Nursery Nesting

This is the most. exciting. blog. post. of. all. TIME!
My amazingly talented big sis, Laurie, came to stay with us for a few days and volunteered to put her vast interior design skills to work. Within just two days, Mini Mike's room went from this...

Before

To this...

After

Isn't it amazing?! I think I am in love. Here's a breakdown of what we did:

1. I found my inspiration online and emailed Laurie the link. I also sent her the bed skirt I had, which matches a very calm, sweet bedding set in cream with subtle green and brown accents. She came to San Antonio full of ideas, technique and color swatches.

2.Mike and I scraped the popcorn off of the ceilings and painted them a nice, crisp white.

3.Laurie and I scraped more of the lovely texture off of the walls and then painted the room a Granny Apple green.

4. We taped off the trees using the picture above. Laurie has a patented method that keeps the paint in nice, crisp straight lines. With our ridiculously bumpy walls, it took even more patience than normal, but, after four steps and three coats of paint, the trees were finally outlined on the walls.

5. I printed out inspiration and drew birds, leaves, and an adorable little owl onto the walls. We painted them on with little artists brushes.

6. We decided to personalize it, so I added a cute little owl to the wall that will watch over baby, and even painted a heart with "M + A" on one of the trees.

7. Laurie pioneered the curtains. We found these beautiful green ones at Target and Laurie added a blue ribbon to them that matched the birds on the walls perfectly.

8. We found some adorable accessories, like a lamp we painted blue, a cute little white bird and a wall print that matches the room perfectly.

9. Mike and I crammed a crib into our Camry and he and Laurie put it together while I watched and laughed. We scored the crib from Craig's List for only $150 (originally $429 at Baby's R Us!), and the versatile thing will even convert to a toddler bed and then a full size bed, eventually. It matches the tree color perfectly!

10. We added bedding. I was pretty exhausted, so mostly I sat on the ground and pretended to be asleep.

11. Laurie and I found an antique white dresser on Craig's List and brought in home, which was quite the adventure. For the cost of gas to drive to Comfort, Texas and a box of bakery items, we scored this dresser, which still needs some TLC and will be our next project.

12. We posed like cheesy interior designers and architects in our room, Architectural Digest style. Oh yeah, we did this.