Not finding out the sex if your baby whilst pregnant is lovely and exciting, and a decision I am so glad we made. But when it comes to decorating the nursery for the option of either a boy or girl may leave you limited – unless you want neutral tones of white, creams, light greys etc.
So our nursery room remained plain white walls until well after the baby was born. On one hand I would have loved to have had the nursery done before baby arrived, but leaving it until after did allow me time to think of what I actually wanted.
I had time to scour Pinterest and get inspiration from Instagram and I debated two options:
- Animals – jungle or woodland theme
- Wild one – outdoor theme and wild bears
The Animals theme offered ease as I quite fancied the wall stickers that you can get, but these aren’t cheap.
During my trawl through Instagram I came across a nursery with painted mountain scene that (a) looked amazing and (b) looked easy enough for me to recreate.
Let’s do this!
So I saved the image and set about sourcing what I needed to recreate it:
- Paint – 3 shades of grey (or the shades you want to use – I have seen a similar design done in blues too)
- Frog tape – I opted for the yellow low tack one as it is less likely to pull away any fresh paint (affiliate link)
- Ruler / straight edge
- Stanley knife
- Sheet to protect the floor
Step 1: Tape out the design
This was the most time consuming bit and the part of the job that required the most effort – I would tape out a peak and take a step back, checking against the Instagram photo, and see if I was happy how it looked. The beauty of using frog tape versus drawing the lines, is that the tape can be repositioned easily until you get it right.
Tip: lightly position each strip of frog tape and once you are happy with the position, smooth down fully so that tape is sealing to the wall surface.
Where the tape overlaps at a each spike, peak or valley, using a Stanley blade lightly score the tape (I used a ruler to keep the line straight and sharp). Once the tape has been scored, peel away the unwanted bit of tape to reveal a sharp, crisp line. Always press with your hand to make sure the tape is sealing nicely to the wall – as any gaps or bubbles in the edge could result in the paint bleeding and you won’t get a straight line.
As I was decorating whilst on maternity leave and trying to fit it in around a 6-month old, the taping was done over a number of days and done mainly during nap times.
Step 2: Let’s get painting!
First things first, put your sheets down to protect your floor and any surrounding furniture if it cannot be moved out of the way. Also, the wall I was painting had an electrical socket so I needed to tape around this too to avoid getting paint on it.
Whenever I paint walls I prefer to use a roller to avoid brush strokes – a small roller works well for corners and edges. When it came to painting in the peaks and near to the tape, I found it easier to apply the paint with a brush to allow for accuracy and then roller over the top to remove the brush strokes.
Let the paint dry and assess whether additional coats of paint are needed – for us, the darker colours needed two coats.
I managed to rope in the talents of my sister to help with the painting, so this was done doubly quick!
Step 3: Remove the Tape
Although the paint is dry when the tape is being removed, care should be taken to peel the tape off gradually. Peeling too quickly or ripping the tape off may cause some of the paint to lift at the edges (where the paint overlapped onto the tape).
Even with careful removal of the tape you may get some lifting. Reapply a small length of tape to recreate the sharp line and touch up using a small brush. The tape can be removed again once the paint is dry.
We decided that we quite liked where the tape left a line separating the 3 peaks and thought it featured them more.
However, if you want to infill the lines to have the 3 mountains without the tape lines, as per my original plan, simply apply frog tape along the top edge of the unpainted lines. Then paint with the colour of the peak below.
The End Result…
So now to accessorise the nursery for our little Wild One! The wall plaque added a personal touch and we have a wooden bear that sits on the windowsill – both from small businesses.
If you have any more ideas for accessorising the room, please share your thoughts in a comment below 🙂
WelshMummySteph 