Nursery Tour!

I've been meaning to do this for weeks but I'm just now getting around to it. John and I were so excited to decorate the nursery before our little one's arrival. Unfortunately, John had to give up his music room for little Jack but, I'm sure Jack will thank him one day. Of course, everyone knows that a nursery is for the parents (okay, mom) rather than the baby because they couldn't care less. The minute I was pregnant I got excited about decorating a new room. I looked at literally hundreds of nursery crib sets and baby decor and I really didn't like that many of them. Probably because 99% of them are pastel colors and I knew I didn't want pastel. John and I just aren't a pastel couple. So what ended up happening is that I found a rug I fell in love with and we took it from there.

Of course, problem was that I ordered the rug online and then three days later I got an email saying that website had gone out of business. I was bummed. I found it in one other online store and ordered it again. And what do you know? Three days later they contacted me to say they were no longer selling that rug. I was pretty pissed at that point because this was the rug I needed and wanted. I called the manufacturer and they said I could try to call a real store (what's that?) and have them order it for me. So I finally found an LA store that would order it for me and deliver it to my house. Success! Four weeks later it arrived on our doorstep and I loved it.

Here's a view of the room as you walk in the door...

On the left, there's a white Ikea Expedit bookshelf that we thought would be perfect. Jack's already got a ton of books and we bought the baskets for his toys to match the colors in the rug.

On top of the bookshelf there are a few cool things we had or we found.

First we framed a vintage Bingo card that we found on eBay. The Curious George doll is John's from when he was a kid and the hand-stitched animal ball was made by my mom for me when I was a baby. Pretty cool, right? And the clock is just an awesome present from John that he got at Cost Plus World Market.

I had this idea that I really wanted vintage board games in the room so we scoured eBay until we found ones we liked. Then we hung them above the bookshelf.

There's a Chutes and Ladders on the left and a really cool old game that I had never heard of called The Happy Little Train Game. I thought it would be good for a little boy.

In the corner of the room, we have daddy's chair. This is where John sits while I'm breastfeeding and tries to entertain me while I pass the time.

The chair was hand-made by his dad and is made up of individual wood squares that are strung together. Jack's very lucky to have such a talented grandpa. The afghan quilt on the chair was made my John's grandma, Jack's great-grandma. It's hard to see but there's a framed X-Men comic on the wall, featuring Spider-Man. I got this as a gift on Spidey and it's been signed by Stan Lee. Hope Jack appreciates it!

Working around the room, on the other side of the window is my glider/recliner.

This chair is AWESOME. So so comfortable and something that I wouldn't mind eventually moving to the living room. It would be a great TV watching chair. I think it's made by Best Chairs and we got it at USA Baby. We looked at Babies r' Us but just couldn't find anything comfortable enough. I've already logged a lot of breastfeeding hours in that chair and I anticipate many many more.

The other side of the room is where most of the action takes place.

We got a plain white dresser from Ikea (the "baby" dressers at the big baby stores seem so ridiculously overpriced) and put a changing pad on top of it. There's a little basket for all his diapers and stuff as well as a wipe warmer. Because god forbid the wipes touching our gifted son's butt be cold. Over the dresser we hung Jack's favorite things in the room.

These are really bright contrasting alphabet flashcards from this website called Bob's Your Uncle. I saw them and fell in love with them with the original idea to just frame about 6 of them. But we got them and they were so cool that we decided to hang all of them, sans frames. Jack LOVES to lay on the changing table and stare up at all of the colors.

Flanking the flashcards are these really cool book-bookshelves. Basically we bought these brackets where you can turn any of your favorite hard cover books into floating wall shelves.

The books are John's from when he was a kid. One shelf's representing with each of our colleges. One shelf holds John's baby cup as well as my shiny silver baby cup. The stitched bear with the cups was knit by John's mom when he was a baby. The other shelf has my baby shoes, John's baby piggy bank, and, to make it a bit more modern, a Buzz Lightyear action figure given to Jack as a gift at my baby shower.

Then, looking back at the door from the window, you can see the crib wall.

From the beginning I knew I wanted to use wall decals because I love the look of trees or something in a large scale on the wall. Since we were having a boy I didn't want to make it too girly but I thought these birch trees with birds were masculine enough.

We got the decals from this etsy shop and the owner was awesome and let me customize the number of trees and colors. We were worried it would be hard to apply the decals but it couldn't have been easier. I am a fan. And I originally wanted a big dark wood sleigh crib but somewhere along the way I changed my mind and went the complete opposite direction. I saw this two-tone modern crib online and bought it from Amazon. Of course, Jack has yet to sleep in it but it makes a nice storage area now for all of his laundry.

So that's it. I wanted to post this before Jack gets old enough to tell his parents that he hates everything about it and we are forced to scrap it all and put up all trains, cars, and Star Wars. John did such a great job putting everything together and hanging all the decorations. Yay for interior decorating!