Jude is very excited to show off his “new” room to you.  I’ve been slaving away all week long in every spare minute I had, taping and painting, and then taping and painting all over again. I’m such a perfectionist with stripes like that – I can definitely spot all the places where it’s not perfect. But you know, it’s pretty darn close and that’s good enough for me.

I started by penciling off the stripes every 7 inches from the ceiling to the floor, all the way around the room.  Afterwards, I taped off my blue stripes and painted those.  After letting it dry overnight, I went back and taped off the cream colored stripes.  The paint is Martha Stewart for Home Depot’s Muscari blue and Heavy Cream, although I had them mix it up in the Behr Premium paint as the MS paint, in my opinion, is really crappy quality.

Today when I had lunch with Sara Kate, she asked me about what kind of tape I used.  Several bloggers have raved about Frog Tape, and she was curious if I had tried it. It’s more expensive than my old standby, the true blue Scotch painters’ tape, but when I was buying my supplies, I grabbed a roll of it, and two rolls of my regular ol’ blue tape. In my opinion, save your money and stick with the Scotch painters’ tape. The only thing that’s different about the Frog Tape is that it’s more expensive and it comes in a fancy little plastic container.  You’re only paying more for the packaging.

Speaking of tape, here’s the ginormous tumbleweed of tape. It took 3 regular rolls of tape and then some.

Oh, I probably ought to show a few pictures of before. Actually, this is a long time ago when he was still in a crib.

Kinda blah.

When I did the big reveal to Jude when he got home from Mother’s Day Out, he squealed “MOM! I love it! It’s so SO COOL!”  And I was pleased as punch to get that kind of reaction.  I think that’s my approach to interiors — they should elicit a reaction. Preferably happy, don’t you think?

Someday I want to find a nice drum shade to stick on the lamp in the corner.  I love a ginger jar-esque lamp, but I prefer to modernize them with a  different shade.

And while I had good intentions of painting the campaign side tables, I got too tired and thought “What the heck. They can stay as they are.”

I also moved his dresser into the adjoining playroom and got all the toys cleaned up and semi-organized.  Keeping all those toys organized makes me absolutely crazy!

I love the way the red pops against the pale blue and white. It’s the perfect balance.

And of course, the inspiration for the entire room since he was born – the Matterhorn bobsled poster that Simon bought me as a present when we were dating.