, then milled two different pieces of trim with the router to create this unique profile. It's so pretty, nobody else will have anything like it, but it stays true to the style of the house. Once we finish the built-ins, we can finish installing the baseboard throughout the room. Like the windows, it will need to be painted once we have it installed.

We love the detail of the baseboard, with its three parts.

Here you can see the the bottom board, the thin piece that sticks out, and then the top piece that rests against the wall.

There are many more projects we've been working on - stay tuned for more updates as we work quickly on Operation: Finish Two Rooms before Nolan Arrives!