Hey hey, friends. How was each of your weekends? I had an amazing weekend celebrating Little Lady June with a family baby shower, enjoying some warmer weather after a week of snow and ice, soaking up our last moments as a family of three with David and HDawg and watching some Super Bowl commercials, er, football. I thought Bruno Mars was bomb, did y'all?! He's a cool guy.

A couple of weeks ago, I shared our updated nursery plans with you. Otherwise entitled as... Oh Crap, We're Having A Girl So Let's Change the Little Boy Nursery! The general idea? Ballet slipper pink, hot magenta pink and shiny metallic gold. Oh, and baby blue.


 I know, baby blue is not exactly a traditional little girl nursery color, right? If you follow my nursery inspiration board on Pinterest, you know that I've found some great inspiration from other blue-toned little girl bedrooms. Before we learned that Little Lady June is, in fact, a she, David and I had already picked up a couple of gallons of light blue paint for the nursery. So, we decided to roll with it.


Ta-da! We chose a sweet, very light baby blue color called Mountain Air. Of course, it's my favorite paint brand- Emerald by Sherwin Williams. I recently used this brand to paint our dining room gray and to paint HDawg's room the "perfect baby boy blue"- a much more saturated, brighter baby blue. I can't speak anything but good about this paint brand- it goes on well, includes a primer base, is completely VOC free (including the colorants added to the paint base) and generally rocks my world.

First off, here's a quick before shot of the room. This tiny little bedroom sits closest to the master bedroom upstairs in our rental home. David and I opted to use this small room and leave the fourth, larger bedroom for guests. There's something about creating a snug little nursery that just feels right. Needless to say, it's a tight squeeze, but I like it.


No, I clearly did not stage this photo. In fact, I didn't even take my snack out of the picture. #pregnantladyneedstoeatatalltimes

Thanks to a fresh coat of paint, this boring little room is now fresh and bright!




Pretty, right? And not too boyish! In fact, we've already injected a whole lot of pink and gold into this room... and I can promise you it looks amazing! Perfect for a little girl, baby blue or not. Okay fine, you twisted my leg. Here's a sneak peek.


So, what do you think? Can I make baby blue work for a little girl?

FYI, the paint I described in this post was provided to me by Sherwin Williams. Aside from the product, I was provided no other compensation for using or writing about this paint. All opinions and information that I share are completely my own. And the crackers are all mine. Pregnant girl problems.

Psst! Old Navy is having a huge kids sale right now! I picked up some adorable items for HDawg and Little Lady June for a steal.

How could I not grab this striped henley for $7?! I also love the striped cardigan and classic oxford shirt.


And LLJ didn't miss out! All I have to say is... THIS ROMPER! So many cute shirts and shoes, too.

Friends, we've been getting busy with a paintbrush over here. Right before Christmas, I painted our rental house's dining room a perfect gray. Now, we've moved on to the bedrooms for the bambinos! Last week, my sister and David and my 8.5 month belly painted HDawg's room and our little lady's nursery. 

By the way... I'm thinking of giving our soon-to-arrive little girl a blog alias of Little Lady June... Little June... June Dawg... you know, kind of like the official little gal behind this blog. For the record, her name is not June, just a fun play on the blog. What do you think, LLJ in da house?

But for now, let's put June Dawg's nursery on the back burner. Today, I'm excited to reveal HDawg's newly painted bedroom. It's beautiful!

I used my absolute favorite paint- Sherwin Williams' Emerald brand. I've used this paint for years now and am smitten. Not only is it non-VOC (even the colorants!) which is much safer for us preggos and for the kiddos, but it's got a scrubbable finish and goes on like buttah. Love, love.

The color I used for H's room is what I officially declare to be the perfect little boy blue paint color: Sherwin Williams Sleepy Blue. We actually used this color in HDawg's original nursery at our old house. With this color on the walls here at this rental house, the room truly feels like home. It's amazing what a little paint can do on the walls.

Oh, here are the before shots of the room.

And ahhh, with the Sleepy Blue.

As renters, it can be a tough choice to invest in the time and money to paint the walls. David and I plan to be at this home through at least October, and possibly another year after that, so we have plenty of time to enjoy the paint colors. Also, we got the paint colors approved by our landlord, which means that we don't have to repaint the colors before we move out. Win win.

I still need to hang art on the walls (you can see most of H's art pieces laying on the floor around the room!) and create a few other special spots around the room. David and I plan for this large room to be the main playroom for both of our kiddos, so I want to make sure it's not only cute but functional for special playtime, as well.

I definitely want to create a reading nook in this little corner.

And, of course, I need to organize the toys and books over here on the bookshelf.

Did you notice HDawg's new crib?! We love it. If you're wondering why we switched the crib up or for more details on the crib, check out this post.

It was a huge room to paint, but luckily my sweet sister, Callie (who just graduated from college and got her first job- she starts today!), came and helped me knock this out in a couple of days. She's the best-est! 

Every time I walk into this room, I'm in love. Not only is the color the perfect little boy blue paint color, but I feel that it really brings his room together and makes it feel like home. Way to go, paint!

If you're interested in learning more about anything you see in HDawg's bedroom, check out his original nursery reveal post or his nursery source list post.

FYI, the paint I described in this post was provided to me by Sherwin Williams. Aside from the product, I was provided no other compensation for using or writing about this paint. All opinions and information that I share are completely my own. Totes McGotes.

Ahh, there ain't nothing better than a freshly painted room. Am I right? Especially when you makeover a room and change it from an orangey glow to a cool gray.

Here's the before shot- the room was painted a mustard khaki dark neutral color.

And a nice, cooler than a polar bear's toenails after shot.

Ahh, right?! I chose this color, which is Sherwin Williams' Agreeable Gray, because it's a nice, cool neutral gray that has a tiny hint of a neutral khaki to it. I prefer not to have too much purple/blue in my gray wall paint because we have a lot of khaki-ish decor to work with. I would never want a too blue gray paint make my other neutrals look yellow by comparison, if that makes sense.

Even with the dining room chandelier light on, I don't think this color reads too warm! It's the bomb.com.

For this room, I used my absolute favorite paint finish- Sherwin Williams' Emerald paint. If you remember way back when, we used this paint finish when we painted HDawg's nursery. It's got paint and primer in one (clutch!), is totally scrubbable (is that a word?) and has no VOC fumes (hooray for the preggo lady!). And the paint goes on like buttah. Seriously, I love it!

The best part is that, slowly but surely, I'm starting to love this room. With the paint makeover and the addition of our new benches, it's starting to feel like a room that actually has my touch, even though we're in a rental house. Look how pretty these windows are!

I love how the dark wood of our dining table and benches contrasts the gray paint.

I also love how the gray paint works with the light blue (turquoise-y?) paint in our adjacent foyer... and living room... and office... and kitchen! Every other room on the main floor is painted this light blue color, so this gray had to work with it.

And even though so many of you have asked me for it, I still haven't been able to track down the light blue paint color that the previous tenants used. So sorry!

I've still got a few things on my checklist for this room, such as hanging art on the wall. I actually worked on a DIY piece last week, as a matter of fact! I plan to hang it soon and then I'll share, of course. I also really, really want to switch up the sad slipcovered Parsons chairs. I found these two chairs at ReStore a couple of years ago and did a quick and dirty slipcover makeover with them. It's not in the budget to replace the chairs altogether right now, but I'm thinking I may sew new covers for the chairs. You know, in between having a baby and raising a toddler and stuff. And, finally, I need to set up a nice winter tablescape to prettify the table top and perhaps add some throw pillows to the benches. That's a little more doable in the forseeable future!

I will have to say that I'm proud that me and my eight month pregnant belly (with the help of David for the high spots I needed a ladder for, of course- pregnant safety first!) actually got this done before we hosted Christmas brunch at our house. It was so fun to see my family enjoying this newly updated space.

Yes, my son is a total ham. The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

Every time I walk by the room, I'm all like... ahhhh. Grayyy. How I love thee. It makes me really excited to paint a few more rooms in the house! You too? Grab a roller and come help!

FYI, the paint I described in this post was provided to me by Sherwin Williams. Aside from the product, I was provided no other compensation for using or writing about this paint. All opinions and information that I share are completely my own. Seriously, I don't think Sherwin Williams would promote my overzealous use of the phrase "bomb.com." That's all Michelle. #dork

I kind of love when function and pretty things get together for the perfect combination, don't you? I've been majorly obsessing over the "dipped" painting technique for awhile. And I had a boring looking step stool that I wanted to pretty-fi... ta-da! A match made in heaven.

 A few weeks ago, I picked up this IKEA Bekvam step stool. We really needed a step stool around the house, since we've got a few high storage spots around our rental house that this shorty has a problem reaching. And I'm sure that the older HDawg gets, the more step-stooling he'll want to do. At $14.99 and solid wood, this IKEA piece was too hard to pass up.

I simply taped off the legs (I measured up about four inches from the ground) and then covered the rest of the stool with a trash bag. Fancy. That's how I roll.

Then I went into my jungle of a yard (David has cut it since this photo was taken, I promise) and spray painted my little heart out with some Rustoleum Glossy White spray paint.

I just love when simple and sweet projects come out well, don't you? Now that it's all jazzed up, this step stool will be a fun addition to any room in our house. I wanted a subtle white color, but how cute would a bold red or yellow be on the step stool's little feet?

What's even more fun is this Bekvam hack my girl FC did over at her blog, Freckles Chick. She posted her painted version of the step stool last week. Don't you love it?! I emailed her last week and told her we were working on the same project... girl loves herself some IKEA hacks and red wine like me, so we're more or less kindred spirits : ) Great minds think alike! Anyways, check out her version, it's rad!

When I shared my chevron painted bookshelf DIY last week, the piece wasn't quite ready to style and prep for it's blog-worthy Glamor Shot photos. It actually wasn't allowed inside yet since I let the spray paint cure for almost a week. Guess what? Now it's inside and set up in HDawg's nursery!

The shelf sits along a blank wall in between his nightstand/dresser and crib.

I am still so in love with the rocking chair my grandmother passed down to him and I painted navy and white!

It's kind of funny because once I added his favorite books, puzzle, wooden blocks, wooden trucks and elephant ball popper toy (totally the formal name for that thing), you can't even really see the chevron stripe anymore! Ah, well. We all know it's there, right? ; ) 

[if not, the original post with naked bookshelf photos is here!]

Now that little man is crawling, I plan to anchor the shelf to the wall. In fact, David and I have a wholllle lot of baby proofing to do around our house. I promise to share our tips as we go!

I also realized, after looking at these pictures, that the books looked a little top-heavy on the top shelf. Rest assure, I already switched up the books and they're on the bottom shelf. You can see the new configuration in the background of this baby H action shot. 

Nom, nom, wooden blocks.

So HDawg loves his new shelf! Do you?!

What the whaaaat? Michelle actually did a home project? Yay-uh, you can virtually raise the roof with me, folks. I told you last week that I was feeling inspired to get creative. This girl don't play around- I've got a few fun projects up my sleeve! Including this chevron painted bookshelf that I just finished.

 I can thank my friends over at Wayfair for lighting the fire under me for this project. They (along with the contest's sponsor, Hometalk) invited me to participate in a blogger DIY challenge. So fun, right? All I had to do was pick an item from Wayfair and then make it over according to one of the following themes: black and white, geometric pattern or rope. Even though the rest of the design world is kind of over it, I'm still totally in love with chevron and decided to use it as my geometric pattern.

Here's the basic wooden bookshelf before I got started.

I spray painted the shelf with a coat of glossy white and then used Frog Tape to tape chevron stripes along each shelf. At first, I tried to measure out the zig zags so that they were even, but I can't do math it never looked right. I didn't want the stripes to be too narrow. So I sort of winged it and ended up with some of the chevron stripes ending in the middle of the shelf instead of the top, if that makes sense. Works for me! I just cut the excess tape off with an Exacto knife.

Next up, I spray painted the entire shelf a fun spring green. I typically don't spray paint furniture, but it really is the easiest way to avoid major brush strokes. You just have to be sure to do maaaany (in my case, like 12) light coats of paint to avoid drips. And don't forget to spray in the cracks and crannies of whatever piece you're painting. Ha, I said cracks and crannies.

I chose the spring green because I want to use this shelf in HDawg's nursery. Annnd I just realized I haven't shown you guys pictures of that room in our new rental house yet! It looks substantially like his nursery at the old house, but with khaki colored walls instead of blue walls. I thought about painting the piece a firey orange-red like this, but the room really needs some cool tones since the khaki walls and yellow rug make things very warm-colored up in there. He's already got a ton of blue in the space, so green it was.

I expected the green spray paint to bleed under the tape a lot worse than it actually did. I even bought white paint to touch up the white chevron stripes just in case the bleed-through was bad. Luckily, I didn't have to worry about that! Way to be, Frog Tape.

I'm going to let the bookshelf and it's snazzy new paint cure for awhile (5-7 days?) before I put it in baby H's nursery. I can't wait to see it loaded up with his books and toys!

Thanks again to Wayfair for asking me to participate in this challenge. It's been fun! If you want to check out more of the other blogger's projects, you can find them on this Pinterest board.

Whatcha think about my chevron bookshelf?! Have you made over any furniture lately?