How much gray is too much??

Sorry, this is going to be long. Thank you to those of you that read this and comment!!

I'm not adventurous when it comes to decorating (or fashion, for that matter). We're moving next week to a new house, and I'm considering having most of the house painted different shades of gray. I like that it's a neutral, but it's not cream/tan. Really the only other colors of paint I like besides gray are blue, tan, or cream. Red is definitely out (doesn't go with anything we have), and I don't know that I've seen shades of green I'd like for a whole room. I like yellow as an accent in a room, but not as a wall color. Gray just lends itself to using any color accents in a room, which I like.

For reference, there are white baseboards everywhere and crown molding in most rooms (don't remember if it's in the bedrooms). Here are the colors in the house for now and what is potentially/definitely changing:

- basement - cream
- basement bath - currently dark brown, changing to blue
- kitchen - currently green with white cabinets, changing to a shade of gray and keeping white cabinets
- family room - cream, thinking of light gray
- living room - cream, not sure if it should change
- dining room - cream, thinking dark gray
- 1/2 bath on main floor - salmon-ish, changing to gray
- hallway on main floor and stairs up to 2nd floor - cream
- hallway on 2nd floor - cream
- 3 bedrooms are different shades of green and yellow - changing to different shades of gray
- bath upstairs - cream
- master bath - blue
- master bedroom - cream, probably staying cream for now

So, how much gray do you think is too much? If we do have the main floor painted gray, should that include the front hallway? And how far up the stairs should the gray go? Maybe just continue it and paint the upstairs hall gray, too?

Ah! Decisions!

Max's nursery

Yes, I am way behind on this. Max is 8 months old. Oh well. Better late than never, right?!

Here are a few professional pictures (by Lele Photography in St. Louis) of Max's nursery.

I took inspiration from some other blogs, but I don't have the info anymore. Sorry!

The Ferris wheel and carousel in the picture below were mine as a baby. The Ferris wheel also plays music.


A close-up of the curtains my mom made for me. We had a hard time finding the fabric. I am really picky about fabrics. My mom purchased some lining from Jo Ann's fabrics (black out) to line the curtains to help darken the room.


The lamp is from Target. My mom bought the picture frame; I think it's from Kohl's. The chifferobe (the white thing the lamp is on) was my nana's when she was little. My nana turned 81 this year, so the chifferobe is quite old! My dad and husband sanded it down and repainted it. We bought some new knobs for two reasons. 1) The old knobs were clear plastic (meant to look like glass) with a screw inside. The screw was quite darkened/rusted. It didn't look great. 2) The new knobs match well with the dresser. The small cups and silverware are also family items, and I believe they're made of silver. I think they are from when my mom was little. The photo cube was from Wal-mart, I think. I sanded it a bit and painted it. Max's footprints (from the hospital) are on the top, and there are 4 pictures of him as a newborn around the sides. Inside the box are his hospital bracelets and my hospital bracelet. We will probably add a lock of hair from his first haircut, as well as maybe his first lost tooth, when he gets older.





I love, love, LOVE this rocker/glider/recliner. It is so amazingly soft and comfortable. We take Max's picture in it every month and will do so until he is 1 year. It's amazing to see how much he has grown! Anyway, the chair is from Best Furniture in St. Louis. I love the store. They have a ton of different rockers, recliners, gliders, etc. with a lot of different fabric options. Originally we were thinking of going with gray since white would get dirty. However, it is very hard to find a gray rocker. We had something sprayed on the chair to protect it. I think it will be fine.

My mom made the crib skirt. It was very hard to find any simple gray bedding for a decent price. So, we bought a yellow fitted sheet (as well as the changing table cover) from Babies R' Us for a reasonable price. We found some gray fabric, and my mom made the crib sheet. One thing I liked about doing it this way is that we didn't waste money on bumpers that would have been used only for a couple pictures.



My sister made this print for me. I saw something similar on a random blog.



My sister also made me these prints. I saw something similar on another random blog. One print reads "J'aime ma maman," which means "I love my mom" in French. One of my bachelors degrees is in French. The other print is written in Mandarin, and it says "I love my dad." My husband is Taiwanese, so Mandarin was his first language until he moved to California when he was 3. We found the colored/printed paper at Art Mart in St. Louis.


The cute little gray shoes are from Target. My sister also made me the birth stats print. I had seen several around, but didn't want to pay a fair price for someone from Etsy to make me one. However, I do need to have my sister fix this. It has the wrong time! Oops! Max was born at 7:54 am, not 7:34 am.




I had a lot of fun planning this nursery. I was in the hospital from about 34-36 weeks, and Max was born at 37 weeks. So, the last minute things like putting the crib sheet on, etc. were completed by my mom and dad.

The shelves were added after Max was born. I'm not good at making decisions. I had thought and thought about hanging some shelves somewhere, but couldn't decide if it would look too busy. Then, I had trouble finding the right shelves. I think these are from Home Depot. The shelves couldn't be too modern, since the rest of the nursery wasn't really modern. I think the little curve on the brackets goes nicely with the curve of the chifferobe. Anyway, I think it looks great with the shelves, and that wall would have been too bare without them.

Photos of my french items... (and my cat)

I took some photos of some of my french items around my house, so I thought I would post them. There's also a few pictures of my crazy cat (Melodie). Hope you enjoy!

(Sorry for the few that aren't turned the right way. I'm still getting used to my digital camera - even though I've had it for a year now!)