Pepper Design Blog

A Pink Girl’s Room for Two: the Inspiration Board

We didn’t find out if Liv was a boy or girl until we welcomed her on the day of her birth. That was thrilling and exciting and so worth the wait for baby #1. But this time around, I was much more ancy to know whether she might have a little sister or brother and I was so happy that Kevin agreed to a big gender reveal. Now I have three and a half months to plan, design and scheme a new nursery for 2! And two beautiful girls at that!

This means lots of pink. We’re pulling out all of the stops. There will probably be very little about this space that could qualify as gender neutral (basically the opposite of the design plan for Liv’s nursery back when).

Pink!! Still undecided on specific fabrics and patterns and art and rugs and lamps and paint and all of the details, but here are a few images that have resonated with me and have made it to the Pinterest board that continues to inspire.

1. We’ll keep the big drum pendant that currently hangs at the center of the room, but this lamp is very cool and a potential DIY project. I have wanted to DIY a glass bead hanging chandelier for some time too! This might be the right opportunity to make a version of this one.

2. Still quite unsure on the rug. Might be an excellent opportunity to introduce a contrasting color like this navy guy, or more pink. TBD.

3. Liv won’t move into a toddler bed for a while (she’s not ready, plus the new baby will stay in our room for at least the first 4-5 months), but when she is I would love to make a mini upholstered headboard out of a fun fabric and maybe attach it to an Ikea low toddler-sized platform bed. This photo is by the lovely Caitlin Wilson.

4. Art! I’m not sure at all where we’ll go with art, but I hope to add plenty of it . Here Here are a few ideas.

5. Liv’s room currently has a dark brown dresser that we scooped up on Craigslist (it’s Pottery Barn so it’s sturdy as a rock). Rather than replace it, I’m considering painting the drawers ombre like this guy.

Other than decor updates, there’s one big elephant in the room that we’ll have to deal with when reconsidering this room. When we opted to build a bathroom ensuite off of it, we completely demolished all closet storage space. All of it.

It hasn’t been terrible so far. Between the dresser, changing table and bookshelf we’ve managed to find homes for all clothing, baby storage (like diapers, wipes, wash clothes) and toys. It only becomes a bummer when we lack storage for bigger items like an umbrella stroller or Liv’s travel gear. BUT with two, I know that zero closet is going to be tough. So after much deliberating I’ve decided to build a series of built-in bookcases along the window side of the room. The unfortunate part of this decision is that we’ll have to paint over the beautifully awesome wall animals that Kevin’s mom and aunt gifted us with (they are both phenomenal artists). I measured and measured again but most of the animals will be awkwardly half covered up by the new bookshelves and drawers, and it just wouldn’t look right. Too bad we couldn’t pull the plaster board right off of the walls and relocate!

Those little baby animals are popular! They have been saved in over 37,ooo Ideabooks on Houzz and the tree bookshelves alone have been repinned more times than I can count.

It will be hard to say goodbye.

My ideas right now include a built-in unit like 7 below, but perhaps painting out the backings like Kate did in 8, and I’d like to use fabric for the new shade and window box similar to this little trio show in 6.

Last but not least are the walls. Everything will get a coat of clean white with the exception of the far right wall, which I hope to turn into a really cool accent wall by finding the right wallpaper.

Sort of like this room (so pretty, right?):

Here are a few patterns from Spoonflower (you can print your own wallpaper now! So cool!) that I love:

The sources for each (and even a dozen or so more that I love) can be found in my Houzz Ideabook.

There’s the start! What do you think? I’m so ready for a full room reno, even though it will be very, very hard to part with Liv’s current nursery. This is when you wish you had an extra room in the house for every idea . Except for cleaning, then that’s a terrible idea.

PS See more of our nursery projects for the current room right here.

Pinterest Challenge: Faux Stacked Log Fireplace Facade

Six ish months ago we had to turn the gas off in our fireplace… which was such a downer as there’s nothing more amazing than flipping that little gas switch and watching a beautiful, blazing fire set the mood for your living room. Perfect for chilly nights that call for family games on the living room rug or for a late night Netflix. But alas, this is an older home with old fireplace issues and we had to switch her off.

Hopefully one day she’ll blaze again.

Until that day it’s time to turn the eye-sore innards of this old fireplace (black bricks, metal curtain and goldish top plate and all) into a prettier focal point for the room. Enter Pinterest Challenge, Winter 2013.

I love these little challenges because they provide the motivation to cross a big project off of the massive to-do list, and usually I can justify choosing a project that I more love and want to complete, and less of one I must do because it’s next on the priority list. Here are a few past projects that we’ve tackled around here, including painter’s tape wallpaper, gold chevron napkins and an ombre stool for Liv (one of my favorites) among others.

With a little motivation, a week to track down materials and a great inspiration picture, I had an idea of where to start.

Oooo I love the above image! What a great way to utilize the empty space in a fireplace while still keeping a room cozy and comfortable (fireplaces and stacked wood have a way of doing that…).

Our finished project… drumroll…

I would be very happy if you thought we went and stacked a bunch of logs in our fireplace and called it a project! But I promise it was much more than that. The goal here was to build a faux log stack facade that we could remove when we were ready to use the actual fireplace, and replace the next day once the fireplace was cool again.

The hope was that the screen would give the depth and perception of a a bunch of stacked wood, but really it would be just a few inches thick and somewhat easy to pop in and out.

What do you think? Are we fooling anyone?

Now on to building the screen!

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Fireplace Faux Wood Stack Facade

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Materials: ~50 variously sized log slices, plywood cut to the shape of your fireplace opening, black matte paint, wood glue (or nail gun) 

I ran into the first big road block while tracking down the actual logs. You’d think that this would be fairly easy… but turns out smaller logs (unchopped) in lighter wood colors (such as birch rather than oak or redwood) are not always readily available in these desert parts of San Diego. Who would have guessed.

I really lucked out when a friend of ours suggested eucalyptus and then found a huge pile of firewood for the taking! And he generously handed over variously sized logs for me to include in the project (thanks, Dave). Other resources that might be useful? Craigslist and Etsy (turns out you can even purchase sliced logs for the right price).

Kevin chopped up my logs into 3″ slices and I began assembling my faux stacked wood.

The backing for our fireplace screen is a piece of plywood measured, cut to size and painted black.

I considered spray painting it but we had only a satin finish in the paint closet, so I used up a bit of leftover chalkboard paint that we had on hand (from this and this project) to achieve a more matte finish (the above is still wet, but once this paint dried it was more than perfect).

Our nail gun is out on loan at the moment or I would have simply lined up my log slices, laid the backing over the top and fired away to secure the slices to the backing and to keep the logs from moving, but instead I lathered each slice individually with a thin coat of wood glue and allowed the entire project to dry overnight (that stuff is tough). When we get the nail gun back I’ll add extra reinforcements to ensure that none of these logs come sliding down, especially with toddlers at play.

I opted for a 3″ depth on the log slices (rather than 1/2″ or something easier to manage/less heavy) so that they would add more depth to the fireplace and (hopefully) make the black backing a bit more invisible. In person it’s obvious that this is a faux fix to our little fireplace conundrum, but it’s a neat faux finish at that! 

Should I paint out that gold top plate a darker, oil rubbed bronze color?

That might be step two to this project, looks kind of nice!

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I’m linking this project back to Katie’s, Sherry’s, Megan’s and Michelle’s Link Parties today!

PS all Pinterest Challenge projects are sorted here, and all living room projects can be found here.

A Fairy Good Time

Happy Tuesday! We had a busy weekend filled with snow, sledding and nights next to a cozy cabin fire. Even a few games of Scattegories (love). We were up in the mountains with friends and it was a great little break!

I haven’t had a chance yet to share a very sweet and adorable party that a girlfriend of mine threw for her 3-year-old, check out all of these wonderful fairy details.

Isn’t Gigi the sweetest fairy? Oh wow, heart is melting.

One of my favorite details: ice cube trays for all of the kiddies, and each compartment filled with a yummy lunch treat.

The dessert table was amazing, too! Check out that fabric bunting and all of the little goodies.

A more detailed shot of the cake:

Nana and birthday girl enjoying lunch.

What a beautiful celebration! We had such a good time. Happy {very belated} birthday, little fairy!

See you all tomorrow! Hopefully with results from this little challenge. Oh boy.