Nursery Reveal!

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It’s been nearly three months since we’ve brought Bladen home and I’m excited to finally share my new favorite room in our home!

The nursery took me much longer to put together than nurseries in the past, in part due to lack of energy and in part due to putting together some special touches, like a gallery wall of art made by each family member ❤️. It has become the place we come for quiet snuggles and read-alouds– especially when the hot or cold weather keeps us from our other favorite space for this, the sunroom.

The nursery is located between our master bedroom and the girls’ shared room. Like the other bedrooms in this 1970’s home, there are no overhead lighting fixtures–just natural light and light from lamps. Despite that, it’s on the sunnier side of the house and gets great light throughout the day. Since we left the gender of this little one a surprise, I wanted to design a room that would be special, regardless of gender. Inspired by the beautiful outdoors we’ve cherished more since moving to Ohio, we decided on a woodland theme, complete with natural light, woods, and touches of greenery.

CRIB

Despite having rid our storage of ALL the baby things when we thought we were done growing our family, we held on to the crib we used with all 3 kids…until last year when our friends were surprised with the news of a fourth on the way, shortly after their third. When we shared the news of our pregnancy, the first thing they did was insist we take our crib back. The timing was perfect given that their third would be moving to a toddler bed and their fourth could move into his big sister’s crib. Now, while there isn’t anything particularly special about this crib we purchased 12-13 years ago from Target, its dark finish is marred with scratches and teeth marks– teeth marks made by each of our three children. Brian, Ella, and Grace spent nearly every night and nap of their first few years in this crib, so it’s pretty special that our last child gets the same experience.

DRESSER

When looking for a dresser, I knew I wanted one that would grow with the space as the child does and serve as a space for diaper changing in these early years. I found this sleek, budget-friendly dresser at Ikea and I am pleased with how well the dark finish pairs with the crib. Even better, it has plenty of storage for all the little clothes, diapers, burp cloths, and baby linens. I don’t even use the closet for anything other than clothing he’s far from fitting into.

BASKETS, CHANGING BASKET, AND BASSINET

One thing that has really spoken to me lately is natural wood and woven baskets. I may be a little obsessed. Baskets are actually the first thing I purchased for the nursery when they showed up on shelves at our local TJ Maxx several months ago. You can see them scattered throughout the room. They serve as storage for playthings and hold essentials for nursing/feeding and changing. I also couldn’t resist this precious changing basket and bassinet combo from Design Dua. Since I had to have a c-section (due to a difficult and nearly tragic delivery of our firstborn) and we have a split level home, the bassinet lives in the living room and sometimes the dining room where I’ll work from time to time so naps can happen close by if needed. While Blade truly prefers his own crib for sleeping both the changing basket and the bassinet came in handy during our newborn shoot and made for some precious photos!

CHAIR

I’ve never had a nursery chair–well, not a real one anyway– so I decided to splurge a bit on this part of the nursery. I wanted something modern and comfortable; something I could see putting in another room in my house when it was no longer needed in this room. I wanted it to rock and have a high enough back that I could sleep in it if needed. I originally purchased a dark blue chair from Wayfair but was underwhelmed with it when it arrived, realizing it was more of a grandmother’s chair–old-fashioned and hard, perfect to wear a divet in the seat in while crocheting and watching wheel of fortune or soap operas, not one for nursing and rocking a newborn babe in. Luckily, the chair came with a missing rocking leg and the manufacturer couldn’t replace it so, I was reimbursed for the chair. (Wayfair customer service is fantastic by the way!) Instead, I purchased this adorable longhorn (at least that’s what this Texan is calling it) footstool, and a few other items for the house. My continued search brought me to this eco-friendly, cream rocker from West Elm Kids. This chair is perfect and will withstand stains for years to come. Blade has already tested it with some spit up a few times and it wipes right off. I have also found myself enjoying many naps in this chair in the few months I’ve had it. Alongside the chair is an old side table with a mid-century feel from my house in college and a Tiffany-style lamp gifted to me a few years ago by my Mom–dragonflies are her favorite– and I love the soft, warm ambiance it provides when the sun is down.

GALLERY WALL

For each of the kids, I’ve painted something to go along with the decor. When I began my paintings for this nursery, the kids asked if they could create something as well. ❤️ Each picked their own subject (staying with the theme) and inspiration for the process. For the girls, it was Eric Carl while Jr. chose a mentor image on Pinterest. It was Ella’s idea to put all the pieces together as a gallery. They liked it so much that they asked to add more so they created some drawings and paintings of our favorite birds. With one spot left, we challenged Sr. to create something for the wall. In true Sr. fashion, he took the challenge and did his own thing–if you knew him, you’d know the grumpy cat is his spirit animal 🤣 Read more about this project in my nursery sneak peek post. I can’t wait to add Bladen’s work on this wall as he grows.

FLOATING SHELVES

If you read my earlier post and sneak peek, you know what a pain it was for Sr. to install these shelves. The installation was rather easy, the pain just came from the fact that he hates putting holes in walls. 🙄 However, I LOVE how it turned out! I even made Sr. put up a few more shelves for some greenery and knickknacks. These wood and iron-look shelves came from Target’s Magnolia line (another little homage to our Texas roots).

PLAYTABLE and ROCKING DEER

Lastly, and perhaps most special are the custom-made pieces from Papa Jeff. First is the darling rocking deer he surprised us with at Christmas. Handmade and painted by Papa himself. Jeff struggles with Parkinson’s, so to see such detailed woodworking and painting from him is amazing (you should see the moon-shaped gliding bassinet that he made for Brian’s sister, Mary). I also asked Jeff to make a small paytable to go with these cute raccoon stools I scored for $14.99 at the Home Goods store. A plain white table was a pretty boring project for Jeff, but it’s the girl’s favorite place to sit in the nursery.

So, that’s the nursery! I’d love to know your favorite par – there are too many for me to choose from!

Special thanks to Butcher & Co. Photography for the beautiful newborn photos of our family!

Nursery Sneak Peek

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Y’all. This nursery has come along WAY slower than I would like. Partly because I either don’t have energy, can’t make a decision, or I’m waiting on someone or something. Anyway T-minus 23 days and it’s ALMOST done. Possibly the most exciting thing, these acrylic floating shelves for books.

I’ll tell y’all something, it KILLED Sr. to put those nine holes in the wall for these but I absolutely LOVE them.

Now on to the rest of the walls and finishing touches. And I cannot promise there won’t be more holes 😜

Shared Girls Room Refresh

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Last month we decided to do a BIG refresh to our home and replaced all the old blue carpet in our home. Y’all! There was a different kind of carpet (8 different shades of blue) in nearly every room and hallway in the house when we moved in. It was an eyesore–all stained from foot traffic and spills that had accumulated since it was put in some time in the 80s or 90s. It’s been a game-changer… and exhausting as we’ve packed away most of the house in 10 days, painted rooms and trim, and put it all back together after the install. One of the main reasons for the new carpet was so we could move the girls into a shared room and convert Grace’s old room into a nursery for our upcoming arrival.

Back in Texas, the girls–just 2 1/2 years apart in age–shared a room but when we moved to Ohio, each girl got their own room. Though they enjoyed their own spaces, they’ve often had sleepovers in each others’ rooms and occasionally discussed going back to a shared room.

When Grace was upgraded from a single twin to a twin bunkbed last Christmas, the sleepovers increased and so did the talk of “moving in” together. However, it wasn’t until we found out we were pregnant this summer, that the idea of moving them back in together was taken seriously.

The girls immediately began planning, taking over my interest to look for inspiration. Their only must-have–a play kitchen. Mine, plenty of storage to keep their abundance of toys OFF the floor and out of sight. I also wanted to find a way to show off their collections of hats, books, and stuffed animals as well as provide each of them their own special spaces.

It’s been a few weeks since the carpet install and we still have a little more to do but we’ve finally gotten to a place where we have something to show y’all!

We’ll start with my favorite part: this wall storage system from IKEA.

There are several different sizes and configurations of the Kallax systems. I actually went a size up from what I planned and I am so glad I did! It was also super easy to put together. Ella and I did it all ourselves and only needed Sr. to secure it to the wall.

New carpet was a GREAT motivation to go through toys and clothes but we still had lots to find practical solutions for. What I love about this unit is I can use bins to hide, I mean “store”, toys but we can also display special things at the same time. The bins also help the girls keep things sorted and easier to find. And the BEST part? The girls can easily move the bins to wherever they are playing and put them back all on their own. The toys have stayed OFF the floor since we set up the unit, so I call that a #MomWin!

Next up: the library and bunkbed. The girls both LOVE to read and had stacks of books everywhere in their old rooms–bed, floor, shelves… so it was important to make sure their bookshelf was easy to access and that they had a dedicated space for their current reads by their beds as well as good lighting. Last year, I got this three shelf bookshelf off my local Buy Nothing Facebook group and whitewashed it. By some miracle, it fits perfectly in the space next to the bunkbed.

The girls call it their “library” and Ella loves to sit right by the shelves and read. They also enjoy sitting in this beautiful, refinished vintage chair by the window. Truth be told, I tried to get rid of this a week ago, thinking there wasn’t room for it in their room. I finally got tired of it being in our dining room waiting for a buyer and put it here temporarily but it works out perfectly, so it’ll be staying!

That big red and white bear is named Wanda. She’s my favorite old stuffed animal from my childhood and now is graciously loved by Ella. We filled her with more stuffing this week to give her new life!

Since the girls like to do a lot of nighttime reading, I found them their own little wall bookshelves for their bunks at Target.

I also found these great little reading lights at Ikea to clip onto their headboards. The bunks are also each girls’ little piece of private real estate in the room so we added some special lighting and comfy pillows at the foot of the beds to add another space to sit for daytime reading. We reused the mosquito net canopy from Ella’s old room and Grace tszujed it up with a strand of floral garland we had in the basement. Each girl picked out their own lights while at Hobby Lobby the other day–llamas for Ella and an ombre curtain for Grace that looks so great with her canopy. These were around $12 each and are battery-powered.

Now that the days are colder and shorter, I foresee many hours spent on these bunks, with the lights aglow, reading. ❤️

Next up, the girls’ kitchen! As I mentioned, this was a must-have for the girls. They had many grand ideas for a custom build that Papaw and Sr. would have been obligated to create. Thankfully, we scored a well-built wood kitchen from the children’s room in our church when they decide to upgrade. I used Murphy’s Oil to give it a good cleaning but the plan is to paint it (when I have the energy).

I may also have Sr. build a simple base for it to make it a bit taller for my tall girls. The girls have their “fridge and pantry” stocked–mostly with homemade felt food, and a bin of larger cooking and baking playthings in the wall unit. They often play house and restaurant. The service is great, but a little pricey 😉

Lastly, Ella has quite the collection of vintage and straw hats–thanks to GiGi and Papa–and Grace isn’t far behind. For a few years, they’ve been stashed in the closet but we found some fun ways to display a few. the rest are in the dress-up bin in the wall unit. The hats on the wall are just hung with a simple push pin but I’d love to find some cool hat racks for a neat display with the rest of the vintage hats above their dresser.

All-in-all, aside from the cost of the new carpet the wall unit, two wall bookshelves, and bunk lighting, we didn’t have to buy anything else for this refresh–just some cleaning, combining, organizing, and moving!

Still to come for this room: window treatments– I personally LOVE these but Ella turned it down quickly–, bunk curtains for Ella to give her some requested privacy, possibly a new rug, and the painting of the play kitchen.

Stay tuned!

– Cory