I've been meaning to do a picture tour of Ethan's nursery for a while, but have been a little preoccupied these past couple months (I wonder why??) and am just now getting around to it.
Thankfully, we had all of the essentials in place prior to Ethan's arrival, so even with him coming so early, we were ready.
Soon after we found I was pregnant, we decided to paint and put in new carpet. The carpet wasn't in great shape when we bought the house and a couple of dog accidents made it necessary, and we wanted to get it done early. Since we were planning to paint the entire room, Jake got that done first so that he didn't have to worry about getting paint on the new carpet. We went with a soft grey on 3 of the walls and a beautiful teal color on the 4th wall as an accent color. This is also the wall that the crib is on. I originally had planned to do teal if it was a boy, and lavender if it was a girl, but the more I thought about it the more I realized I really just wanted teal and didn't want lavender at all, which had nothing to do with whether or not we were having a girl. So teal it is. I love, love, love the color we chose and am so glad that's what we decided to go with.
The carpet we went with is a grey blend and it is so soft and plush. It's just a mid-level Home Depot brand, but we got a really good pad to go underneath (made from recycled Nike shoes), which made a huge difference. I only wish we'd had it in the budget to re-carpet the whole house!
Now that the bones of the room were set, it was time for furniture. My parents very graciously gifted us the crib, which we ordered in white. The nursery is not a very big room, so we chose to do white furniture to help keep the room looking open and bright.
Our dresser was another gift-from a local radio station. We entered a photo contest in the fall and won! All we had to do was submit a picture with a pumpkin and get people to vote for ours. As a prize, we won a nice gift card to a local baby boutique, Suite Dreams, and a little extra cash. On top of that, the boutique had a grand reopening sale where they gave out $25 gift cards to the first 50 customers, and offered 15% off store wide. I was able to find a dresser that was the exact style I was looking for-on clearance-and walked out with it paying only $37. What a steal!
Even though Ethan’s room is on the smaller side, I think we’ve done a pretty good job of keeping it bright and open feeling. There’s plenty of room for his everything and I don’t feel cramped when I’m in there. There’s even enough room on the carpet in front of his crib for him to play!
Until next time,
Just before Ethan was born I finally had the chance to complete the crib skirt-a project I had been wanting to do for months, but never had the time (or fabric) to get it done. I finished it the weekend before Ethan was born. Oddly enough, I had quipped that I should have waited to work on it until the next weekend when Jake was supposed to be in Vegas, so I'd have something to do while he was gone. I'm glad that I didn't wait!
For my birthday, Jake's parents gave me the rocker I had my eye on. I wasn't sure at first if I really needed a rocker in the nursery, or if one would even fit, but this one is perfect. I use it every night now that Ethan is fully transitioned to his crib at night. It's comfortable, narrow enough to fit in the space that we had for it, and I just love the chevron pattern. Even better, it has pockets on the side to hold books, burp clothes, nursing pads, or whatever else I might need.
After my baby showers, we were able to put the finishing touches on the decorations.
On his changing table, we have an organizer which holds his diapers, wipes, butt paste, hand sanitizer, bulb syringe, and thermometer. We also have his Vikings pillow-pet night light that casts stars and the Viking's V on the ceiling in varying colors. We turn it on every night just before bed.
Above the changing table is a floating shelf that holds his piggy bank, my favorite picture of him from the NICU, his board books, and wooden blocks spelling out his name. We also have a beautiful word collage that was given to us by 2 of my coworkers.
On the right side of the window, we installed 2 gutter shelves from Target to hold his books. They're not very deep, so they don't hold a lot of books, but I like the look of them. We made sure to hang them somewhat high so that when Ethan becomes mobile, he isn't able to reach them.
One other thing that we added was a small shelf to hold his overflow of books and humidifier. It's slightly wider than the space where we wanted it to go, but for now it works okay. I think we'll eventually move it to the closet and replace it with a single cube shelf.
Lastly, we took the door off of the closet to allow more room for the crib and rocking chair so that we didn’t have to worry about having space for door clearance. Inside we have 2 wire shelves for hanging E’s clothes. They are organized by size and sleeve lengths. I also have some cute elephant bins that I found at the Home Goods store.
Until next time,
