Plans

Shelves x 2:

+ window seat:

=

[modern kids design by san francisco architect Feldman Architecture, Inc.]

Or something to that effect.

xo

nessa dee

Audrie’s Tree…in progress

The work in Audrie’s room is slow going, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yesterday, we finally started Audrie’s tree mural after scanning hundreds of pictures for the kind of tree she wanted. Each of us drew a tree and decided that something in between my large, stretched out tree and her small, compact tree would work best.

[Audrie’s drawing]

Here is what we have so far…

Audrie had a little squirrel in her tree, but we decided to put him on the ground. She also decided that just one bird silhouette in the tree was enough. We added the second bird off to the side.

The original plan was to keep the mural on just the one wall, but we just might extend it to add a little fawn next to Audrie’s vanity. We’ll keep you posted.

xo

nessa dee

A pop of dragon

Here’s Audrie’s vanity all gussied up in a shade called dragon fruit. [It’s missing a drawer pull because I have to find a screw to attach it].

This piece makes quite a statement in an otherwise calm and soothing room. I like it! I think Audrie did a wonderful job of picking out her color combinations. Now I have to finish transforming the chair and paint some artwork for her room, and we can call it complete!

xo

nessa dee

At the moment…

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been a good blogger lately. My postings are sporadic and hastily put together, and there’s been a lack of art in this [art + life] blog. The thing is that life has been quite hectic at the moment. I have never been a very organized blogger, but I usually had a bit more time to think things through and I was taking a lot more pictures that prompted post ideas. Right now, though my life has been consumed with trying to get the house put together and trying to mark things off of my ever-growing home improvement to-do list. Plus, I’m working on a big illustration project…at the moment. So if you really want to know what my life has looked like for the last few or five or eight weeks, take a gander at these lovely photos…

See, not too lovely. In fact, pretty messy. But I know with all of the chaos there are lights at the end of each tunnel, and the more I work at each project, slowly but surely the brighter the lights become. Take Audrie’s room for example. Hers is the first picture in the chaotic ensemble above. Although we’re not quite done with all of the details, we have now managed to get it to a point where she can actually sleep in it. [The first time since the first night in our house!]

Want a sneak peek? Sure you do…

Quite cheery if I do say so myself! I love how bright the room is now. It looks like spring. And I promise, when we get all of the details done, I’ll share pictures of the whole room. But for now, it’s back to the chaos.

xo

nessa dee

The Blues

We made a few changes to some walls over the weekend, and though progress is slow going, some little girl is super excited to see her vision start to come to fruition. If you recall, Audrie’s room started its life in the blues, some rather dark shades of blue and a pop of red.

If you look in the upper right-hand corner of the picture, you can see a bit of the ceiling color. The whole ceiling was painted navy blue, and while the room is big with high ceilings, the dark hue made the room feel a bit cave-like.

So with a little bit of elbow grease and a lot of agonizing over color choices, her room, though still in the blue family, is much brighter and cheerier.

The dark ceiling is now primed and will be replaced with a nice white along with everything from the chair rail down. The window seat surround is going to be bathed in a beautiful spring green, and the room will be adorned with fine feathery creatures. It might take some time before it’s all put together the way Audrie envisions it, but we are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel…a bright and airy blue light.

xo

nessa dee

I Heart Wallpaper

No, not really. I’ve been knee deep in a paint swatches lately. I promised my kids that once we got into a new place, their rooms would be the first thing on the list to decorate. The last time we moved it was into a brand spankin’ new house, so there was no prep work. We just bought the paint and went to town. This time however, there’s been a bit of prep work involved in the form of wallpaper removal. ugh.

After we bought this house, we decided that since there was a little boys room all painted up that matched Finn’s bedding perfectly, we would give that room to Audrie so we could spend the weekend removing wallpaper, priming the walls AND ceiling and painting everything bright, girly colors. I know. Ridiculous. But there’s a reason we did so. This room happens to be the biggest of all of the extra bedrooms, and it seems obligatory to give the oldest the biggest room in the house. But more than that, this room has a window seat, and what girl doesn’t love a window seat?

So while my hands reek of vinegar and my knees are covered in bits of wallpaper that I’ll probably have to use the paint scraper to remove, I keep picture my little avid reader curled up with a good book, sitting in her light saturated window seat. And if you’re wondering what the rooms going to look like, well I can’t tell you. It’s not going to be a big surprise reveal, it’s just that we haven’t quite figured it out yet. But here’s our jumping off point:

The beautiful blue and white [damask?] print material which will become future curtains and pillows is one of two tablecloths I bought from Marshalls.

They are 60"x 104" and were only $12 a piece. Not bad if I do say so myself.

Well, that’s it for now.

xo

nessa dee

Audrie’s Room

Remember a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I once promised to show my kid’s rooms on the web? And then not quite so long ago, but still pretty long ago, I revealed Finn’s room to the world. Then I decided to wait forever, anticipating that you would forget [ like me] that I actually have two kids’ rooms in my house. So, I should have posted the second room way back when, but as life tends to get in the way, and stuff remained unfinished in the other child’s room, I made my excuses, and went about my merry blogging way. But, fate stepped in recently and forced me to not only finish the room [to an extent] but take pictures as well. So, thanks to the recent decision to put our house on the market, [thus the sporadic blogging and mentions of super duper house cleaning/reorganization] I have pictures of my daughter’s room. TA-DAH!

Okay, I might actually have to take more pictures with details. But hopefully this will do for now. I find that a lot of my time is taken up these days with trying to keep my house immaculate with two kids and a dog in the home 24/7. They don’t quite like my game of “Let’s sit on the couch and not touch anything all day!”

Now, if anyone knows someone who wants to but a house with some custom painted kids’ rooms in the burbs of Austin, let me know.

xo

nessa dee