Step 1: Paint

After writing last week's post debating when was the ideal time to move our little man down the hall to his big boy room, I did some more thinking (surprise, surprise) and even some research.  Turns out, the consensus from "experts" seems to be that the best time to move to a new bed/room is 6-8 weeks before the due date of the new sibling (assuming, of course, that your tot is moving because of the addition of a new sibling).  OK...that means Colton should be moving like....NOW!!!!
So, of course, I kind of freaked...this room is nowhere near done (in fact, it hasn't even been started).  Needless to say, as I was preparing for my trip down south last week, I had to sneak in some time to at least get started on the room.  In my world, the first step to any room is painting it.  The room, formerly known as the guest room/office, is still housing all of its old furniture (which promptly needs to go...agenda for this week), so Josh kindly moved it all off the walls for me.
Painting the room was pretty straightforward and I'm certainly not going to bore you with the step-by-step, but if you've been a regular here for awhile you may remember that I had painted a chalkboard calendar wall in the room earlier this year (yep, further proof we were not anticipating this beautiful addition to our family!).  In case you're curious this is what it looked like (and you can check out the tutorial here):

Naturally, I was a little worried about painting over all that chalkboard paint successfully.  But it turned out to be a totally painless process.  Of course, the first step was to remove the ribbon trim which peeled right off as promised...YAY!  Next, I cleaned the wall thoroughly simply by wiping it with an old t-shirt...no water, soap, or other fancy ingredients!  Once clean, I gently sanded the chalkboard circles paying special attention to the perimeter of each to make sure and create a smooth painting surface.  

With the wall all prepped, I headed to the Home Depot to pick up a quart (the room only has two walls that actually need painting) of my favorite Behr Paint-and-Primer-in-One that I had color-matched to Benjamin Moore's Silver Mist.  I had doubts that I might need a better primer for the wall, but alas my trusty Behr totally came through again...in just two quick coats, the walls were painted with no remaining sign of our former chalkboard wall.

Here's the room now (and please pardon the furniture/junk awaiting its removal):

The color is a lovely blue-gray combo.  I love how it looks more blue in certain lights and more gray in others, and I certainly think it will serve as the perfect backdrop for Colton's navy blue and orange accents...once the darn room gets cleared out.  Step one...complete...now on to the next dozen or so...prepare yourself people...it's GO time!!!