What color will you paint?

This is a common question regardless of the room, but even more so since we are not sharing the gender of the baby. In fact, someone just asked me this question yesterday. I think many people have a hard time leaving the traditional nursery wall colors of pale pink, blue, yellow and green and often assume that our walls will be yellow or green. For people who don’t read my blog, I usually leave the answer at a simple “neutral walls”. For the rest of you, you get the long answer 🙂

First, I have always planned to paint the walls a gray/greige color. The panelled accent wall will remain entirely white. Maybe something like Benjamin Moore’s Stone Harbor for the walls…

I also mentioned that I wanted to paint the closet a fun accent color before we put our closet organization system in. For this, I think we’re going to go with a neutral, but still fun, green. Like Benjamin Moore’s Citrus Green…

I have also always wanted a fun painted ceiling. When I was a kid, I had baby blue sheets with clouds on them and always imagined my future kid’s room would have clouds painted on the ceiling. I really toyed with the idea of a mural, then a stencil on the ceiling, but I think I’m going to go with just a subtle sky blue color. I’d hate for a pattern to take away from the crown molding or paneled wall we just worked so hard on. Maybe something like Benjamin Moore’s Mediterrean Sky…

I know what you’re all thinking, I’m sure our parents are currently like OMG BLUE, IT’S A BOY!!!!! But shall I remind you that this was our plan from the beginning. I mentioned here that I wanted a multi-colored room and though I love the idea of yellow or orange, I tend to gravitate towards cool colors. I decided that I didn’t want to paint a ceiling yellow or orange and thought that the blue was such a nice soothing option for an area that a baby will stare at for so many hours. For those of you not convinced, girls can have blue ceilings too, see?

(via Young House Love)

Incase you’re not confused enough, here’s our targeted color scheme completed with our potential curtain choices:

If the baby is a girl…

And if the baby is a boy…

I absolutely love both of them. I thought I wanted a bright ceiling and closet but the more I thought about it, I decided the paint colors should be muted and more serene with pops of bold fabrics. We’re planning on using the chevron curtains on both the window and the closet, since they are extremely close to each other and multiple fabrics would be too busy. So that means that either of the chevron patterns would be against the green, as they are in the swatches. I have a chevron sample that I plan to bring with us when we choose paint colors this weekend. I will probably still scratch my head and be extremely confused, but seeing all of the colors together lessens the blow. Of course, we plan to buy no VOC paint as we always do.

So my short answer to my most frequently asked nursery question sounds a lot more boring than what we’re planning, eh? 🙂 I cannot wait to paint this weekend!

Confession: I love chevron. Many people think is a trend or played out, but I have yet to put it anywhere in our house and I’ve been itching to. What better choice than the nursery?

I started this weekend, with one of these green and white chevron storage bins from Target…

(via I Heart Organizing, because it’s not available on the Target website and it’s dark out and we have no light in the baby’s room :))

We have some small stuff we’ve received for the baby and I wanted a place to keep it all. I picked up one of the green bins pictured above for now, plus 2 blue ones for our laundry room (which I have yet to load with stuff). I also have 2 of the clear plastic containers from this line holding some non-maternity tank tops and what not I’ve grown out of in our closet. I like the clear ones in the closet because I will eventually need them again and I can easily see what each one is holding. Anyway, back to the chevron talk!

I’m not sure if the green bin will go with what we’ll end up doing in the nursery, but I figure it’s versatile enough to throw in the playroom or another room if it doesn’t work out. For now, it’s perfect to help me feel organized, but I do know I plan on using some sort of chevron in the room… most likely in the form of curtains.

I have long had a love of chevron curtains. I feel like they’re perfect for a baby’s room, as they’re classy and stylish with a hint of fun.

(from Flickr via Pinterest)

(from Castle Creek Designs on Etsy via Pinterest)

(from Remodelholic via Pinterest)

I’m planning on buying some fabric and making my own, either by breaking out the sewing machine or using no sew tape and curtain rings. I want a smaller scale chevron, so painting would be tedious. Plus there are so many great chevron fabrics out there that I can’t really go wrong! Premier prints are some of my favorite patterns…

(via Fabric.com)

(via Fabric.com)

(via Fashion Fabrics Club)

(via Fabric.com)

We decided to forgo making our own cribskirt and instead went with a bedding set, so I feel like I need to add in a good mix of other fabrics to make the room look less matchy matchy. Plus the baby isn’t going to be using the bumper or the comforter, so in reality, if the cribskirt isn’t working for us, it will be easy enough to change out. Therefore, I don’t want to marry the rest of the room to the bedding, since it will be grown out of so quickly and can be so easily changed. As Mike told me, we shouldn’t make the room too “baby” since we want a room the baby will grow into… and they’re only babies for so long ::sniffle::. I figure some bold, yet simple chevron is a good way to make the room last longer!

ps- Mike spent last weekend and half of this week in San Francisco, so we didn’t have any nursery progress to share this week 🙁 But we’re anxious to get back to work this weekend! Aaand I may have already ordered some fabric samples…