When Emma Clifton was looking to do a DIY colourful nursery makeover, she knew the odds were stacked against her, as a rip, sh*t and bust kind of person. But it turns out, paint is a lot more forgiving than she thought.
Capsule x Resene
“I never told you this, but when you first told me that you wanted to paint the nursery, I was like ‘that’s a job that only professionals can do.’” This was my husband’s openly surprised reaction when I showed him the final result of my colourful nursery makeover – my first foray into the world of home interiors, DIY and/or painting.
While his tone was so surprised it was almost offensive, I cannot blame him. As a rip, s*ht and bust kind of person, the methodical work of painting is not something I ever considered myself capable of. I ruin painted nails within minutes. I don’t read instructions. I change my mind every two days about giant issues – I’m a Gemini, what can I say – and I have no attention to detail.
Take all of this, put me into a marriage with a self-proclaimed perfectionist and you have the recipe for disaster when it comes to painting a house we both share. There’s a reason, after all, I picked the nursery as my first room – my 18-month-old son only cares about blueberry muffins and heat pumps, so any paint colour changes are fine by him. The stakes were low.
But in the end, my painting work in our nursery was so good it not only changed my husband’s mind about my practical skills, it also changed my own. Now, the world is my oyster/real-life colouring book. Watch out, world. I’m a DIY person now!
Finding Colour Inspiration For Your Nursery Makeover
Look, the obvious first port-of-call here would be to tell you to use Pinterest, but I found the website too overwhelming and too samey, samey. I know we joke about beige nurseries but boy, it’s a thing!
So, instead I checked out the children’s bedrooms page on the Resene and also got out a huge number of interiors books from the library and poured over them instead. If you’re looking for more beige ideas? Well, you have all of Instagram at your disposal.
Picking A Colour Scheme For Your Nursery Makeover
Because all of the furniture in my room was either hospice shop purchases or inherited, there was no colour consistency – so I knew I wanted one uniform colour for my furniture and then the inside of my windowpanes.
Despite my previously stated aversion to algorithms, I was almost suckered into picking sage green as my paint colour of choice. Then I listened to an interiors podcast where they said if you’re confused about which colour to pick, go to your wardrobe and see what colours you like there.
If you see nothing in your wardrobe that’s one of your paint colour choices – see: sage green for me – then it’s a trend, rather than a long-term colour you like. This was a great tip that saved me from picking the wrong colour!
Do A Virtual Test Run
I used the Resene EzyPaint Virtual Paint Tool to go through the range of different blues I liked, working out what was too overwhelming for the space versus what felt right. Then, I narrowed it down to four choices and got a test pot of each. This was quite exciting – it was like America’s Next Top Model, and I was Tyra Banks. I was the decider.
My top four paint choices:
Check How The Lighting Affects Your Potential Colour
I did a little swatch on two pieces of furniture in different parts of the room to see how it worked with the tone of the wood. This knocked out two models testpots. It was a fight to the death between Resene Moby and Resene Half Escape, but another tip I had read was to paint a moveable item with your favourite colour choice and move it around the room, to see how it looks in different lights. I had an unused floating bookshelf, so I painted that but you could also just paint an A2 piece of card and move that around.
Dun, Dun, Dun: The Painting Begins
With Resene Moby my paint winner and the song Porcelain stuck in my head, I threw myself at the mercy of Izzy at the Newmarket Resene ColorShop and asked her what I needed to paint my room – showing her photos and describing the material my furniture was made out of, to help her know what kind of primer I needed. Then I asked her kindly if she would write it all down because my brain is a sieve. She did. Izzy, I love you.
I then tailed Izzy – who had the patience of a saint – around the Resene ColorShop, while my toddler chewed paint colour cardboard swatches, as she picked out sanding paper, painting tape, primers, paint brushes and paint rollers for me. Plus, of course, a giant drop cloth.
(I know the drop cloth is essential because I missed a bit of wet paint that had pooled in it, started a serious Zoom interview, then was forced to watch as my kitten stood in the wet paint and then walked around our lounge for 45 minutes, while I was powerless to do anything. I think I might be someone that needs two drop cloths for the future.)
Working within the confines of daycare hours and Auckland’s unpredictable weather, over the next two weeks I painted the furniture and windowpanes. For the furniture, I sanded first and then used one coat of primer, then two coats of colour – following the instructions (FOR ONCE) about drying times. I am 100% the kind of person who would usually skip primer but after reading Kelly’s description that it is like a crumb coat in baking, I knew it was important. More things in life should be described using baking terms!
I started with the little white bookcase because I figured it was the most foolproof and this is where I learned a key thing: PAINT IS FORGIVING. Paint understands that you are trying your best, that your brush work is amateur, and it does a lot of the work for you. I didn’t know this!!! That second coat is the *chef’s kiss* to hiding any mishaps and making your paint job look actually quite lovely and professional.
Top tip: Paint tape is key for giving you sharp, crisp edges and stopping you from getting paint where you don’t want it. I used it on the windowpanes and, to be honest, absolutely hated this step as it was so slow and boring. But the results speak for themselves – the crispest of lines! A key thing is to remove the tape before the paint dries, to help keep things neat. It is an incredibly satisfying part of the process.
The final result?
Honestly – I love it. I love it because it looks good, the furniture looks uniform and it’s a long-term colour choice for the room. I love the blue, it feels very calm, and it looks beautiful at any time of day.
But there is extra magic in knowing that I did it – I have never done any DIY in my life and I am not a project kind of person, but the hours of appreciation I have got from admiring my finished work are far, far greater than if I had just hired someone to do it.
Because the chair where I feed my son is next to and opposite my painted windows, I have spent thousands of hours staring out them since my DIY makeover and it has been – jokes aside – a reminder of what I can achieve when I put my mind to it.
Colourful AND capable? That’s me and my (Resene) Moby.