Ch..Ch...Ch...Changes for the P-man

Lots of changes around here! We are closing in on 6 weeks till baby Scarlett, the long awaited end of summer and our little boy blossoming more and more every day.

Porter has grown up so much in the last 2 months. His speech exploded, his signs exploded, his comprehension exploded. He is a full blown toddler. And a really, really busy one. He has two speeds, go fast and sleeping.

He started to climb out of his pack and play at daycare and has now graduated to sleeping on a mat and pillow with the big kids. That is a big deal. No sides, no rails, no restraint. And he LOVES it. Sleeps 2-2.5 hrs like that every afternoon. We also made the transition to one nap per day,so he sleeps one chunk and is ready for bed by 7:15 and sleeps through till about 6:45-7:00 the next morning. Pretty sweet... enter newborn. Sigh. I am spoiled by P-man's awesome sleep schedule.

So we have decided he is probably ready for a big boy bed. He gravitates towards it. Neil and I decided long ago we wouldn't force such things on him but if he was interested, we would oblige.

Our next big decision, our kids will share a room. Yep, boy and girl, brother and sister. We figure while they are little,no bigs. Plenty of kids do it and we only have 3 bedrooms. I want to save my guest room/office/craft room since it actually gets used. When kids are little, I feel like they only sleep in their rooms. Unless we are all upstairs, Porter is never in his room so we will save the sq footage and they will bunk up! I think they will find it comforting in the end. By the time Porter is 4-5 we will look at moving him into his own room. Essentially, it still will be his own room for a good while since Scarlett will be in our room for 6 months or so.

So, I had to re-think my decorating scheme! Something cute and boy/girl friendly. So, I tossed tons of ideas around, scoured tons of blogs. Then, a good friend suggested I look at Pottery Barn Kids new Very Hungry Catepillar collection. It is bright, fun and has coordinating boy/girl stuff. And... I LOVE it! SO stinking cute. But SO stinking expensive. So, I will buy P the duvet cover, Scarlett a matching crib sheet and maybe a couple decorative pillows as we can afford them. Other than that, we are on a budget! In the end it will look really cute and pull together nicely it just won't be 100% of the collection.

Super cute huh?! I love bright color for kids. I am not into pastels or super baby-ish stuff. I think it will be really fun. And I love the story and coordination too. I think it will grow with the kids. So, I decided to paint the room 1/3 a leafy green and the top 1/3 a dusty sky blue and separate them with crisp white chair rail. I then had to choose a bed for Porter. We didn't want to spend a whole lot since it will just last a couple years. We also skipped the toddler bed (I think they are pointless) and went right to a twin. Ikea had a cheap $40.00 raw wood bed that is low to the ground and perfect. I thought $40.00 for the bed, $30.00 for the slats and $100 for the mattress. Not too bad I suppose. But, then I scored the exact bed, brand new for $15.00 on Craigslist INCLUDING the slats and 3 miles from our house. That saved over $60.00. Then I had a $20.00 return card, bringing the mattress down to $80.00. So under $100.00 for a brand new, big boy bed. Not too shabs.

So it started looking a little boring. A little sad. I couldn't leave it that color! For $15.00 I could afford to paint it something fun and bold. Especially with cute bedding! So, after thinking about it, I settled on bright red. It matches the bedding and then Scarlett's coordinating crib stuff will be red and white gingham! It will coordinate perfect and be so bright and happy. So, $23.00 worth of tinted primer (since we chose red, the paint guys said a tinted primer is a MUST) and lady bug red, high gloss paint we were good to go!

We decided to do 2 thin coats of tinted primer to make sure the wood would accept the red well.

We had a good system. Neil rolled and I did the minor touch ups in the crevices and cracks. We let it dry while we ate and got Porter ready for bed. Then came the red!

The color up close is awesome and exactly what I wanted. Whew. I took these pics before I touched it up to show the difference. There are no pink spots now I promise! We will let it dry overnight and I have brand new leaf green sheets to put on it. Next up, painting the room and getting the duvet. I am really impressed with how good it turned out. It is perfect for Porter. I can't wait to see it all come together!