Nursery Reveal

Ok, the time is here! Here are the pictures of the finished nursery! (Ok, “Phase 1″ finished… but still…)

I wanted to create a bright and cheerful room that could work for either a boy or a girl. I didn’t want it to be “themey” but rather based around color, so I found some fabric that I based the whole room around. We ended up using this fabric for the curtains.

I loved the greens and blues in it. The curtains were made by my mother-in-law and have a band of turquoise at the bottom. There are a lot of windows in the room and it required a lot of fabric.

We picked a nice cheery yellow for the walls – Glidden’s Buttercup, color-matched to Benjamin Moore paint (the only paint my husband thinks is worth anything…) and used some of Behr’s Bamboo Leaf and Peacock Feather for other accents in the room (we’ll get to those later).

We bought the bamboo roman shades at Home Depot and cut them to the width of the windows. We can never find exact matches for the old windows in our house and these shades are easy to cut to size.

We found both the sofa and the ottoman on Craigslist. The pillows are from Target (green & blue), Pier One (yellow) and the bigger quilted ones were made by my mother and my cousin.

The quilted pillow uses some of the curtain fabric

I found the side table on Craigslist and it was already refinished with dark turquoise legs! I didn’t have to do a thing to it! The green table lamp is from Target.

The crib is the Sundvik crib from IKEA. White and simple and inexpensive. We opted for simple white mesh breathable bumpers and rotate pale green, blue and yellow crib sheets from Target.

My mother sewed the crib skirt, from a coordinating fabric in the same line as the curtain fabric:

The art over the crib on the long window wall was a gift from my mother-in-law. It’s from Petit Collage, and while I’m not sure where she bought those, I know you can find it on Etsy. The other art is the cross-stitch birth announcement lovingly made by my mother. She’s been making cross-stitch birth announcements for years for numerous friends and family and I gave her a challenge with this one. I think a lot of child-oriented cross-stitch design is too overly sentimental or kitschy, so I found a neat Etsy shop that sells simple graphic bird and animal cross-stitch patterns and together we came up with a design combining several of the patterns and using the colors of the room.

We found the glider on Craigslist too – and I’m still considering recovering it, as the gray is the only gray in the room. Haven’t quite decided what to do yet. The teal blanket was crocheted by a co-worker of mine, who had absolutely NO idea that the color fits PERFECTLY in the room. We love it.

The mobile was a gift from my mother-in-law. She bought it at a local art gallery.

The tiny little rocking chair was my sisters’ and mine when we were little. I can’t wait for Marc to be old enough to sit in it!

I painted the backs of the cubbies with the Peacock feather color and some of the cubbies hold Marc’s amazing, growing library and some others have some awesome storage bins from Target. The top one holds keepsakes – his baptismal candle, several outfits I want to save – the middle one holds receiving blankets and burp cloths and the bottom one holds toys.

We took the door off of the closet and I sewed (with help from my mother-in-law!) the curtain to cover the door. It’s made from this fabric:

The dresser/changing table was one more Craigslist find and was a beat up old brown dresser with ugly handles and cracked drawer bottoms. My dad sanded and primed the dresser and I painted it with the Bamboo Leaf color and then the drawers with a gradation in color (we added varying amounts of white to the base color to get the other colors) to create a cool ombre effect. Kelly replaced the drawer bottoms and refaced the insides of the drawers. I love the way it looks, though, it’s an old dresser and has the quirks and stickiness of an old dresser.

I found some old baskets lying around the house and have all of Marc’s cloth diapers and liners stacked up in them and easily accessible.

I think the art wall is pretty fun and features a lot of my DIY projects. I found the mirror at a local thrift store. It was plastic and and ugly dark green. I painted it turquoise, as you can see. I also painted the wooden letters on the shelf and decoupaged the scrapbook paper on the M hanging on the wall. The art is from Etsy, mainly. The “Let the Wild Rumpus Start!” from “Where the Wild Things Are” quote is from rawartletterpress, the airplane is from UrbanTickle (it says “I hope that even the sky is not the limit for you”) and the M is for Monkey is from SeaUrchinStudio. The cross was from Marc’s godparents on the occasion of his baptism. The other painting on the shelf was painted in 1999 by my flatmate when I was living overseas in Croatia. It’s a simple painting of the Croatian coastline and the colors work perfectly in the room!

You can see the door wall here, where we painted the chalkboard door and where we do Marc’s monthly picture taking.

I painted an old coat hook rack that was originally in the room hanging on the door with the blue paint and when Marc’s old enough, he can hang his coats there. Right now I’ve got a few sentimental pieces of clothing hanging on it. The purple outfit was knitted by Marc’s godmother after I complained about how all the purple clothes were on the girls’ side of the store. Boys can wear purple! The red sweater was knitted by his godfather. It’s a gorgeous Scandinavian design and has a hat, mittens and socks that go along with it. He wore the sweater on his baptism day. The lion outfit belonged to Marc’s uncle – his namesake – when he was an infant in the 60s.

I stretched this Amy Butler fabric over some wood to create art on the wall next to the door:

Now, you’re probably wondering what the heck is with the other wall in the room and why there are no pictures of it yet! Well, that’s because it’s the part of the room that’s not finished yet and won’t be until Phase 2 – or possibly Phase 3. But, just so you can see it, here it is:

Sad, I know. That green and blue bunting was actually the original inspiration for the room. It hung at our wedding and gave me the idea to do a room using green and blue. When this wall is finished, it will most likely still hang there, just over the wall of built-in cabinets that we are planning.

Right now this wall houses the wet diaper pail (that door is the door to the bathroom where we rinse out Marc’s cloth diapers so it’s very handy to have the pail right there) and a few of Marc’s bigger toys.

Oh, I just realized here that you can see the carpet that we have in the room in this picture – we chose teal carpet tiles from Flor. We ended up not making a full 8×10 rug out of them – I think Kelly wanted to show off more of the gleaming hardwood floors he worked so hard on!

By the way, that cradle was made by my father for my sister when she was a baby! Now it is holding Roar Bear (my teddy bear as a child) and Marc’s special Peter Rabbit (made by my mother for my little sister) and a sock monkey.

So, that’s the nursery. I’m absolutely in love with this room. It’s my favorite place in the whole house. It’s so bright and cheerful and happy and I think it reflects Marc’s happy little personality.

What do you think?

Bright and cheery room!

Happy little boy!



7 Responses to “Nursery Reveal”

  • Linda @ it all started with paint Says:

    What a special place for a special little boy! Love the fabrics and color combination.

    And can I ask … what did you use to cut the Home Depot bamboo shades to size? I’m having a similar issue …

    :)

    Linda

  • Ellen Says:

    Hi Linda,

    Thanks for your kind words!

    My husband used a compound mitre saw, but he says any kind of a chop saw or compound mitre saw would do – where the saw itself is on an arm – not a hand-held power saw, it could skip around and could be dangerous. And wear eye-protection, the little bits of bamboo went flying everywhere.

    He had the shade rolled up to cut the ends. He used a 10 inch blade, but said a 12 inch blade would have been better for us – we had a 84 inch long shade, so it was pretty thick all rolled up. So it may depend on how long your shades are.

  • Rachel M Says:

    I really love your drapes! I love what they do to a room. You did such a great job with the space. So many special touches:)

  • tahira Says:

    Hi! what a gorgeous nursery! i just assembled the Sundvik crib from IKEA and love it as i have a small nursery! I wanted to ask, how did you attach the crib skirt? The board for under the mattress is very secure and tight to the edge of the crib on all 4 sides did you pull it through such a tight space? I’m hoping I can achieve putting the skirt on without having to dissasemble that bottom board to attach! thanks for your help!!! love your mobile too!! tahira

    • Ellen Says:

      Hi Tahira,

      We basically just stuck the skirt on underneath the mattress and the sides were able to come out. My mother made the skirt, without ever seeing the crib, so in the end we couldn’t use the end panels, but just tucked them underneath the mattress. I hope that makes sense! When we lowered the crib we ended up taking the skirt off. I’ve got to figure out how to get it back on again!

  • Jenny Says:

    Hi there, I have the same crib as you but in grey. How did you attach the bumpers? It didn’t dawn on me until after I purchased it that bumpers may not work as intended.
    Thanks!!!

  • Lauren Says:

    Hi there,

    I came across your blog while searching for “sundvik crib skirt.” I would like to make my own & was wondering what the drop length is when the crib is in lowest setting. If you get a chance could you let me know?

    Thank you,
    Lauren

Leave a Reply