take *that* pottery barn (the sprout's nursery)

Tim and I are probably as far over on the Type A scale as one could possibly be. Whenever we do anything, the end result has to be PERFECT.

There is no other way.

We don’t know any other way.

Which is why this “small” nursery painting project, a la white stripe + stitching, took us an entire weekend.

Painting a stripe on a flat wall?

Challenging.

Painting a stripe on a wall with knockdown texture?

That requires a lot more planning and effort and multiple steps to make sure your paint doesn’t bleed through and look all craggy.

Our room-turned-nursery started out like this:

And then we measured…and measured…and measured and ended the measuring fiesta with pencil marks all over the place.

Then? Tape and caulk (to seal the tape to prevent bleed through)

and more measuring

Then?

White stripe painting.

Two coats of white stripe painting.

We bought low VOC paint, so I helped…some…as in I painted the corners and whatever Tim couldn’t get with the roller.

After waiting a few agonizing hours, we pulled the tape off, praying the tape + caulk trick worked and we would have a straight line.

Success!

The next day, Tim spent four or so hours painting the lines we measured some more…

…and then Tim spent four hours painting lines.

…while I went around with a teeny tiny paint brush and painted over any of the lines that needed extra love and also touching up any bleed through – which was basically zero. There were just tiny, almost invisible spots that you had to stand three inches from the wall to see. No worries, though.

They’re gone now.

I cannot even explain how much measuring and remeasuring and hemming and hawing over a few millimeters and then triple quadruple measuring took place. It took longer to measure and tape off the room than it did to paint, if that tells you anything.

But…I mean…you don’t want a crooked stripe and you absolutely do not want your stitching running up and down and all zig zaggy. You want it perfectly straight. Perfectly imperfect looking.

It’s not easy pulling off perfectly imperfect, by the way.

I mostly direct this to Pottery Barn, our inspiration for the sprout’s nursery:

I think we did a pretty damn good job, don’t you?

And this project was just step one…of many.

We got a phone call while we were painting to let us know that our crib and dresser set were ready to be picked up.

Talk about fortuitous timing.

This is what will be in the sprout’s room once we go pick it up.

We bought the crib and dresser in espresso and got the shorter, six drawer dresser, to double as a changing table:

And this? Our bedding choice – minus the crib bumpers.

We’re doing some kind of “upscale safari” theme…with no monkeys. I’m not trying to be harsh and it’s not that I have anything against monkeys…it’s just EVERYONE does monkeys and I don’t like be like EVERYONE.

So, I’m on the hunt for baby giraffes, along with any other cute baby jungle animal that isn’t a monkey (I think I’ve been pretty clear…)

If you run across something super cute somewhere, let me know!!

Also? I WANT THESE.

Except…the company (Nature’s Purest) is UK based and I can’t find these tiebacks anywhere in the U.S.

Of course I have to find something that is impossible to obtain. Of course.

Sadface.