decorating Archives - 2 Sisters 2 Cities

Posted by Meaghan Barry on September 23, 2013

So I started this post in early June and had hoped to finish it before Baby’s N’s arrival. Fast forward three and a half months later and I am just getting to it! I was still finalizing some of the details when Baby N decided to come a week early. It took me up until this point to finally pull together the remaining elements of his gray and green-themed nursery.

While with T, I had a very specific theme in mind for his airplane-themed nursery. However, for N, I really only had a color palette in mind…dark gray and green. I spent a lot of time perusing the web to come up with this Pinterest board with this color scheme in mind.

gray nursery

We ended up using furniture that we already owned to make up most of the nursery. Since T is (hopefully) nearing the end of his diaper stage, we moved the diaper changing bureau to the nursery. We also got T a “big-boy” bed and moved his crib to N’s room. We also had a mahogany dresser from our old master bedroom that we were no longer using. Our one furniture splurge was the new white glider from Land of Nod.

white glider

This room was previously our guest room and was painted a light green. I wanted something a bit more dramatic for the nursery and I fell in love with a color called Kendall Charcoal (Benjamin Moore HC 166.) I was a bit worried that it would be a little too dark, especially for a nursery, but I love the way the walls turned out. It contrasts so nicely with the white and green.

quilt

My favorite addition to the room is the beautiful gray and green quilt that K made for Baby N. It’s stunning and perfectly matches the room even though she had never seen it in person until her recent visit. I love all the fabric she used, especially the cute little elephant. It truly makes the room feel complete. K took pictures of her progress on the quilt as she was making it and will be writing up a post soon with her tutorial. I am so impressed with how it turned out and it puts a smile on my face every time I enter the room!

dots

My second favorite part of the room are the white and silver dot decals (also from the Land of Nod.) I can attest that they are very easy to remove and reuse…I ended up changing it up three times before I was fully satisfied with the results (a big shout-out to sister M, K, and my husband who helped me adjust them and made sure they were random enough!)

you are getting very sleepy

I also spent some time on Etsy looking for wall art for the nursery. I still want to buy one with Baby N’s birth info (weight, date, etc.), but I love the ones I have hanging up so far. My favorite one is the letterpress print above the bed that says “You are getting very sleepy.” It’s a family joke that my father always used to tell me that I looked sleepy when I was a baby and would just put me down and I would fall asleep. Wishful thinking that my kids would be like that…Baby N is a pretty terrible sleeper thus far. Hopefully that will change in the near future!

Gray and Green-Themed Nursery Source List:

Crib and Changing Bureau- Romina Charisma
Dresser- Pottery Barn
Glider- Land of Nod
Side Table- Target
Book Caddy- Land of Nod
Knit Pouf- Land of Nod
Crib Sheets & Skirt- Pottery Barn
Roman Shades- Pottery Barn
Green Lamp- Target
Dot Decals- Land of Nod
You are getting very sleepy” print- Etsy
“ABC/I Love You” print- Etsy
“Climb Trees” print- Etsy
Paint Color- Benjamin Moore Kendall Charcoal (HC 166)

sister m signature

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on September 27, 2012

About six months ago, I did a post about six Benjamin Moore paint colors we were considering for our master bathroom paint color. We were deciding between Labrador Blue (1670), Amsterdam (AF-550), Jamestown Blue (HC-148), Aspen Skies (1656), Azores (AF-495), and Atmospheric AF-500. We ended up going with Jamestown Blue. We really needed our master bathroom paint color to pop against the neutral tiles and the beige/purple/gray combo that it was painted before just wasn’t cutting it. We are in love with the results! It feels like a completely different bathroom now.

Without further ado, here are the before and after photos:

Another before and after shot from another angle:

From another angle. The beach picture is from HomeGoods and the mirror is from West Elm:

I found these cute bath mats from Target- I love how the shade of blue in the rugs is so similar to the wall color.

What do you think of the results? Have you changed the color of a bathroom in your house? What were the before and after colors?

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on April 16, 2012

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post how we were in process of decorating our dining room and decided to paint our dining room furniture. I wanted to follow-up and show how our furniture looks now that the painting has been completed. We are still in process of working on the rest of the dining room, so stay tuned for more pictures of the rest of the room.

First off, here are the before and after pictures of our dining room table (those are additional table leaves in the background):

Then, we had the grandmother clock painted:

And my favorite piece of all, the buffet table:

I love how all three pieces of furniture turned out! The slate gray color is just what I had in mind. I know some people would not consider painting furniture, especially family heirlooms like the grandmother clock, but it was the right decision for us. The pieces were a little too traditional for what we wanted and the clock would have likely ended up in storage in our basement if we didn’t change it up a little. If you can’t make a piece of furniture fit your style, what is the point of holding on to it? Check out Painted Pretty for more painted furniture ideas…they do such a great job! If you live in Boston, they are at the SOWA vintage market every Sunday.

Have you painted a piece of furniture in your house? Were you happy with the results?

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on February 27, 2012

The final master bathroom paint color reveal has been posted- check out this post to see what the painted bathroom looks like!

I have been making a lot of trips to our local hardware store lately to pick up paint swatches and samples. I’ve pretty much come to one conclusion- there are way too many colors to choose from! It’s so overwhelming. We finally narrowed down on a couple colors for our master bathroom and bought the mini sample jars. However, when we painted some samples on the wall, it was not what we were expecting at all.

I ended up trying 6 different Benjamin Moore samples until we found our perfect shade of blue for our bathroom:

The colors are:
1. Benjamin Moore Labrador Blue 1670: This blue is a stunner! I really like it, but it’s our runner-up for bathroom paint color. I may try to use it in another room in the house. I read online that this is the stairway and hallway colors in Phil & Claire’s house on Modern Family.
2. Benjamin Moore affinity- Amsterdam AF-550: This was actually an old sample I had from our condo in the city. I was looking for a gray shade at the time and I eliminated this color because I felt like it had too much blue in it. This time it got eliminated because it was not blue enough. Cheer up Amsterdam AF-550, I think I have another room in the house where you might work perfectly!
3. Benjamin Moore Historic Color- Jamestown Blue HC-148: We have a winner! The husband and I both loved this blue. I think it will look great against the tile and cabinetry. Hopefullly it will be the perfect shade to cheer up this bathroom! (edited: the final results of Jamestown Blue can be seen here!)
4. Benjamin Moore Aspen Skies 1656: Looking at the paint swatch, I thought this was the paint color for the bathroom. On the wall, it was way too bright! Even though it may seem like a waste to spend $4 a piece on all those mini samples, it saved us a lot of money in the end because I ended up not liking this paint color at all.
5. Benjamin Moore affinity- Azores AF-495: I bought samples of #5 and #6 for our guest bathroom, but decided to throw them up there to show another couple of options. They both have a bit more green in them. I think they are both great colors, but my heart is set on a blue master bathroom.
6. Benjamin Moore affinity- Atmospheric AF-500: This paint looks really similar to #5, but it’s a tad more gray than Azores.

Here’s another angle of the paint samples:

I’ll post full before and after photos once we are done painting the bathroom. For now, it’s off to the hardware store to pick up some more swatches. How do you go about picking a paint color? Share your tips and strategies in the comments!

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Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on February 17, 2012

We have now been in our new house for four and a half months now and are now starting to get antsy to make this place feel like our own. Instead of painting right away, we have waited a few months so we can get a feel of the place before we committed to any particular design/color. One of the first projects we are hoping to tackle is our dining room. Our front door opens to our dining room so it is the first impression guests have when they visit.

Thanks to real estate listings, we were able to see how previous owners had decorated the space:

And now today it looks like this…pretty much a blank slate (except for our two paintings…I’ll post more about those soon):

We do have some dining room furniture that we had in storage while we lived in the city. However, the furniture was slightly banged up and not quite our style. A few weekends ago at the SoWa Winter Market, we found a vendor called Painted Pretty at the vintage market. We loved all their pieces, but we especially loved the distressed slate grey color (for an example, here is a buffet table painted slate grey.) Their studio is actually located very close to our new town so they were able to pick up our dining room table, buffet table, and grandmother clock to bring back to their studio to be painted. I am so excited to see the results in a few weeks! I will post pictures of the painted furniture once it is finished, but for now here are the before shots:

Dining Table:

Buffet Table:

Grandmother Clock:

It’s pretty overwhelming to think about pulling together paint colors, rugs, window treatments, lighting, curtains, etc. For now, it’s off to Pinterest to start thinking of some more ideas for this room.

What are some of your favorite sources for design inspiration?

-m