The Nursery

August 22, 2011 at 1:26 pm | Posted in Family, Home | Leave a comment
Tags: baby, nursery, polyvore

Nursery by sweetandtart on Polyvore.com

Amazon.com: Animals Alphabet Baby Nursery Peel & Stick Wall Art…
$500 – amazon.com

Walmart.com: Dorel – Rocker Slipcover, Chocolate: Nursery
$129 – walmart.com

Is it wrong to say that one of the best parts of having a baby is getting to design and decorate the nursery?  Okay, maybe not the BEST part, but definitely a GOOD part.  LC’s nursery had to also function as a guest bedroom.  We already had a simple, low profile full-size bed and a small IKEA dresser in the room, so we mostly just needed to make room for a crib and some sort of chair.  The other issue is that our house is a rental and her room has a high vaulted ceiling and textured walls. So that meant that painting was out and the walls would stay cream/off-white.

It is so easy to spend money on baby gear, baby clothes, baby furniture, baby anything-you-name-it.  I mean, it’s for your CHILD after all.  How can you deny the best for your baby?  But alas, we had other financial priorities, so the name of the game was “Let’s Not Spend More Than We Have To.” And, I think we did a pretty good job.  Her room is not as “done” as most (any?) of the nurseries you’d see on, say, Ohdeedoh, but I love it and it’s my favorite room in the house.  The board I put together below represents most of the major pieces in the room. I did not include the guest bed and dresser.  IKEA no longer sells the dresser; I’ve had it since high school, and it’s just long enough for a changing pad.

A few things to note:

• The crib we went with is the Graco Lauren in Espresso.  Inexpensive, sturdy, converts to a toddler bed. Sold.
• I really really really really wanted a very nice rocker from The Land of Nod.  Sadly, could not justify the price.  Actually, mostly could not justify paying almost $200 for shipping. I looked everywhere for something I loved almost as much and did not find it.  So we ended up with this rocker from Walmart, of all places, and, it’s pretty good.  For the next baby, maybe we’ll live somewhere that is not the middle of nowhere and shipping costs will be more reasonable on a nicer rocker.  For now this works, and I’m glad we got it; I use it quite often.
• Perhaps you will soon notice that I love The Land of Nod!  I did splurge on crib bedding (Creatures Great and Small). I love that it’s gender-neutral enough to use if the next baby is a boy.
• We used our registry discount to get this wall-mounted bookshelf (so genius and I couldn’t find anything similar elsewhere) since we have many books and no floorspace for a regular bookshelf. [Note: like our crib bedding, it seems the price has gone up a bit since we ordered earlier in the year. Bummer!]
• For her hamper, we went with this canvas baby…inexpensive, easy to tote to the laundry room.
• I really wanted a piece of custom wall art, and what I have in my collage is NOT what we got.  I ordered this print from Etsy seller khamm75 and I love it! She was fabulous to work with.
• I also picked up a zinc letter “L” from Anthro…I ended up not hanging it up though, so it’s hanging out on the nightstand with the lamp and some books.
• Finally, my dad is a terrific artist and he is painting a series of 3 8×8 paintings to go above her crib (in progress).

I don’t have any official pictures of the nursery at the moment, but I’ll do a follow-up post soon!  My favorite parts of the nursery are the crib bedding and the custom print.

What’s your favorite part of your child’s nursery? Or what’s the best nursery-related item you’ve seen?