finally, behind door #1…

…is our new nursery!

Actually, it’s the same room as Valor’s third nursery (the first being in Florida, the second in Taberna). And a lot of it is the same—the crib, the changing table, the rocking chair, the EXPEDIT shelving with the KOTTEBO baskets.

But when we moved into this house, the room was a light cream color except one accent wall was like really dark brown chocolate. It was okay for Valor’s last few months of being in a crib, but not what we envisioned for the next baby. Here is Abby covering up the chocolate wall with some KILZ:

And here is me starting to cut in the new paint:

And here is Valor painting his face with strawberries:

(which has nothing to do with the nursery—it’s just that some of our readers are obviously being very patient through a lot of posts about Ikea furniture and paint and Ron Paul and it seemed right to indulge them, especially since in a few hours he may never again be our most photographed subject.)

Back to the nursery—Abby convinced me that since a lot of the accessories were going to be baby blue and green, what we needed on the walls was something warm but mostly neutral, like tan, to maintain decorating flexibility, but saturated enough to pop against the white trim. We settled on Valspar Macadamia Nut, which either looks like gold, or sometimes like sand.

The fact that the color reminds me of sand is sort of interesting to me in an unintended way. When we were originally settled on Perseverance as a name, we thought of using elephants as a nursery theme, as they demonstrate perseverance migrating for hundreds of miles across deserts without water (in addition to Horton who hatches an egg). We eventually backed away from the idea of having one unifying “theme” for the nursery, but not before we told a few of our friends about the elephants. At either end of our EKBY JÄRPEN shelf are handmade crafts from our friends Michelle and Margaret:

Speaking of crafts, our diaper bag we used for James and Valor was starting to get pretty worn, and Abby liked the custom fabrics and embroidery she found at Doodlescoot Designs on Etsy. The tiebreaker between the robots and the dinosaurs came down to which is better known for persevering:

We also turned to Etsy when we started looking for wooden letters with keyhole mounts to hang them flush to the wall. The outfit that made the letters for James’s nursery was no longer in business, and everywhere else seemed to make them without the keyhole mounts. I did not want to drill through them or stick them up with tape or ribbons, but fortunately I found Deb at Damboise Designs could make exactly what I wanted. The 8″ letters cut out of 3/8″ MDF include the keyhole mounts and were only $4/letter. Best of all, she even accepted an Illustrator file with vector outlines of a font she didn’t have on her system. 500 points for whoever can identify the classic font. (And when I say “whoever,” I pretty much mean my brother Owen.)

The pièce de résistance of the room’s decor is another ridiculously amazing quilt sewn by Abby’s mom. When Abby told her the idea about the elephant theme, she did not feel inspired. So we told her what any master artisan should be told: “do what inspires you.” And this is what she produced:

She did an amazing job, on several levels, connecting with what we were thinking with the idea behind the name Perseverance:

1. The turtles remind us of the fable where the steady endurance of a tortoise finishes ahead of the hare.
2. The crown of laurels at the bottom reminds us of his life verse and about how our pastor Donnie Griggs taught us this February that the crown of life that James writes about being awarded to the man who perseveres under trial is not a crown like a king wears—that one belongs to Jesus!—but like a laurel crown given to a competitor who wins a race.
3. Finally, Abby saw the tree and the stream and immediately thought of Psalm 1:1-3. While it doesn’t directly mention endurance or steadfastness or perseverance, it describes a metaphor for the abiding faith we had in mind:

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.

Wow.

Looking at the clock, I see it is already Percy’s birthday. Time for one last picture of Abby pregnant, and time for me to get to bed.

Stay tuned!