The Nursery!

Since I won't get the chance again, I'm going to take this time to have a little pride-fest about the nursery. Complete with before-and-after pics and everything. I'm so excited, and I know you are too!

Step one: this was the nursery before we moved in.

I don't appear to have a picture of it after we moved in and before it became the nursery. Pooh. Oh well.  It used to be my office/guest room. Mostly guest room, since I rarely did actual work in there.  Imagine it with a massive dresser against the wall where the bed is, a desk to the left, lots of plants, and a futon couch under the window, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what it looked like.  But when we moved into this house, it was with the plan that it would eventually be converted to the nursery. The other bedrooms in the house being occupied, respectively, as the master, E's room, and the Man Cave, you see. We love this room's architectural details (the ceiling), how much light comes in through that huge window (which you'll see later), and the two huge closets that are on the wall to the right.  It was pretty much already the most peaceful room in the house.

Step two: inspiration. If you're my Pinterest friend/follower (makes you sound like a disciple or something), you've seen all the nursery pictures I've posted. In actuality, I drew direct inspiration from very few of them.  In general, I just wanted to figure out what the feel of the nursery should be, not the actual look. I considered doing a theme, but all of the themes I liked seemed overdone, so I couldn't commit.

There was one thing already set in stone about the room: the dresser. It's massive and dark and it properly belongs with our master bedroom furniture, but our room was much larger when we bought the set than it is now. Hence, the dresser was relocated to the guest room/office/nursery, and it was NOT an option to move it anywhere else. So, because it is such an impressive piece, I kind of had to plan my other furniture choices around it. Luckily, another furniture piece in the room gave some guidance. The little plant table (you can see it on the very right in the finished pictures) had already been forcibly colorized a few years ago when I couldn't handle its inherent ugliness anymore and my beloved husband had obligingly spray-painted it white. Believe me, it looks much better this way. So I planned for the rest of the furniture to also be white. I had considered asking my poor husband to paint the room (and he offered to several times), but I couldn't think of any color I actually wanted more, so he dodged that bullet.

The first thing I actually purchased for the nursery was this Humpty Dumpty wall thingy. Found it at a thrift store and fell in love with its little $6 self. I guess you could say this was the real jumping off point for the entire room.  Especially with my next thrift store find: this little wooden bunny. It cost about $3, I think. I loved its simple, old-fashioned charm.

With these two items, I had a theme developing regardless of my original intentions. And it was definitely a vintage theme. Which was rather solidified by the next purchase: the curtains. I looked at every set of nursery curtains that Amazon had available and was not inspired by any of them. Luckily, at yet another thrift store visit, I came across these pink, super-frilly curtains (you can see the edge in the bunny picture).  I'd like to think they look perfect, but it was not so obvious in the cold, impersonal light of thrift-store fluorescent bulbs.  It took some serious vision to see these as nursery curtains, because I'm absolutely positive that they came out of some little old lady's best drawing room, and I can imagine the entire room down to the gold tassels on her lampshades. I'm not sure how she was able to part with them (death? How morbid...), but regardless, they landed on a thrift store rack and cost me $20 for the set. My husband was appalled by them, and wouldn't agree to their purchase, but I bought them anyway, and now he admits I was right (of course ;-)).

Next step: wall art. I already had the Humpty Dumpty canvas, but clearly the room was begging for matching art on either side of the window, and I only had one of the aforementioned canvases. Back to the thrift store I went, and found these.

The Degas print was an obvious choice (I freaking love to dance) and the other just had something nostalgic and sisterly about it that appealed to me. (My mom noted that it is reminiscent of Little Women.) The frames were not even close in size, and hideous, to boot. Again, gotta work that thrift store vision. They cost me maybe $15 for both, and I spent another $3 on this ugly thing ---->, just to get a frame that was close to the right size.  My helpful husband did some spray-paint magic on both the frames and the mats, and I did some transplant surgery, and behold (you'll have to wait for the end, and technically, you can't really see the pictures up close. You get the idea, though...)

The next project I took on was inspired by my little sister. She mentioned that she had made a lampshade out of coffee filters and waxed poetic over how beautiful it was and what an easy project it had been.  These lampshades are inherently frilly/girly, and what better place for one than a baby girl's nursery? Some Googling revealed instructions, and after purchasing a gross, stained lampshade (at...you guessed it...a thrift store) for $2 and spending another $2 on coffee filters, I spent an hour's work and this lovely confection was soon adorning my husband's very manly arm.

The actual lamp took a lot longer to find, but perseverance paid off, and this brassy beauty (at a comparatively hefty $8) eventually caught my eye. I considered painting it white, but I think it plays well into the whole vintage thing as-is. Incidentally, if you want a lampshade to experiment on, I now have an extra one lying in my craft box...

We originally needed somewhere to put said lamp, so we transported a bookcase out of the Man Cave into the nursery. It's one of those $15 bookcases from Walmart. Originally, it was honey-colored. D spray-painted it with much difficulty, since the material isn't really made to be spray-painted. Only after it was complete, and I was filling it with what child-friendly books my son wasn't interested in (and yes, we have a huge kids' library), did I realize that E has a white bookcase that is the same size in his bedroom.  We both felt rather sheepish. Regardless, it turned out okay.

Rearranging those books led me to yet another idea. I went through the house and removed the jackets from various hardcover novels and stacked them (artistically, of course) on the windowsill. The addition of some little statues that had been gifted to me at various times over the years tied in wonderfully. See that bunny picture for what I'm talking about.

Pinterest led to the next project with this little gem.  The idea of having family members contribute fabric was so great, and the look tied in so well with everything else that I just had to do it.  So I went to Hobby Lobby to look for an embroidery hoop, saw the price of $15 for the smallest one and almost had a stroke.  Ebay had better offerings, but not much. Luckily, I live in a city with a plethora of thrift stores.  It took me probably 7 or 8 trips to various places to gather all of them. The smallest was about 50 cents and the largest was $3. I also managed to find one in one of those catch-all craft bags that some thrift stores will put together, just in case you're ever looking for your own embroidery hoops. I ended up with a bunch of random buttons and thread, zippers and lace bits, but since that whole bag was $8, I count it worth it. These are two of the ugliest ones I found...

My godmother, another aunt, and my mom contributed the fabric pieces that you can see in the finished pictures, and I didn't glue any of the fabric down, so it's easily interchangeable should the need arise.   One semi-secret, here: the empty nails are for the name.  No, I'm not telling.  But we took a piece of acrylic to an awesome place here in town, and cut the name out in a font that we picked, and thanks to the generosity of friends who let us use their membership there, we only paid for the acrylic.

The biggest project overall was: the rug. I couldn't find anything that I liked that was in the right price range (read: cheap), so I turned to Pinterest and found this almost immediately. I do not recommend taking this on unless you have lots of time and an incredible amount of patience. I have neither.  Thank goodness for my wonderful mother, who devoted hours and hours of her time to finish it when I confessed myself spent when it was less than halfway done.  As far as cost breakdown, I spent about $30 on the latch-hook backing at Hobby Lobby, $20 on 2 sets of thrifted t-shirt sheets, $15 on dye and binding. It turned out beautifully, but OMG it was a lot more work than I had anticipated. I took the original pictures with our transplanted living room rug in place, so look at the later ones for the actual rug.

I originally was planning on using an oversized reclining armchair from the Man Cave in the nursery, but my mother strongly suggested I find a rocker/glider. To prevent her from just going out and buying one, I started shopping. After pricing the cheapest ones I could find on Amazon and Walmart, I shuddered with horror and turned to the used section of the Internet to find one. Nothing turned up at first, so we went a-thrifting. I was looking for a wooden one with cushions, intending to paint it white and DIY some new cushions.  D turned up his nose at the shoddy craftsmanship of the ones we found, or we both agreed that the prices were too high for something we'd basically have to completely redo. My husband also threw a wrench into the works when we went window shopping at a baby store, he test-rocked some gliders and decided we had to have the gliding stool to go with.  Thankfully, we eventually found a listing on Craigslist for a glider and stool for $25. We hotfooted our way to the seller's apartment, and not only was the glider in great shape, but the owner was a non-smoker, and gave us a bunch of other baby items for free. I considered covering the existing cushions, but as you have read, I had taken on way more than I could handle with the rug project already, and the cushions are neutral anyway.

My sister gifted me with the lovely changing table you can see in the corner. It originally lived on Craigslist, but with a little DIY magic, she and our father beat it into the gorgeous form it now has (the DIY gene runs in our family, you see).  She saved us from having to use our dresser as a changing table (which was really too tall for the purpose, but we were willing to put up with the inconvenience). We bought some Wal-Mart fabric bins for under the changing table for about $6 a pop to hold diapers and other sundry items.

The crib came from Amazon. It's beautiful, no? I was nervous about purchasing it unseen, but it's soooo much sturdier than I expected (and sturdier than E's crib, which is saying a lot, considering that crib managed to last until he outgrew it and I gave it away), was easy to put together, and shipped really quickly.  It's just so elegant, I almost can't handle it.  It's the only item in the nursery that was bought brand-new for the purpose of being in the nursery...*

The draped fabric was actually my husband's idea. I was dissatisfied with the way the crib space looked even with the embroidery hoops and he suggested the whole thing. He wanted "something princess-like" (he's spoiling her before she's even born!). The things holding the fabric to the ceiling are curtain tie-backs from Pottery Barn that I found at a consignment sale for $3. The fabric is held to the wall with Mardi Gras beads and pushpins. Seriously.

Last, but not least, the pompoms were made by one of my best friends for my baby shower. I collected them afterwards and distributed them as seen below. I love them!

So there you have it, an overly-wordy celebration of my baby girl's room. And here's the finished product:

 My phone can take panorama pics, but it didn't like the lighting...

 There's that massive dresser I was telling you about, along with the finished coffee-filter lamp!

 My comfy glider, the bookcase-we-didn't-have-to-paint, my hardcover novel vignettes.

 The finished flokati rug! Thanks, Mom! And both pictures on the wall.

The lighting in this one is so much prettier. And you can see how the fabric is attached to the wall here.



*Ah! I can't take it! I have to say that I only paid $45 for it because of a gift certificate I randomly won! I'm so cheap, I can't pay full price for anything...