Thursday, January 05, 2006

I NEED YOUR HELP!!!!

I have always found decorating to be some what of a hobby for me. It has always interested me and I have dreamed for a long time how my future house will be decorated, what colors I would choose etc...
So, here I am at the beginning of another designing journey...The nursery. For years I had chosen pinks and varied between vintage nursery of fun Potterybarn type designs for my little princess. As far as a boy goes...I figured I'd use red, blue and green and integrate cars, or tractors or firetrucks into the mix...you know, boy's stuff! :)

Anyway, my current dilemma - a decision to not find out the sex of the baby. This puts my mind into a tailspin of yellows and greens and duckies and frogs that I can not succumb to! I have never imagined myself in the category of having to have a neutral nursery (which sounds so blase and normal). I come to you all for help.

I NEEEEEED your ideas, your advice, even your smart comments! :) I need Colors, links to pictures, anything. I have spent countless hours in fabric stores over the past few months looking for fabric to make this bedding b/c nothing I am seeing in the stores interests me.
I was thinking about doing the room in Sage and cream and then adding pink accents for a girl and blue for a boy. Unfortunately all I am finding in Sage and Cream is Toile - WHICH I LOOOOOVE, but my room is already completely done in black and white toile and don't want my house to look like the French hijacked it!

So, what do ya got? Any ideas?

Also, what do YOU think about finding out the sex of the baby? Surprise or no Surprise? Pros, cons....what was your experience?

Alrighty then...let the ideas fly!

Ps....tell your friends to check out this site too! The more comments and ideas, the better!

13 comments:

Kelly Glupker said...

Shyla,
Congratulations! I do not have any children, but I thought I would share with you what my sister did in her nursery. She didn't know what she was having either so she tried to go neutral. She painted the entire room a sky blue. On the ceiling she painted some white clouds. Along the baseboards she had grass painted so it looked like the grass was growing out of the boards. She also had wild flowers, bees, butterflies and such painted on. In the corner of the room she had a huge tree painted. The trunk was really long and then all of the leaves branched out onto the two corner walls and on the ceiling. It looks awesome! The comforter has cute bugs all over it. Butterfies for a girl or a caterpillar for a boy.
About finding out the gender - I can't speak from experience, but I personally think it would be fun to wait and be surprised on the day of the birth. Whenever people find out what they are having ahead of time, they usually tell what they plan to name it. Which is fine - but then when the baby is finally born what news is there to tell? It is really not that excited to find out how much it weighed. You know what I mean? There are of course pros and cons to both. But if you do find out - you better post it on your blog! :) By the way, where are the pictures of your belly?
-Kelly

Heather said...

Shyla

Hey there...when I was at your house last week, you had some of the prettiest paint swatched taped to the wall...can you incorporate them into a Neutral room. They were so nice and "baby" looking. I was thinking that I may like to have another one, just to use colors like them. :)

As for finding out the gender of your baby. Everyone has there own opinion. For me...I found out what both of mine were and would never change it! It was so nice being able to plan and prepare for both of them. Anyways, that is my input....You will be able to pull it all together. I am sure of it!!!

Kelly Glupker said...

By the way, what is Toile? Do you mean Tulle?

Shyla said...

Kelly!
Toile is the French Country life design you can see it I think in my black and cream bedroom pics that may be archived under November or october. I will post a picture. Can't wait to see pics of you and your Ben and Ben and Brooke! Did you have a blast? Looking forward to hearing about your trip on your blog and seeing pics!

Kelly Glupker said...

Shyla,
I still haven't had a chance to post pictures - it probably only takes a minute to do so, but since I don't know how I haven't gotton to it. We had a great time!
You look adorable. I think pregnant women are so beautiful! I am sure Nathan agrees.
-Kelly

suzanne said...

Shyla,
I am the type of person that HAD to find out what I was having. I hate suprises, can't stand 'em. But just do what you want to do. if you do choose to find out, there is no garuntee that they are right though. They mess those things up all of the time. Then you might be bringing little nathan jr. home in a pink layette to a pink nursery or the other way around. Anyway, I am glad that I found out. I thought that it was easier to bond with Gavin while he was in the womb. I felt like if I didn't know what the sex was, it would be like not knowing the person inside of me. When he did come out, I felt like he was an old friend, someone I had already known for a long time. I know that might sound weird, but I don't know how else to explain it. And i can't even say how I would have felt had I not known. It could be the same, I don't know. BUt those are just my thoughts! As for the neutral decor, I will get back to you on that one.

pamela s said...

Shyla,
I'm with you & wouldn't want to know the baby's sex. We don't have any kids yet either, but sometimes I think about decorating our nursery for when that time comes. Here are my ideas. Personally, if the Lord wills, we are planning to have more than 1 child, so I would want to re-use my nursery decor for each one, & will need something gender neutral. I guess I would go classic or traditional & try to get ideas from children's literature: fairy tales, nursery ryhmes, Sesame Street, Peter Rabbit, Pooh Bear, etc. If you use this type of idea, then the colors don't matter so much, but it will work for all or a couple of your kids.
You could mat & frame illustrations cut from children's books or use calendars (they're 50% off this time of the year).
A cute idea is to buy wooden letters to spell out your little one's name. You can find them in craft sections of Wal-mart or craft stores. After painting them whatever colors you choose, take a poster foam board & cut it into rectangles a littler larger than your letters. Cover the poster board in a cute fabric, you can use some poly fil to make it kinda look padded like a pillow. Glue a letter on each plaque & hang up on a wall.
Hope this is helpful.

Shyla said...

Thanks everyone for your comments and Ideas so far! Nathan is actually the one who doesn't want to find out what the baby is....I WANT TO KNOW! I totally feel the same way you did Suzanne about knowing what the baby is before it's born for bonding purposes, but..alas, alack, my first big act of submission! :) j/k. Nate actually feels badly about not wanting to find out - at the sake of not being able to decorate the way I would like etc...it will all work out! Who knows...maybe it will be easier to push if i don't know what it is! :)

suzanne said...

Hey Shyla, you could use the colors brown and bright green (like the color of Mt. Dew) and if it is a girl you can add a lot of pink accents and if it is a boy you could add yellow or orange or something. The brown, green and pink would go really good together. i don't know if it sounds weird or not, but I had a friend who did it and it was really cute. Just an idea . . .

Katie said...

Shyla,

I try not to be opinionated about this topic when I talk to people about whether to find out the gender or not. People can do as THEY want. In my experience, I was completely like you - I WANTED TO KNOW! But, alas, Luke was a tease, even in my tummy. He wouldn't uncross his legs (and funny enough, he always had his ankle crossed when he was a newborn - so cute!) I had tears in my eyes when I walked out of the dr's office. But, honestly, after I got over it, I LOVED not knowing. It was so exciting. And, nothing was a better reward after an hour and a half of PUSHING (ouch) than gasping "what is it!!!!!!!!!!!" and hearing I had a little "brute" (as the doctor put it). So, my personal advice - let it be a surprise. You feel bonded to your baby whether you know if it's a girl or a boy. How could you not? And, if you're tired of referring to the baby as "it," just give IT a name. :) We called our baby Martin (as in Luther - I know, wierd).

So - onto the nursery decor . . . I decorated in Classic Pooh (being in the neutral and blase category), and I admit that now that Luke is older and still in his crib, I wish I had something more overtly boyish. I can't wait to decorate his new room after we move. I think that sky or baby blue is not necessarily boy though - especially with yellow.

Have fun!

Katie

Katie said...

Shyla,

I try not to be opinionated about this topic when I talk to people about whether to find out the gender or not. People can do as THEY want. In my experience, I was completely like you - I WANTED TO KNOW! But, alas, Luke was a tease, even in my tummy. He wouldn't uncross his legs (and funny enough, he always had his ankle crossed when he was a newborn - so cute!) I had tears in my eyes when I walked out of the dr's office. But, honestly, after I got over it, I LOVED not knowing. It was so exciting. And, nothing was a better reward after an hour and a half of PUSHING (ouch) than gasping "what is it!!!!!!!!!!!" and hearing I had a little "brute" (as the doctor put it). So, my personal advice - let it be a surprise. You feel bonded to your baby whether you know if it's a girl or a boy. How could you not? And, if you're tired of referring to the baby as "it," just give IT a name. :) We called our baby Martin (as in Luther - I know, wierd).

So - onto the nursery decor . . . I decorated in Classic Pooh (being in the neutral and blase category), and I admit that now that Luke is older and still in his crib, I wish I had something more overtly boyish. I can't wait to decorate his new room after we move. I think that sky or baby blue is not necessarily boy though - especially with yellow.

Have fun!

Katie

Tricia said...

Shyla,
I'm so excited for you guys. As far as finding out goes...I never wanted to know. I always joke that it helped me get through labor...the anticipation of not knowing who this little person was going to be. I love the suprise and when the next 6 or 7 or however many babies come =) , I don't want to find out then either.
As far as the "nursery" goes. We painted it sky blue with one dark blue wall. The dark blue wall has a large half moon on it and white stars with the boys names shooting off two of them. The blue walls has the verse, "I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have made. O Lord, our Lord how majestic is your name in all the earth." with stars, clouds and moons interspersed. I love the room and actually we have down it twice now as we moved from Indianapolis after Ian was born. Now that Ian is old enough he thinks it's really cool that his name is up there and likes to have the verse read to him.
I understand though how you feel about the gender neutral colors. I personally would never dress my boys in those outfits, but just told everyone to wait until the baby is born if they were wanting to get stuff. They had a surprise shower at Calvary for Calvin and they did when he was 3 weeks old, so all boy stuff. Lots of fun!

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