Search Results for: nursery
Nursery / Process
→ Nursery / Before
→ Nursery / After
Nursery / Before
→ Nursery / Process
→ Nursery / After
the nursery
The nursery is done! Well, mostly.
Back in February, we found out we were having a girl and shared with you where the nursery would be and a sketch of a floor plan we had in mind. In March, we posted two different nursery design directions and ultimately chose the darker scheme. Since then, there’s been a lot of talk about paint colors, fabric, decor and furniture. There are a few original ideas (including the low bench/cubby and floating shelf above the dresser) that I hoped to have complete by now but they fall under the category of “hey Kyle, can you build that?” and he has been putting all of his time and energy into the basement (with a looming baby deadline, we decided it was better to divide and conquer). Besides, they’re not exactly critical elements for newborns so I don’t think she’ll notice.
All in all, I really love how the space turned out. It’s not as frilly or styled as the nurseries that permeate Pinterest and baby blogs, but it fits our style and will continue to evolve as our little one does. Admittedly, it still feels a bit empty but I imagine the guest of honor will soon change all of that. I’ve also come to the conclusion that putting together a nursery in the months leading up to one’s due date has a small functional purpose and a larger psychological purpose. For us, the room is ready and we are ready.
One reason we chose to paint the walls a dark color was to make the space feel like a cozy enclave off the main part of the house. The two large sliding doors can be easily shut for privacy and some acoustical separation.
The room had no built-in closets, so we installed a free-standing IKEA Pax wardrobe hidden by two hand-sewn(!) curtain panels on a ceiling-mounted track. A used dresser serves as a changing table and holds diapers, wipes, clothes and other frequently used baby items. In lieu of a more traditional mobile, we had the idea to hang air plants in glass vessels above the changing pad. The floating shelf mentioned earlier will eventually go to the left of the vessels.
On the opposite wall, we located the glider and ottoman, with a lamp and small side table for nursing and rocking. The side table will eventually be replaced with the cubby/bench that will extend the full length of the window and serve as book and toy storage.
The yellow stool is hanging out in this corner temporarily, but it’s already come in handy to reach things at the top of the wardrobe so maybe it will stay.
I’d been looking for a way to use these West Elm glass vessels and a new interpretation of the mobile seemed like a good opportunity. The delicate air plants add some greenery and a nice compositional element to this wall. [Note: the vessels were hung at a height that should avoid head-bonking during late night changes. As with everything else, if it doesn’t work for some reason, we’ll change it.]
Aside from the dresser, the wardrobe currently holds all the baby gear we own. I know things will shift around as the room evolves, but I feel good about the amount of storage we have and the potential to modify the interior fittings as our needs change. [I know, I know…once toys come into the picture things will be drastically different, but we have some ideas for that already.]
True, I may not be reading Wuthering Heights aloud anytime soon, but I love the redesign of the Penguin Classics books and have long thought about building a collection for our daughter to read. Also, I like the idea of including elements in her room that she can grow into or look forward to. [These will likely not stay on the dresser, but it was fun to arrange a few items for the photos.]
The dresser is just deep enough for the changing pad (which is fastened to the back of the dresser by two small straps). I splurged on a Simple Human slim trash can for diapers, rationalizing that I could also use it with a wet bag liner for cloth diapers down the road.
The photograph above used to sit on the picture rail in the dining area, but after we found out we were having a girl it seemed like a no-brainer to move it into the nursery. The photo (taken in 1920 or so) shows five generations of women in my family. The baby is my grandmother and the woman holding her is my great-great-great-great grandmother! The same photograph hung on the stairwell of the house I grew up in and I always loved looking at it and imagining the lives these women had. After our little girl is here, we plan on taking another photo with my mom, me and the baby to carry on the tradition. The squirrel coat hook is just for fun. We’re still not sure what will hang from it, but it’s playful and cute and Kyle and I have an odd history with squirrels (like when a pack of them nearly tried to attack Kyle as he was proposing to me years ago).
We have been fortunate to receive several homemade gifts for our little girl. This is Hazel the hippo and was a gift from a friend/co-worker. It’s modeled after the stuffed hippo she carried everywhere as a child and has become her go-to baby gift. Of course, the colors coordinate with our nursery. Of course.
Due to safety concerns, cribs are fairly minimal these days. But that’s ok. I like the simple and under-stated appearance of our IKEA Gulliver crib. I’m sure she’ll add her own accessories as she gets bigger.
Finally, to visually fill in the space to the left of the crib, we framed and hung this sweet and modern fairy tale print next to baby photos of us.
We generally don’t include cost breakdowns for our projects but I thought it might be helpful to list specific info and general prices. It always feels like cheating a little bit if I don’t include prices for things that weren’t purchased specifically for the nursery, but then it’s a matter of where to draw the line – do I include the flooring? The insulation? The windows? Going into this project, we tried to limit both the amount of money spent and amount of “baby stuff”, giving priority to simple yet quality pieces that we’ll hold onto for many years.
Glider + ottoman: Land of Nod Monte Luca in charcoal (ottoman, $385 and glider, $995. The glider was a gift from my siblings, but we also took advantage of a 20% off sale.)
Crib: IKEA Gulliver in birch, $129
Crib mattress: Naturepedic ($260) and Aden+Anais sheet ($30, both gifts)
Wardrobe: IKEA Pax (already owned)
Curtain track: IKEA Kvartal, $20
Curtain fabric: Texas Susannie Fabrics, $60
Dresser: Craigslist ($100) with white plastic laminate at about ($30) plus yellow paint (already owned BM in “luminous days”)
Changing pad: Naturepedic ($100, gift) and yellow cover, $3 (consignment sale)
Small lamp: “vintage” IKEA (already owned)
Yellow stool: IKEA (already owned and painted in BM’s “luminous days”)
Side table: “vintage” IKEA (already owned)
Lamp: IKEA (already owned) plus new IKEA shade, $10
Chevron rug: West Elm (already owned)
Hanging vessels: West Elm, $43 (used gift card)
Air plants: Air Plant Supply Co., $30
Squirrel Coat Hook: Land of Nod, $29
Frames: IKEA Ribba, $15
Christian Jackson “Princess and the Pea” print: Imagekind, $32
Roller shades: The Shade Store (already owned)
Fan/light combo: Modern Fan Co. (already owned)
Paint: Benjamin Moore Natura in “Baby Seal Black”, about $40
So there you have it – a sweet and sophisticated room for our little girl. Can’t wait to show it to her.
zerbebe nursery: dresser + curtains
With six weeks (+/-) to go, we’re continuing to make slow and steady progress in the nursery. Although the initial focus was on an overall concept and colors, I find I’m now splitting my time between the design of the space and making sure we have certain essential accessories – like a carseat and diapers. (Good news, we do!)
So let’s go back to the fun design stuff. A few months ago, we picked up this dresser on Craigslist for a hundred bucks. It was in decent shape, but in need of some TLC.
First we hauled it to the backyard where we vacuumed it out and removed the paper drawer liners.
Next, Kyle gave the wood a good drink of Howard “Restor-A-Finish” that we had leftover from another project. (I later followed up with a healthy dose of Howard Feed-N-Wax for a little extra luster.)
The dresser is all wood with the exception of a not-so-sweet plastic laminate top.
So what does one do with worn-out faux wood grain p-lam? Cover it with better p-lam!
Similar to our stair cabinet/fauxdenza, we used an economical white plastic laminate for a clean and simple look.
After applying contact cement to both surfaces, Kyle laid the oversized piece of laminate on top of the dresser and used a roller to ensure it was fully adhered.
Once the cement had dried, he used a router bit specifically designed for cutting plastic laminate to trim the edges.
After the laminate was trimmed, he used a fine grit sandpaper to smooth the edges and rub off any residual contact cement that had gummed up at the seams.
Even though we let it air out for a while, the dresser still had a funky odor to it (probably a combination of cigarette smoke and general old age). To help get rid of the funk, I sprayed everything down with a mixture of vinegar and water. After it dried, I sprinkled baking soda in the drawers and dresser cavity and let it sit for a few hours before vacuuming it out. Big improvement and super cheap solution. Love that.
She still has a few scuffs and dings but we’re calling it patina. The dresser isn’t exactly an heirloom piece, so we felt our minimal restoration efforts were justified.
The inside faces of the drawers were bare wood, so as a final step I wanted to do something to clean them up a bit and add a little whimsy to the piece (especially after my idea to paint just the legs and trestle got vetoed). I thought about fabric or paper drawer liners, but instead decided to use some yellow semi-gloss paint (BM”s Natura in “luminous days”) that we had leftover from the kitchen window jamb. I brushed on two coats for each drawer while watching documentaries on Netflix. It’s a subtle effect, but I’m happy with how it turned out.
While painting and catching up on Cold War America, I also washed all the baby stuff. I always thought this step would feel like a huge milestone, but really it was just 2-3 loads of laundry. It was fun to organize everything and tuck it away in the freshly painted drawers though. I’m not sure if there’s a proper way to organize baby clothes, but I decided to allocate one drawer for 0-3 months, one for 3-6 and one for 6+ months. The drawers are actually just the right size for tiny human clothing.
With the exception of a few weak moments and well-marketed sales at Baby Gap, almost everything was purchased at consignment or garage sales. I’m actually really looking forward to shopping for cute little girls clothes down the road, but for now I’m focused on the more important items…
…like diapers. I was starting to get a little nervous that we didn’t have a single diaper, so I ordered enough for at least the first couple of weeks (the rest are stored at the top of the wardrobe). The plan is still to cloth diaper, but we’re starting out with disposables until she’s a bit bigger and we have the whole parenting thing under control.
In other nursery news, I finally mustered the courage to tackle the wardrobe curtains last weekend.
Using this Brett Bara post from DesignSponge as a guide, I took a deep breath and got to work. The last time I really “sewed” was 6th grade and it was a square pillow with teddy bears on it. After an hour or so of prepping the fabric and re-threading the machine, I cautiously put my foot on the pedal. Although hemming curtains isn’t exactly complicated, I did struggle a bit with feeding such a large piece of fabric through the machine while trying to maintain a straight line. They are not perfect, but I’m pleased with the results.
The ceiling-mounted track is from the IKEA Kvartal line. We bought two tracks that are joined in the middle and leave an inch or so on each to feed the curtains through. The ceiling in this room is drywall over lathe and plaster, but we went ahead and located the mounting hardware on a joist line just to be safe. Because the nursery (and this wall in particular) is highly visible from the living room and entry, my initial thought was to install a full-width track and a series of 3 panels so that we could quickly screen off the inevitable clutter that would be generated in this zone. I also wanted the wardrobe to feel less like a free-standing piece and more integrated into the room and thought something more cohesive would help in that department. But after sewing and installing the first two panels (a feat which took almost 6 hours, including all the set-up), I started to change my mind. Compositionally, I still like that the track extends the full width, but feel less strongly about the idea of curtains extending from wall to wall as well.
But back to the actual curtain construction. The track itself is a simple aluminum bar with a recessed channel on top and bottom. The bottom channel has a track that accepts the matching plastic rollers which attach to a length of gathering tape that I sewed to the top of each panel.
I even made sure that the chevron pattern would match at the seam between the two panels. I’m not sure how critical this step was, but I think Martha Stewart would be proud.
Overall, I’m calling them a success. I had also planned on tackling the roman shades last weekend, but after spending a whole afternoon making the curtains my motivation was zapped. My mom also reminded me that newborns do no require black-out shades, so I have a feeling that project will go to the bottom of the list for now.
As the nursery comes together we’ve also received more baby gifts and it’s been fun to find a home for everything. Right now, we have more space than we need and I think that’s probably a good thing.
My mom also sent us 3(!) more baby quilts. She made the one on the right out of scrap fabric before I even picked out the coral chevron pattern.
Mother-daughter ESP, it’s a real thing.
While taking photos of the nursery today I glanced over at my pile of reading material (someone’s gotta break in the glider) and laughed to myself. A little random, but reflective of where my mind is these days.
As per usual, Bailey did his best to photobomb several of my shots.
I may not remember all the hunger cues that newborns communicate to their parents, but this is definitely Bailey’s. Of course, it’s two hours before dinner time but he knows he’s charming and that I might succumb.
(I did.)
zerbebe nursery: fabric, accessories and baby photos
Wow, I never thought picking out fabric would be so hard. Disappointed with the selection at my local fabric stores, I went back online last weekend and scoured the interwebs, pinning ideas as I went. After revisiting the yellow and white chevron fabric that I had in our initial design board and this post, I discovered that the pattern was also available in coral and white. I’ve always been resistant to pink (maybe because I look terrible in that color?), but coral is sorta like pink’s more sophisticated cousin and a color we talked about using from the get-go (Kyle actually suggested painting the two big sliding doors coral, to which I said “hell no”). To be honest, despite that ambiguous reference in our design boards, I didn’t really have a plan for how we would incorporate a more feminine color in the space. So at the last-minute I decided to get all crazy and order the coral chevron fabric.
The fabric came from Texas Susannie’s, an online shop that was recommended by a few readers and had the best pricing I could find. The fabric is a heavier weight, so I think it will work well for the wardrobe curtains. Curious to see how it would match with the wall color, I took it out of the packaging and awkwardly hoisted it up over the wardrobe.
I held my breath as I stepped back to evaluate, but y’know…I actually really like it. It’s fun and girly but also modern and hey – there is a PATTERN in our house. This is progress!
About 20 minutes later, as Kyle was coming up from the basement I called him in for his opinion. His response: “oh yeah, already saw your tweet”. Trumped by social media yet again!
After the mutual thumbs-up, I cut the fabric into 3 equal lengths then washed and dried it to take care of any unwanted shrinkage. Next weekend, I sew. (I purchased an IKEA KVARTAL curtain track and coordinating RIKTIG gathering tape that will be sewn to the top of the curtain panels.)
For the roman shades, I bought some dark blue-gray felt, but wasn’t really feeling it. On my trip to IKEA last weekend, I picked up some simple blue-gray curtains that are a nearly perfect match to the wall color. I’ve got some ideas on how I can convert them to roman shades, possibly using the same hardware from our IKEA shades that we bought 8 years ago.
Before the big concrete pour last weekend, I drove down to South Seattle to pick up the glider and ottoman (which we ordered through Land of Nod). We went with the charcoal color which I thought might clash with the walls but now think it works just fine. The chair is really comfortable and I’m glad Kyle talked me into the matching ottoman (which also glides). In fact, I’ve already spent a few early mornings in that chair, thinking about how our lives are going to change in just 8 short weeks (+/-)…and wondering if we are really going to finish all these projects in time.
The floor lamp is IKEA (purchased last year), but previously had a larger diameter brown shade. I wanted something visually lighter so picked up this one at my favorite Swedish superstore. It’s a bit smaller than the one intended for it, but the scale feels appropriate for the space. The little side table was my very first IKEA purchase (ordered over the phone and shipped freight because the closest IKEA to Oklahoma was in Chicago) and has probably lived in every room of our house by now. It will eventually get replaced with the bench/cubby that Kyle is going to build.
I’ve also been collecting a few things for the walls and future shelving. It may not all make sense just yet…but it will (I hope!). In the realm of “artwork”, we’ve also been talking about framing a few baby photos of us for the space. It’s not the most original idea, but I think it would be fun to see how she resembles us as a newborn and as she gets older.
When Kyle and I were planning our wedding, we had our parents send us baby/kid photos that we used as table centerpieces (after converting them to sepia tone to keep things classy of course) and later put into a photo album for our parents. Since Kyle is only two years older than me and we both grew up in Oklahoma, it was fun to see the parallels in our childhoods and pair similar photos together. For this round, I asked Kyle’s mom to send us some more baby pictures of him. I spent some time this weekend scanning, photoshopping and analyzing. I’m not sure which ones we’ll go with yet, but it’s been fun to imagine what zerbebe will look like:
We both started out as fairly normal looking babies. I think Kyle might be wearing a baby leisure suit here?
As we got a little older our personalities started to come out. (Most of Kyle’s shirt was cropped out of the photo, but I’m guessing it says, “move over world, here I come”. His mom had a good sense of humor.)
People also frequently ask us if we think she’ll be a redhead. I think the chances are pretty slim, especially since I am the only one in my family. Being realistic about genetics and not wanting to get my hopes up, I’ve been imagining that she’d have dark hair like Kyle’s, but now I’m thinking she might start out blond. As for eyes, mine are green and Kyle’s blue so who knows how that will shake out.
Maybe we were typical babies, but we actually seem to have similar features here. Is baby Kyle not the cutest? You want to pinch those little cheeks, don’t you?
I love the foreshadowing in this one – Kyle moving dirt around and me in my “house wrecker” t-shirt (though taken in a completely literal sense of course – as in, actually tearing apart our house).
We also went out in costume from time to time. This is one of my favorite photos of Kyle. Most adorable little brown bear ever.
Finally, we seem to have developed a certain sense of style early on. Kyle in his rainbow belt, me in my patchwork pants.
One thing’s for sure, our kid is going to have some crazy and out-of-control hair. I can’t wait.
