The nursery is complete! It has been a labor of love for both Jack and I. He was my personal handyman for the room and I made all the design decisions. I'm just so in love with how it turned out, it really came out better than I ever could have imagined. Stayed tuned for a source list post!
Let's look back at what we started with. The old paint color choice was from the previous owners. They had interesting taste. In the four years we've lived in this house, we hadn't touched a thing is this room. In fact, that L shaped desk was left there from the previous owners. We were able to sell it on Craigslist for $100.
We ended up moving our office into another spare room, and decided to make this the nursery since it was the room closest to our room. Jack painted and installed a ceiling fan, and we had new carpet installed.
And now here it is waiting for its new occupant.
Let's take a closer look inside, shall we?
I knew from the start that I wanted to incorporate zoo animals. Particularly elephants and giraffes. That quilt on the glider was one of the first things I bought for the nursery. I wanted to use it as my inspiration for the design. It's Michael Miller's Zoology fabric in sea. I loved the combo of gray, turquoise and yellow. So I used it as my jumping off point for the start of the room.
I'm not very crafty by any means, but I had a lot of fun making some special touches for the room. I bought a sewing machine, and I sewed the turquoise elephant pillow and the yellow polka dot crib skirt. The blue crocheted blanket was handmade by my great Aunt, and the sock animals were handmade by my BFF's mom. I love all the little handmade touches in the room. It just makes it that much more personal and special.
This dresser was mine as a kid. Jack painted it white for me and we added some new hardware to it. {You can see the before photos here} My father-in-law made the safari animal treasure box {I talked about it here}.
I knew from the beginning that I wanted to do all white furniture with gray walls. And I'm happy that I went with a navy blue glider to add some contrast. The little side table will come in handy for setting my water down while I'm nursing. I also added a little basket of books under it for easy access. I plan to replace the photo in the frame with a new family photo including our newest addition to the family.
I love love LOVE the gallery wall. All the animal prints & bright colors make me happy.
Jack built the changing table using an Ana White plan, and I made the basket liners with the same fabric I used for the crib skirt. I also made the elephant tags using some little wood craft elephants found at Michael's. Jack spray painted them yellow for me and then I just hot glued some yellow ribbon to the back and tied them to the baskets. The baskets house diapers, wash cloths, baby grooming items, diaper cream, & burp cloths.
I can't wait until our little guy is here and I can replace that ultrasound photo with a newborn photo of him. The top photo in that frame is a picture of Jack as a baby and the bottom one is me as a baby. It will be interesting to see what traits he has that are Jack's and what traits resemble mine.
I sewed the curtains and bought black out curtains that are tucked behind so the room can be nice and dark for nap time. The turquoise storage cube can be pulled out and used as a foot rest while sitting in the glider.
The room didn't really have a closet. Just this alcove area that we think used to be the closet before the previous owners took it out. I decided to go with an Ikea PAX wardrobe to act as his closet. I also added a little hook next to it to hang the diaper bag on.
Here's a peek at the inside. I bought way too many hangers before I realized that there isn't a lot of boy clothing to hang. Right now just jackets are hanging up and everything else is folded in the drawers.
I loved all the forward facing book shelves I was seeing all over the interwebs, so I decided to add some in the nursery to display some of his library. My mom asked all the guests at my shower to bring their favorite children's book in lieu of a card, so this little man is set for books right now.
We picked up some books in Chinese while we were in Taiwan. Hopefully it will encourage Jack to read to him in Chinese.
I'm so in love with this nursery. I've never put so much effort into decorating one room before in my life, and I couldn't be more happy with the way it turned out. I love to just go in there and sit in the glider and just look around and dream about holding my baby boy in there. I love opening up the wardrobe and peeking at all his clothes all clean and folded waiting for him. I can't wait to meet him! I hope he doesn't leave us waiting for too much longer. :)
So, what do you think? I'm putting together a full source list to share soon, so stay tuned!
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