Bellhaven Farm: How to Build a Nursery in Four Easy Steps

When expecting a baby, in our case a boy,
One would like a nursery all could enjoy.
As we started to plan, our ambitions got tall,
Colorful murals adorning each wall.
Dr Seuss was our muse, a man dear to our heart,
And we took it upon ourselves to emulate his art.

Step 1: Prepare To Prepare The Room For Painting

Get to know the enemy

So, you've got great plans to paint awesome murals all over your future child's nursery? Great! One problem; the previous owners of the house were in love with texturing. We're talking head over heels in love. The walls. The ceilings. We haven't pulled up the flooring but it could be under there as well. Trying to paint anything on these bumpy walls is going to be an exercise in frustration and poor results.

You have a few options here: You could skim coat the wall and do your best to smooth out the texturing. You could tear out the old drywall and hang some new boards. Or, you could buy an 8" floor scraper (this exact one, for instance) and manually scrape every last inch of texturing off your walls. We opted for the later since the cost was $30 and elbow grease. Besides, how hard could it be?

Just one problem before we could put paint to brush,
The surface of the walls were not at all flush.
Craggy pits and splotches as far as can be seen,
And worst of all, painted with a glossy sheen.
So two months before the room would be filled,
We started the task of trying to rebuild.

Step 2: Prepare The Room For Painting

Before

Still pretty much before

On September 9th, with two months left before our due date, we "broke ground" on scraping the texturing off the wall. Early results were promising; you could scrape a few square inches off with each stroke and you were left with bare unpainted drywall underneath. Even better, the more you scraped, the more of a rhythm you developed. Occasionally the blade would catch on the drywall and leave a gouge, but that can be fixed in post. However, after about an hour of scraping, physical and mental fatigue set in and the gouges became more frequent and pronounced. Justine was at a further disadvantage since her ab muscles were out of commission and anything not at waist level was tiring to work on. You also quickly ended up covered in drywall dust, which takes a nice long shower to remove and leaves your skin feeling dry for days. That means it wasn't a project that lent itself well to short bursts here and there. You really had to commit to a chunk of time to make the cleanup worthwhile.

You scrape and you scrape, then you scrub and you scrub.
You get covered in dust, then you soak in the tub.
Day after day and week after week,
The chances of finishing in time seem bleak.
In a final push of focus and vim,
We scraped the last patch and taped up the trim.

Step 3: Continue Preparing The Room For Painting

Worst case, we have a guest room

Welp, that only took a month

Over the course of a month we quite literally chipped away at the wall. Inch by inch we made progress. Taking a step back after an hour of work to see how much you accomplished versus how much remained was hard. We had to keep reminding ourselves that every inch we removed was another inch we never had to deal with again.

Midway through this part of the project Justine's nesting instinct began kicking in and she started getting discouraged. Add to that all the generous gifts people had given us with no place to officially store them yet. Nate started committing at least an hour every day to scraping the room. After what seemed an eternity, we finished patching and sanding the final section of wall. We carefully balled up the dust covered drop cloths, wiped down the walls with damp cloths, and placed painter's tape around the edges of the trim.

Now that your walls are so smooth and so bare,
It's time to apply primer everywhere.
With half your time gone I think you will find,
You've left the worst of the task behind.
You have a great canvas to draw and to sketch,
(Don't blame me if these rhymes are a bit of a stretch).

Step 4: Paint. Rinse. Repeat. Complete.

Home Depot Promo Shot

At long last we started putting the room back together. Couple coats of primer and we were actually ready to start the murals. We leafed through some classic Dr Seuss books and picked out the illustrations we wanted to replicate. Our friend Monica Gasper gave us a great tip about getting $3 paint samples from Home Depot in the colors we needed. Stocked with paint, brushes, and pencils, we began sketching the murals. And, surprisingly, they were fun! And looked great! There was something cathartic about drawing on the wall.

Art Action Shot

That weekend cousins Josh and Kristina Giddings (and their adorable son Wyatt) came by and helped us power through a bunch of the painting. In the matter of a couple days we went from having bare walls to awesome looking Seuss characters and scenes. Thankfully, this stage of the project allowed for quick 15 minute sessions and our only bottleneck was clean, dry brushes. Over the course of the next month we steadily worked on painting the details and then adding line-work with oil paint Sharpies (protip: normal Sharpies don't work on latex paint).

Nate, as might be expected, tackled a single large overly detailed scene, while Justine took on the Lorax, the Cat in the Hat, Thing 1, and Thing 2. She did a fantastic job and has a real knack for capturing the feel of the characters. And she finished all three murals in the time it took Nate to finish one.

At some point we realized we had gone totally overboard, but we love how well it all turned out! If Harrison ever declares he wants to repaint his room he'll have to move into the guest room.

Bonus Step: DIY Dresser

While poking around on Pinterest Justine found a really cool One Fish Two Fish dresser. We happened to have an extra dresser we weren't sure what to do with so we got to work! Justine found paint in the color they used then taped and painted the dresser and drawers. Nate found some pictures of the various fish online and cleaned them up in Photoshop. Justine printed the letters and fish onto card stock and she cut out the letters while Nate cut out the fish. A little mod podge and a couple coats of varnish later and we had a tastefully decorative dresser.