Many of you have followed along with our miracle story of Baby Norah. She is set to arrive with fanfare on April 2, unless she decides to be fashionably late or surprisingly early. Either way, we are ready. You can read the God-story here.
But long before there was a Norah, or even Mommy Rachel, for our family and the last 34 years, there has been Norah’s soon-to-be Daddy, Kyle. He was our first of My Three Sons, the first grandchild on my side of the family and probably a little spoiled, which is okay, right?
Kyle’s first Christmas, 1981, his paternal grandparents bought him and his best-friend-for-life-and-cousin, Jeremy, the cutest little rockers that were just their size. Shockingly, it is one of the few things I have kept over the years and even more shocking, Kyle didn’t remember it.
Fast forward from 1981 to 2016! Norah Jayne’s baby shower was fast approaching. I had crocheted her a cotton blanket, ordered her a handmade crib mobile from Etsy, bought stencils for her nursery wall and Poppy even made her a blanket ladder…not to mention the outfits we have not been able to resist. But I just didn’t have that personal item that I wanted to give.
And then I remembered the chair.
Trust me when I say I am not a DIY regular. We used to operate our own Etsy store a few years ago where we made Pottery Barn style cubby shelves and shipped them worldwide. But again, that’s been a few years ago and this was a little more detailed.
Perusing Pinterest, there are so many cute makeovers that it wasn’t long before I could envision what I wanted to do for Norah’s.
The nursery is soft cream’s, pink and green so the chair had to match! I started out by sanding down the entire rocker and then applying a primer. After that, it was on to three coats of a creamy white. Then I began to add in some pink on the sides and the top.
I wanted a chevron pattern on the seat, which was a little more difficult, and not quite as defined, since the slats in the chair were further apart. The Sweetheart, a.k.a. Poppy, bought me some Frog Tape, someone somewhere is a genius for inventing this! It was simple to line up the tape on the seat and then I just painted over it all with the light pink. You then remove the tape while the paint is still wet and the lines were crisp and clean! (You can see the yellow tape underneath the paint here.)
After that, I decided to add in some green stripes to the sides with regular painter’s tape. It was a little more difficult to remove and to place it perfectly straight. Actually, it just about drove me crazy! Wrapping the tape around and then trying to remove it without touching anything else was a nightmare for me but with a little touch-up you would never know I had so much trouble.
For the final touch, I wanted to personalize it and wished I could have painted her entire name across the back of the chair (and I did try!) but it just wasn’t working out so I went with a wooden letter N for Norah, painted it the matching green and then set to attaching it to the chair. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get it to stay with super glue, hot glue or Gorilla Glue! Poppy finally had to get a small screw and attach it. Now she won’t be so likely to pull it off either.
Ready for the reveal?
And here it is in Norah Jayne’s nursery…
Here is Rachel at her shower on Saturday…such a great day!
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