Olivia's due date is less than two weeks away now! We are so excited and I am soooo impatient for her arrival! Thanksgiving was the last mental marker before our due date and now that it has come and gone I am just really ready for our next big thing, which is Olivia! Also, my parents had to pick up and bring our carseat from Atlanta, which was the last baby item we needed to be prepared for the baby, and now that we have everything I feel like I'm allowing my body to finally go into labor (I just need baby to get on board with my timeframe!).
Working on the nursery was really stressful for me, but also a lot of fun. Miguel and I worked really well as a team from forming the whole concept to the actual physical labor of putting it all together. It's so special to me that Olivia's nursery was a labor of love on both our parts.
The first thing we purchased for the nursery was Olivia's crib. I have always wanted a wrought iron crib, but they just aren't practical or worth the expensive price tag. I was delighted when my mom suggested I look into Jenny Lind cribs and found that I love the classic look and the affordable price tag! Miguel and I happened into a local baby boutique one night on the way to dinner and to our surprise found a Jenny Lind on sale for $100 off! Sold!
Ugh, I am kicking myself that I didn't get a before photo of the nursery! Though, perhaps I did this subconsciously. What is now Olivia's nursery used to be our hodgepodge of an office. We got a lot of use out of the space as an office, but it was never one of our most visually appealing rooms. It didn't help either that at one point (like two years ago) I began sloppily painting some of the edges of the office and never finished painting the rest of the walls... (see photo below):
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| We had a lovely gray border around our molding for two years... |
Luckily, we were able to move our office things into the dressing room off of our master. A room Miguel now calls the cloffice =)
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| The other side of the room is my closet... hence the "cloffice" (closet+office) |
I knew early on that no matter the sex of our baby that I wanted to do judges paneling in the nursery. Thank God for Pinterest and their many, many tutorials! Miguel and I found a simple tutorial and headed out to Home Depot around mid October to get the nursery project underway. We had the boards cut to size at HD and then brought them home to paint them.
While we were waiting for the boards to dry, we measured and taped off the nursery walls and started painting in two sections. (Don't worry, I got to wear a really awesome mask so that I could help and not breathe in harmful fumes... it's a special look). Originally, I had wanted to do a cream/white look for the nursery, but Miguel suggested we substitute the cream for a very soft and subtle pink. I'm so glad he 1) shared his opinion and had input into the color choice and 2) that we went with the pink! It's so subtle that sometimes it's hard to really discern, especially when the natural sunlight is pouring into the room, but it's perfect! I love how soft and sweet the colors of the room turned out!! (It's pinker than it looks in these photos... the bright sunshine is sorta washing it out)
After the painting was done we started working on the panelling... Let me say first of that I am so grateful at how handy Miguel is. If this project had been solely left to me I would have either done the lazy version resulting in a very sloppy look (For example, I wouldn't have bothered cutting the boards at 45° angles etc. ) or hired someone resulting in a large bill. Luckily, Miguel is fully capable of doing things like this and frugal enough to know he can do it without having to hire someone.
The boards went up easily enough, but the hardest most annoying part was using the nail punch (SO loud) and caulking all the seams. Miguel was a serious trooper and finished the nail punching one morning when I was out at a brunch. So thoughtful to spare me the noise of finishing that particular detail! Over all, it took us about 3 solid work days to finish the painting and panelling (including dry time).
The fun part was assembling everything together in the room after the "construction" stuff was completed. I'm really pleased with how everything came together. We still need to get a bookshelf for the wall opposite from the window and flip the fan blades to the white side, but I'm happy with how it is now just as it is =)
We already had the chair and ottoman and simply converted it to a swivel rocker chair. It makes the perfect rocker for the nursery! The dresser came from Pottery Barn Kids and I think it is simply adorable and perfect for a child's room. The blackout curtains also came from Pottery Barn Kids (I'm a complete sucker for anything with a bow!)
Some of the sweet details:
The wooden, initial letters were a gift from our friend, Jason. I got some craft paper and some little paper butterfly stickers and doctored them up a bit to match the nursery decor.
Sweet sleep sheep and bunny nightlight. The bunny nightlight was the very first thing we received for the nursery. My mom gifted it to us this summer and it came from Restoration Hardware. It's not going to live on that table, but rather on the nonexistent (as of yet) bookshelf.
The bedding also came from Restoration Hardware. It's made of organic linen and is called "petal pink". The color is really close to the soft pink of the walls. Everything is very subtile.
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| Pillow also from RH in the matching 'petal pink'. The large, white throw blanket came from Pier 1 and on top of that is a baby blanket that belonged to me when I was an infant. |
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| I love bows! |
We decided not to have a separate changing table and just use the top of the dresser instead. The changing pad cover is also from RH and has matching 'petal pink' trimming.
This wooden star was a gift from my 7th grade discipleship leader. I loved my leader that year and have cherished this gift for many, many years.
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| We received so many books at our baby showers (this is only a little bit of them) and are going to get a bookshelf to house them all. |
We purchased some custom-made woodland creature fan pulls for some whimsy.
We had been gathering different prints that have meaning to us or Olivia for a while and wanted to set them up as a gallery wall. After we arranged the furniture we decided we'd like the gallery wall to wrap around the corner of the room by the crib. (we set everything up on the floor first)
Lastly, the closet and dresser full of baby stuff! Eeee! Look at those little, tiny, baby clothes!!!
I think that is all... all we need now is the little girl it's all for!!
(Please say a quick prayer that she'll come healthy, but early and before her due date!!)
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UPDATE:
Miguel and I finished building the bookshelf for the nursery! I'm so grateful, once again, at how handy Miguel is! I drew a picture of what I wanted the bookshelf to look like, we took some measurements of the space, and Miguel made it happen! We went to Home Depot, bought some wood, and after a couple of hours of construction, dry time, painting, etc, it was done!
I love how it looks! It's EXACTLY what I wanted! I love that you can see the books without having to remove them from the shelf. It's flat and narrow enough that we can still easily access the crib.
Thanks to family and friends who generously gifted us the books for Olivia! Can't wait to read them to her!
