Maksim's Room Completed!!!

FINALLY, I have the final product ready to share with the blogging world :) It's been a long time coming...about 7 1/2 ish months and Grant and I worked hard on it! I wanted something modern and not typical and yet still fun! I think he will be able to grow up in this room too (at least for a few years) and I still got to stick my designer knowledge in there too!

Here's the rundown of the room:


1. I started by picking out the fabric...the black fabric with elephants, birds, giraffes and other zoo animals. I originally wanted a fabric with owls on it, but it was way too expensive and I am so much more excited about this one! The fabric is from Fat Quarter Shop and it is a Michael Miller fabric. I chose two of his fabrics...one as the main fabric and one with dots in different colors to coordinate.  I had my friend, Hannah, ask me if the fabric I bought just happened to be Michael Miller (even before she saw it or I described it to her) because she thought that looked like me! My friends know me so well!

2. I handed off the fabric to my seamstress, Jenny Beth Rodden, of The Preppie Peonie who did an excellent job of making the draperies and bedding for Maksim's room! She's taking orders now!!! (The above picture with the black blobs are my sweet cat, Jack Bauer, and my handful, but sweet Puggle, Reilly.)


3. I debated on the wall color for a while. I didn't want to do the typical blue for a boys room (not that that is a bad thing....I just wanted Maks' room to be different and outside of the box). I visited one of our close friends, The Metcalf's, house to see their BEAUTIFUL baby's room, Eleanor or Ellie, and right next to the baby room was their upstairs bathroom done in yellow stripes! I don't remember if it was wallpaper or paint, but I loved it! So....then started the long, grueling process of painting stripes. If you get up really close to the stripes in Maks' room then you can see pencil markings, but I am ok with that. If someone has an idea on how to remove those, I am all ears!

4. After that I started working on wall decorations! I got a text from a good friend, Laura, one day who had seen my fabric and was in Hobby Lobby one day and saw these wall pieces that were black, big, and zoo animals! So, I put those on my list of "must-haves" and waited for them to go on sale to 50% off. Because they were 50% off, they did have a few bumps and bruises on them, but nothing that spray paint couldn't fix! (See picture below...we are still working on the dresser, but you get the idea).

5. I don't remember exactly when we stumbled upon this website, but Grant and I were keeping our eyes open for Maksim's room as well as for some decorations for our Arlington youth room at Christ Church and one day Grant sent me this website, Dali Decals, where he had found an awesome tree, gorilla, birds, squares and some other decals for our youth room. Little did he know that I had stumbled upon the same website as well! I was already getting ideas galore for the room! Grant purchased and applied the decals at the church and they turned out GREAT!


The idea to use a tree decal in Maksim's room came from my above friend mentioned, Hannah. She has a daughter named Ivy who has a white tree (I believe) in her room.


A quick note on Dali Decals, they have been beyond AMAZING to work with. I was hired on to design two large areas at Hope Church here in Cordova, Tennessee and Dali Decals did several custom decals for us along with some decals that are on their website for the two areas I worked on. They were extremely helpful and wanted to make sure we were 100% satisfied...and we were! Another blog on Hope Church's designs will come soon!


So, all of the decals in Maks' room are from Dali Decals. The green tree, the birds, the owls, and the elephants. I can't speak enough good about the company!

6. The furniture is from the ole faithful Target! The brand is Delta and the crib is one that you can "transform" into a big boy bed when the time arises! I hear time flies with the babies! We did have a little trouble with the dresser, but the company made it right (after about 3 months)...it was Delta's issue, not Target's.


7. And, luckily, my parents bought Grant and I the glider for our anniversary back in March! So nice!!! And, the little baby rocker is from an Amish community in Ohio that Mom picked up for me on a trip to see family back a few months ago! Also, if you see that white thing that looks like a coaster on the side table...that is a handprint of Grant's from when he was around 5 years old. We hope to do one of Maksim, too and put them side by side....a little sentiment there :) So that it doesn't get mistaken as a coaster, I will probably buy a small stand to prop it up.

8. The letters for Maksim's name were from an idea I stole from our friend, Laura, who just had a baby, Isabella! I believe her sister made the letters, so I wabbled down to Hobby Lobby and found these white, wooden letter cut outs (which would have been pretty on their own) and I bought scrapbooking paper to go with our "zoo" theme and spray painted the letters and placed the scrapbook paper on top of the letters and used a small box cutter (an exacto knife would have worked better, but I couldn't find my floral printed one) and just cut away the excess paper. I was pretty proud of the end result! One of the letters was trial and error because I rushed it, but I fixed it...no biggie! We won't say that the reason for the lettering was because I placed the elephants in the wrong spot on the wall. OOPS!

9. And, last but not least, the rug is from Walmart. Not exactly what I was looking for, but I am pleased with the overall look.

All of this was done on a budget. Don't believe me...ask :) I am PRETTY proud! I know that a lot of people say that for the first child you go all out and then you don't want to do the same for the second...but I think I still will....especially with my degree being in interior design! I just love it! And, Grant is pretty good at the designing, too...must come from his artist background!

NOW, all we need is Maksim!!!!