Saturday 24 July 2010

.Tommy's Cot.

I'm happy to report that Tommy's cot is done. And I really love how it unexpectedly turned out. So, here are the before photos (and yes, he sometimes sleeps with Lil's pink blanket!):


This cot has slept all three of our children, it was given to us by our friends when I was pregnant with Oscar. (Before it slept their son, it was used for many more babies!) It was great and we loved it, but 5 years later it was looking very tired with chipped paint, dirty marks and a ripped fabric panel from our last house move.


Originally I was going to paint it white again, then when I was at the paint shop I visioned a fire truck red cot and thought it would look really cool. My vision must have been a bit warped because when I was about half way through painting, we looked at it and went "yuck!!" I had the fabric panels all ready and covered in my favourite Alexander Henry, 2D Zoo print and when we put them against the red cot it was double yuck. So, it sat half-done until the next weekend and poor Tommy slept in it for the week! I thought about painting it white again, but knew it was going to take a lot of effort to cover up the red - then Jaron suggested using the charcoal exterior house paint we had in the shed from painting our front fence and letter box.


And ta-da!!! It worked. No more yuck. Shows off the fabric perfectly and is a lot more classic looking than the crazy red! Because I used an exterior house paint, I put a couple of coats of water-based clear gloss over the top to seal it, make it easily wipe able and kid-safe.


I covered a canvas in fabric too, but it is looks little out of place on the wall - maybe a bit small? I need my wall decorating extraordinaire sister to come and give me some advice!!



The room is far from finished but at least I have a theme to work with now. Next project to tackle will be to paint the chest of drawers in the room charcoal - thinking about painting a couple of random drawers blue and/or green?? I'm sure I'll get to the stage where the house is finally decorated and then we will decide it is time to sell and build again!!



And this is about 1 year late, but I realised I haven't shared the quilt my Mum made for Tommy when he was a baby. This is her tradition, to make each grandchild a cot-sized quilt and I love Tommy's.



He loves it too :)

16 comments:

Kate said...

The cot turned out great! I quite liked the red - pretty out there though. That cot quilt is really cute, and I love the bib! Now you'll have to make a matching cot quilt. Fun!

Unknown said...

I think if you layer your fabric covered canvas on top of another larger canvas, painted in that house paint so that it frames it, that might work.

I do like the charcoal colour, it works really well.

Kathryn said...

Oh... I love the colour you went with. Nice! I like the idea of a couple of feature drawers, the same colours used in the fabric. Lucky Tommy!

Meg said...

Love the look! And as for the fabric canvas maybe cut out his name in the fabric and put it on the canvas and trace his hands and put his hand prints in the fabric under his name with "est. 2010" Very cute and a great keepsake! (I so just came up with that on my own lmfao I love great ideas that come to mind like that)

Nic Wood said...

Love the colour of the cot, it compliments the fabric beautifully!
I could picture the fabric canvas 'framed' with an old wooden frame (maybe even an old window frame or similar?)that was a bit larger than the canvas and painted to match the cot.
Gorgeous cot quilt, what precious keepsakes for your little ones.

Nic xxx

Melinda said...

The grey cot looks great. And much calmer for sleeping babies.

Paige said...

He looks very happy! We had a boy in March and painted his walls gray with a white chair rail. I love gray for babies!

helen and jane said...

Oh wow- Tonw- it looks AWESOME! Love it so much...so happy you have kept it and gotten so much use out of it- i love that colour so much, what is the exact name of the paint? I have a bedside table in denvers new room i want to paint...looks awesome!

p.s. mum and i have a blog here:

www.helenandjane.com
marns xx

The Kings said...

Looks really lovely Tone! I like the colour a lot :)

Aimee said...

love it! deep grey colour looks great :)

stashavalanche said...

That grey works really well with the fabric. I'm not so keen on colours on the chest of drawers though. How about painting it with a couple of different shades of grey? Make the carcass the same grey as the cot and use a couple of different shades on the drawers. I think that could look good.

Anonymous said...

that is really adorable! I love the style of the cot with the fabric panels, i don't think I've seen anything like it before. I love the idea of painting the drawers a different color. Maybe just do the top drawer in green and get some fun drawer pulls. I like the fabric cover canvas too, maybe paint a "frame" around it directly on the wall. Can't wait to see the end result of the room!

Erin said...

Love it Toni! The charcoal looks great - perhaps a little more soothing than the red??? Tommy is very very cute by the way...

Ange Moore said...

The cot looks fabulous! You could paint the chest of drawers charcoal and cover a couple of random drawer fronts in the 2D Zoo fabric and paint the other three drawers in the blue, green and turqouise!

Photography said...

Nice job - very effective :-)

Di said...

Paint wide stripes on the wall in the same colour, but a lighter tone - will look great!!
http://www.unique-baby-gear-ideas.com/images/brown-pink-walls.jpg

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