A Soft Neutral Paint Color Meant for The Nursery

Goin’ to the chapel and we are…. gonna have a bay-yay-yay-by.

Ok, so that is not how the song goes, but it is the paint color that we chose for the walls of the nursery (which is fairly sweet considering the name of the paint that we used in Clara’s nursery in our last house was Proposal). Honestly, color names do not sway us. We are pragmatic pick-our-go-to-swatch-not-our-go-to-name folks. But it is consistently pleasant when they are not something ominous. You know, like Sleepless Nights or Zombie Spawn.

Back when we shared our plans for the room with this makeshift mood board of sorts, a few commenters asked if we were going to paint the walls that bold green tone. We explained that we were planning to use that more for accents around the room (like a bold green closet door, a chair cushion, some art, and perhaps a crib skirt) and were leaning towards a soft neutral color for the walls. Simply so we can layer a bunch of colors and patterns on top of that as the little guy grows, according to his preferences – like we have done in Clara’s room.

We have truly appreciated that Clara’s walls are a fully goes-with-anything tone, so that as she grows we can switch things up without clearing and painting the whole room, but it is still far from colorless or devoid of personality.

But “something neutral on the walls” can still mean a whole lot of things. White? Light gray? Soft tan? Even a muted tawny-green or blue-gray can qualify. So we considered a few color pairings like…

• a moody deep-ish gray ceiling, white built-ins, a colorful closet door, and light gray walls
• a bright white ceiling, moody built-ins, a colorful closet door, and soft taupe walls
• a colorful ceiling, white built-ins, a white closet door, and soft tan walls

And the winning combo was… #2. We simply truly liked the idea of some mushroom-toned built-ins (with a stained wood top for a little bit of brought in interest). Like this photoshopped rendering from last week…

… along with a bold green closet door.

So we simply held up a bunch of swatches and considered things like the rug, the built-in colors we liked best, and some possible bold greens for the closet door. In the end it was between some more gray-based tones (on that bottom swatch) and some more mushroom-ish tones (on the top one). See how the darkest color of that top swatch is brown while the other swatch is closer to charcoal gray? We chose we liked the ones with brown undertones a little better than the cooler gray ones, so that is how we chose Going To The Chapel for the walls, and then slid three tones deeper for our built-in color (Senora Gray). We opted to go with plain white for the ceiling (Simply White in a flat finish) simply to tie into the white trim (since the built-ins will not be going white) and for some pleasant contrast.

As for getting it done, we simply took out the rug, and pushed everything else into the middle of the room.

We covered it with a dropcloth when we tackled the ceiling – and we ended up going with two coats, simply to be sure we had good coverage. As usual, John rolled and I cut in around the edges – although I did not have to be ideal since we are going to add chunky crown around the room, so that corner where the wall meets the ceiling will be covered.

Then it was onto the walls, which also took two coats. It is harder to pick up in photos than in person, but the whole room had an obvious yellow tint before. You can see the difference most when you look at the areas that I cut in vs. the walls around them. This is before the paint was dry, so the difference got more obvious a little later, but I did not get a picture of that since we had already covered most of the walls by the time they began drying.

But speaking of comparisons, here is the room “before” (let us go way back into the mauve trim days, shall we?):

And here it is now (thanks to ripping up the old carpet, spraying the trim and doors white, laying some hardwood floors, and freshening up the walls and ceiling).

It is hard to tell in photos simply how distinct it feels in there! But simply the fact that those door overspray marks are at last gone (you can see them in the first picture of everything pushed into the middle of the room) is music to our ears – er, eyes. If only they were not still in the guest room…

And here is the room with some other elements that we are hoping to work in later.

That is our bike art (which will be hung somewhere else, since the shelves of the built-in will go there) and the slice of green on the mattress is simply a long cotton dress of mine that I shoved in there. I am a weirdo, I simply hoped to see what a green sheet might look like. Of course the built-ins will be painted our mushroomy-brown-gray color and those bare walls above the crib will not be bare when we truly get things going. And that slice of old paint around the ceiling will be covered with chunky crown molding. Details, details.

We also brought up our armchair from the corner of the office when we realized that it would be strong for the nursery – and once we redo the office there most likely will not be room for a big plush armchair anyway. It is still looking crazy stark in here, but it is better than that pink-trimmed before – so we will take it!

Here is our to-do list with around 11 weeks before this baby’s here:

• clean out the room
• get a rug (more on those two here)
• research & buy dressers or cabinet bases to create built-ins along the crib wall (more on that here)
• paint the walls and ceiling
  
• find an armchair for all that late night nursing
• build-in and paint/stain the dressers we picked up last week
• add chunky crown molding around the room
• address the window (bamboo blinds + blackout curtains?)
• paint the closet door a lively color (bold green?) and redo the inside for compact clothes (add a second hanging bar, cubby storage, etc)
• add sconces to the sides of the built-ins
• create some sort of slatted or trimmed out wall between the built-ins for interest?
• get the ceiling wired for an overhead light fixture (none of the upstairs bedrooms have them)
• bring in a dresser/changing table (we are 80% sure we will use the wooden hand-me-down from John’s dad that is right now in our closet)
• build custom shelves (since John did this for Clara, he’d like for this to be a tradition)
• make a woodsy little cuckoo clock (since I made one for Clara, I’d like to make a charming little rustic one for the bun as well)
• Hands-on a mobile
• make/hang art (at least one or two prints will have a sea-faring reference, thanks to Clara’s baby boy nickname of “The Barnacle”)
• figure out bedding (make a crib skirt, etc)

Is anyone else painting walls or ceilings? Or planning to paint some cabinetry or built-ins in a non-white color? I gotta tell ya, it is more thrilling than it should be. #yolo