NURSERY UPDATE: Part II {bits and pieces}

{Note: I lost this post in yesterday’s server crash, so here we go again. Unfortunately, all your comments got deleted along with the post 🙁 But I did appreciate every single one of them!}

See NURSERY PART I HERE

As we are finishing up our work on the nursery, it’s starting to slowly dawn on us that this room will be soon occupied by a crying, cooing, pouting baby girl, our daughter!

You get caught up in building this perfect room and it takes so long, because there are so many choices and never that unlimited amount of money that we’d all like to have, that you forget why exactly you’re doing it. Crazy – we’re going to have a new human being that we created. I know it’s old news to most people, since everyone had to come to this world that way, but to me it feels like noone has ever gone through it and we are the first people on the planet to have a baby.

So at this point, every major piece of furniture has been ordered and/or delivered. Most decor items have arrived and been spray painted white. The only important piece that we don’t have is the recliner, which should arrive early January. So since the room isn’t exactly put together, I figured I’d do a detail update for you. Keep in mind, most of the shelves items are only there as placeholders right now, blinds aren’t fully installed, cords will be wrapped into a baby proof cord winder and a night table will be placed next to a chair when the chair bothers to show up.

MOBILE:

This is one of my favorite things in the room. I spent quite a bit of time looking for a perfect mobile as it can really set the mood in the room. I wanted something handmade and subtle, girly and romantic. When I found Magical Whimsy store, I knew that was it. At first, I couldn’t decide between this one in lavender and the one in the pictures below. I thought the first one would just blend into the room too much and I have a huge tendency to go too matchy-matchy, so getting a color that wasn’t lavender or yellow (two primary ones of the room) was a bit of a risk (for me). When I got the mobile, though, I instantly knew it was perfect. It’s like it was made for this room. I have to tell you, I was incredibly impressed with the quality ( I spent the next few days gushing over it). It is REALLY well made – Denise  knows what she’s doing. Check out her Magical Whimsy Etsy shop here for all kind of paper creations.

I will probably have a black and white mobile that attaches to the crib (for Alexis’s development) but to be honest I doubt she’ll be spending much time in the crib when she’s awake, so I might not even need it. But this is definitely a decorative piece that the room wouldn’t be the same without. I know where I’ll be ordering all my future mobiles ( if we have another baby).

WALL ART:

The original plan was to buy some colorful art for the walls since the rest of the room is so subtle, with walls being almost white. It would have ended up being around $350 and after some thinking (and nudging from a friend) I decided to instead see if I can find some similar pastel colors in my own photography and frame that. Eventually those will be replaced with family photos and headshots of Alexis, but for now I think it worked out pretty well.
The top shots (pictured below) were taken in spring at Universal Studios and the bottom ones on Florida and Antigua beaches.

DRESSER:

The source of our nightmares! I had a very specific image of a dresser that I wanted. I saw a picture on one of the nursery room websites and couldn’t get it out of my mind. After searching out all the online stores, I realized that a dresser like this cannot be found and similar ones are way over a thousand dollars so the only option was to buy a used one and refinish. Then I got lucky- I got REALLY lucky. A few days after I made that decision, an oak dresser popped up on craigslist. We snatched it up for $100 along with a matching nightstand (you can see the before picture here). I figured we’d refinish it ( and by we, of course, I mean hubby) and save a ton of money in the process. Well, enter the 4 weekends that I now call “I hate my wife for making me refinish this dresser”. It turns out refinishing a piece of furniture is harder than we thought. Based on all the blogs I’ve read, it seemed like these ladies would just whip a dresser into shape with no problems. That was not our case!

So let’s just say there was a lot of complaining and bitching and freaking out ( from hubby’s side- he REALLY didn’t want to refinish the damn thing) and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t go and do it myself, because the fumes are super toxic, so finally I declared the project a failure and we hired a lady to do it for us. Long story short, while I am happy with the exterior job, we ended up having to pay $500 to get it refinished (along with a nightstand), she put too light of a paint coat on the drawers and neglected to apply a polyurethane coating, which hubby still had to do himself.

In addition to that, Andrew spilled polyurethane on the carpet in the process ( yes the carpet was covered, but in the best fashion of Murphy’s law it got spilled on the only part that was NOT covered- at least that’s the story hubby tells me). He spent the next few weekends trying to clean it up and soften it with paint thinner which stunk up the room. We then had to clean the carpet with hot water extraction to get the chemicals and the smell out. So yeah I am telling you – A DISASTER! That was one of the reasons you didn’t see any updates- there was nothing to show!

However, finally, it’s all behind us and we have two {almost} perfect pieces EXACTLY the way I had them in my head. You won’t see the nightstand this time, since it was out of the room temporarily, so I didn’t take any pictures. So that’ll be for the next update along with the chair, mirror, nightlight, lamp and a few other items.

The pad on the dresser is an Organic Changing Pad from Naturepedic. Unfortunately, I won’t get to have one of those cute changing pad covers for it, unless I find a cute organic one, as well.

Because the drawers were so badly painted, I had to make a liner for each one of them, using foam boards cut to size and fabric wrapped around them and glued to the back. I’ll show more photos of that in the next update.

Above the changing pad I wanted to hang something light and pretty, and very subtle. Butterfly Mobile was cheap and perfectly inconspicuous, but a really pretty sight from Alexis’s viewpoint.

SHELVES

Here we lucked out. I had three gorgeous shelves ( in light oak again) that were gathering dust in one of the closets. They were bought on a clearance sale on homedecorators.com about 4 years ago and we never put them up because they didn’t really match our decor. Oh how glad I was we had them laying around! A coat of primer and a coat of paint and the shelves turned into the perfect princess room decor.

{Some of the items on the shelves are there as placeholders only. I will have to find and buy a few baby things to go there}

But here’s what’s going to stay for the time being.

CANVAS:

This was my first canvas purchase! I’ve always wanted to buy a canvas, but whenever I’d check the prices out, it’d be something ridiculous like $200. That’s until i found Easy Canvas Prints ( well, technically they found me)

I was offered to try out their website and canvas – Umm… YEAH!

I ordered a 16×20 photo canvas with the standard wrap (.75). I picked this photo because it almost perfectly matched the color scheme of the nursery ( the accents of yellow), plus babies love faces (especially their parents’ faces). After Lexi arrives, I’ll order a few canvas using her newborn pictures (which I cannot wait to take, btw!)

The ordering process was super easy: upload, position, pick size, order. Plus Easy Canvas Prints have promotions all the freaking time, so you can get a canvas for a really good price. I liked it so much that a week after I received this canvas, I ordered another one for our living room (using this photo). Right now they’re having a Get 20% Off + an 8?x10? Canvas Free + Free Shipping When You Spend $60 promotion that you can get by clicking on the link (the discount is automatically applied at check out).

This statue is one of the few things currently on the shelves that will actually stay there. I got it from Zulily– I think it adds some well needed color to the room. There’s also a big crown that’ll go next to it, that is currently in the process of being painted.

This frame might or might not stay, with a picture of Alexis in it. Yellow flower will probably go or get snipped a bit since our cats chewed the heck out of the fake grass  The starfish will stay and might or might not get repainted depending on what else I get for the shelves. The pink rose bouquet was something I made to be put in front of whatever picture frame we’ll hang there. I am NOT a crafty person so this and a few other things would be the extent of my craftiness. Not much to it: a few small flowers from Micheal’s, a see through rubber thin hair tie, some glitter spray and a glass jar.

CLOSET

Finally the most colorful corner of the room – the closet.

Here’s the breakdown:

1. Martha Steward Storage from HomeDecorators.com
2. Martha Steward canvas totes from Homedecorators.com
3. Bunting from Starlit Nest etsy shop
4. Cubes backing- handmade. I simply wrapped the backing in fabric and glued it together.
5. Closet door knobs: PBK

Msc items on shelves are there as placeholders.

So there you have it!

I am very happy with the direction we’re going in. I wanted something bright and light, but at the same time with lots of color. I think we’re on the right track. We still have to figure something out for bookshelves. I want a part of the bookshelf to be low enough for Alexis to grab the books on her own when she’s mobile and for book covers to be facing outwards rather than to the side, since that helps babies pick their own books and be more interested in reading.

Let me know what you think and hopefully early January you’ll get to see the room as a whole. That is if Alexis doesn’t decide to show up early.