Nursery Details: Ben's Burlap print

Still sharing some details of Ben's nursery today. This one was a sweet handmade gift.

Peter Pan Burlap Print

My dear friend Brett is super talented and makes burlap prints perfect for nurseries and kids rooms. I'm lucky enough to have one in my son's room.  He even handmade the frame. It's such a fitting quote for a little boy's room!

Check out some of the other cutie-patootie stuff he's created!

Would these not be perfect if you were doing a woodland, camping, or rustic nursery? They'd be great for a little boy or girl's room!

set of 4 burlap prints

Oh man, if you are having a camping theme you need this print.

Tuck me in Tight print

Looking for some cute decor for your nursery? These would be such sweet and unique gifts to that friend who is expecting her little one. Take a peak at Brett's Etsy shop Porter Design Co. His prices are super good and he's a fast little worker so he's quick to ship stuff out too. Personally, I think that's always important because I am a last minute kinda gal. He has more adorable prints and I heard from a little bird he's great at custom orders too.

And before I end this post, I just have to show you..For my 30th birthday he made me a very special present. This represents my new family. I love it. And again, he even made the frame himself! He did a wonderful job. I love that we can add to it as our family grows too!

I hung it up the day I brought it home with me!  Although he doesn't have these listed in his Etsy shop convo him and ask him nicely and I bet he could work something out for you.

In case you missed it!
Ben's Vintage Nursery
Ben's dresser/changing table DIY
Billy the Bison Nursery Decor
Being a Mama...so far

P.S. This is not a sponsored post, my friend is just super talented and plus I love him. But go buy all the things!

Nursery Details: Billy the Bison

I love the animal bust trend all over blogs right now.  I knew I wanted one in the nursery. But didn't want something too modern. I wanted to keep the vintage and preppy theme in the room.

If you remember we added our own flair to a vintage find in our dining room. We gave a $5 flea market find a makeover.

See the before here!

Anyway, back to the Billy Bison.

For this project we used We used the Billy in the Junior size from Cardboard Safari. We chose the classic tan color. I'd seen people paint these, and maybe if we ever change it up, we will do that. But I liked the plain classic tan for this project. It went best with the look of the rest of his room.

It took about 20 minutes to put together. I should point out, that it would have taken less time, but I thought I was super smart and didn't pay much attention to the directions. So I realized I messed it up halfway through---read the instructions, then did it the right way pretty easily.

For the backing we took apart the thrift store frame, and covered the back cardboard in fabric. To secure Billy Jr to it we turned to our trusty staple gun. That's it!

We love the way it looks on his mini gallery wall above his dresser/ changing table. We're really happy with it and know we can use it even as he grows and gets a 'big boy room' in a few years.

photo credit AB Photography

See more of Ben's vintage nursery!

Check out the wild and crazy before of that beautiful blue dresser makeover!

Thanks to Cardboard Safari for providing Billy the Bison for this project! All opinions are my own.

Nursery Dresser Makeover: From Wild Tween to Vintage Preppy!

When we shared Ben's Vintage Nursery we said the "before" on this dresser was pretty wild...here she is:

Wild is right, yes? That would be neon green, bright purple, and pink, orange mixed in there too!

This was in my sister's room when she was a tween. Her bedroom was painted all crazy. Like, I'm talking Nickelodeon themed colors, and stripes, and neon, with zig zags on the wall. I wish I had a photo to show you. But you will just have to imagine the colors from this dresser--but up the crazy x1000.
Prior to becoming purple beast, this piece had been in the family for awhile. It actually belonged to my great grandparents. I'm not sure what the original dresser color was, but I'm going to guess it wasn't this bright. It's nothing fancy, but it was nice to have a piece from my family for his room.

The plan was to stain the top of the dresser a deep walnut brown, and paint the rest in a bright chalk paint blue. Adam had to strip the top of the dresser for me (paint thinner not pregnant lady friendly!) And scrape all the layers of paint off.  And I'm talking layers. This dresser had been painted several times before the Nickelodeon tween room.

When we got the paint off, we realized the top was not ~real wood~. Adam took the sander to it and lightly sanded the top to make it smooth.

We were ready to begin!

Since the top was not real wood, we used Minwax Gel Stain in Dark Walnut. The gel stain works on fabricated wood.

This was after the first layer of stain...not so bad but needed another coat.

I used Webster's Chalk Powder paint, mixed with Sherwin Williams Blue Plate. The chalk paint powder is all natural, so it was safe for me to use it while I was pregnant.  The nice thing about chalk paint is that the piece doesn't need to be primed or anything, just wiped down and painted! 

I mixed it with Sherwin Williams Blue Plate and used their Harmony brand of paint which has 0 VOC. 

I probably would have been fine with regular SW paint, and a mask, and outside..but I was a spaz about that sort of thing. I also avoided ham sandwiches and JIMMY JOHNS for the whole first trimester. Now that was hard to do!

Anyway, it took me one weekend to paint it. Mostly because I was tired from being pregnant. I had to take 600 breaks. It could have been finished in one day by a non-pregnant person. The paint dries SUPER fast, and there was hardly any sanding involved.  

I finished it with a dark wax by Fiddles N Sons brand... Which Webster's recommends for use with their products.

Here it is all done up in Ben's room.

The pulls were from Menards hardware section. I'm more of an Oil Rubbed Bronze hardware girl, but the brushed dark silver just looked so much nicer.  They also go nice with the DIY bookcase in his room. We'll share about that very soon, along with some other great details!

See the rest of Ben's vintage nursery!

Ben's Vintage Inspired Nursery

Photos of Ben's nursery are here! I'll provide more detailed info on our DIYs in the room in a later post. Today, we'll just share the vintage goodness!


Vintage Rocking horse, a gift from Ben's Great Aunt Wendy sits in front of his Jenny Lind crib.

This giraffe used to hang in my childhood bedroom.

My dad made this zen garden for me a few years back. It sits on his side table.

A view of one side of the room.
The chair is missing from the room right now, as it sits in our bedroom for now.

The bookshelf was a DIY which we will share later in the details post!

Plenty of room for more books!

I used scrap fabric from the baby showers to tie back these Ikea curtains.

This corner of the room turned out perfect. The dresser was a DIY makeover. Can't wait to share this makeover... you won't believe the crazypants "before"!

We used the Billy from Cardboard Safari above the changing table. We'll talk about this DIY with you coming up too!

You may remember this hilarious President Scout print from Uncommon Goods I shared a few months ago.

His mobile was a gift from a dear friend.  It goes perfect in the room, and is something I would have chosen for the nursery myself.

All photo credit in this post goes to the talented Andrea Beltz from AB Photography. She did our newborn photos which we L-O-V-E and snapped a few photos of the nursery for us too! Sharing one of our favorites of little Benjamin below.

Isn't that face the sweetest? Happy Friday!

Oh, p.s. A reminder we have a GIVEAWAY going on right now with Body After Baby! Ends in a few days! Awesome for new moms, expecting moms too...would be a great baby shower gift too! Enter here!

Ben's Vintage Inspired Nursery: Preview

Ben's room is not done yet. Will it ever be done? Like the rest of our home, I'm sure I will always be changing out the decor and adding something else to the DIY list.

The BIG reveal will come super soon. Today we've got a few sneaky preview shots!

Way back in November I shared our nursery inspiration and a few flea market finds. We mostly stuck to our ideas, and added a few other items to the room.

We talked about how there wasn't really a theme in the room other than "cute old stuff we like". We pretty much stuck to our ideas, and even did a few DIYs in the room I can't wait to share with you...

More to come!

And, in case you missed it, BabyN's birth announcement on the blog!

Scout for President in 2016 and a Giveaway!

Hello and happy new year! We've been working super hard getting the baby's room put together and we cannot wait to share with you soon!

Today I will give you just an itsy bitsy peek of just a teeny part of the nursery. I've been working on what to hang on the walls for awhile now. Some of it is DIY, a couple have been gifts, and I've been scouring Etsy for a few perfect prints too. I love finding art and prints you can't find anywhere else.
Speaking of original art, I have the cutest original artwork for the baby's room to show you today. I'm not kidding when I say it's the cutest. It's also sort of hilarious. Okay, it's really hilarious. Especially if you are a dog person.

Right before the holidays, our friends at Uncommon Goods sent us a super adorable and fun print for the nursery.

You are screaming over the cuteness aren't you? It's perfect. My husband is into history and politics, and well, I think Scout would make a really great president. We wanted to incorporate Scout into the the baby's room somehow, since we are pretty sure they will be darn good friends someday.

I added a photo mat and a wood thrifted frame to make it official. It's going up on the wall this weekend! I can't wait to get it hung up with the rest of the goodies I've been collecting!

Have you ever shopped at Uncommon Goods? You should check them out. They have thousands of unique items, and fun stuff to be personalized just like the puppy president print! Check out Uncommon Goods when you are shopping for your next personalized gift...or better yet treat yourself! You will have a ball just looking at all the treasures they have to offer.

I can make your shopping even MORE fun. Uncommon Goods is offering 1 reader of Let's Just Build a House a $25 gift certificate to shop with! One lucky reader will win!  Enter below in the Rafflecopter widget!  There are several ways to enter to win, just enter your email address then choose 1 or all the options to enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Baby Boy N: Nursery Inspiration and Purchases (Flea Market Finds!)

Ever since we found out we are having a boy I have been pinning and daydreaming about the perfect little boy's nursery. Take a look at some of my pins to give you an idea of where we are heading...

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Adam and I both love old maps. The tiny school chair in the above photo is oh-so-adorable too. Simple room, yet makes a statement.

The nursery below is simple and has a similar style crib to the one above, only they kept the wood tone for has a more traditional look. It's the Jenny Lind crib in dark cherry, which is what we have picked out for the nursery.
I just love that it's not big and boxy like most cribs today. Those just aren't our thing. It does convert to a toddler bed too. I can't wait to get it set up in the room so we can figure out what the layout will be!

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Our color scheme is similar to this next photo. I swooned over this kid's room a little when I saw it last week. Again, the vintage map made it's way into the room, and another cute school chair or two.

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 Another one of my favorite nursery pins: Simple, rustic, traditional, and globes instead of maps!

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Are you noticing a trend with the cribs, the maps, the color schemes and textures? I sure did when I reviewed my pin board.

We found an old leather-like chair at a resale shop for 50 bucks. Not as sch-mancy as the one below---but it's the generic version of this.  Adam went and tried it out, and brought it home the same day. It will add a masculine and warm touch to the room. I have a feeling Adam and I both will get plenty of use out of the 50 bucks we spent on the chair, we'll be glad we went for comfort at 4 a.m.

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For bedding I'm going with whites, and navy blues. I like different prints like stripes and geometric.I think it will be fun to have a bunch of different prints to mix and match. Like these sheets from American Baby Company.

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This A-Z prints are just adorable. The Etsy seller has so many cute prints for the nursery. I'm not sure I will be able decide what to order!

 Etsy Shop

Every body keeps asking what our theme will be. But, there really is no theme.
We are drawn to old vintage stuff. We like navy blue, and green. We're mixing those likes together.
We plan to throw some wood tones, and brown leather in there to give it a masculine touch. I of course have already picked up a few items at flea markets this summer.

Here is my stash:

Kelly green school chair: $12 (talked dealer down from $22!)
Basket of old baseballs: $2
The projector slides are of old airplanes. $3 each.
Old rusty Chevy hubcaps: $5
Camp stool: $7

I will share the room as it is now with you very soon. We have some special guests staying with us this weekend, then after that, it's time to get down to business! We have a few DIY projects planned for the room too!

What do you think of where our nursery is headed?
Did you have a "there's not really a theme" theme in your nursery too?