Nursery makeover

After having lived in rental apartments for 2.5 years, I was so excited to actually paint/decorate our home the way we really wanted to again. Moving while basically being 7 months pregnant, I knew the nursery would be one of the first rooms I’d like to tackle (both because of the “nesting” feeling and because I knew I didn’t want to wait until after baby actually arrived).

I stumbled across this picture on Pinterest and it immediately caught my attention:

I loved the dark wall with the pops of natural wood and greens.  We'd be re-using the crib, changetable and glider from my daughter's room so I knew I wouldn't achieve this exact look but could get something similar. Our crib and glider are both grey, and the changetable is an ikea-esque cube storage system that my father in law actually built for my husband's room when he was a baby.  It was originally painted in primary colours, as was the trend in the 1980's, but we had made it more neutral by painting it white with gold accents.

I started researching fabrics, as I knew I wanted to make a custom cuddle blanket to fit into this new space.  I instantly fell in love with this fabric and then the room inspiration really seemed to spiral into place.

I loved the mix of the black and white with the pops of green, and also liked that we’d be taking some our Texas vibes back to Canada with the cactus print. 

The room had been previously used as an office, so the walls were a very neutral colour, making painting much easier for us.  We used Behr Premium Plus paint in the colour Broadway, hoping to only do one coat, but weren't happy after the first coat was done, so we did a second. We weren't sure we needed to paint the other 3 walls because they were already a pretty neutral colour and were in *decent shape, but we had extra white paint from our daughter's room and we figured we should just do it all before our furniture arrived and we had the open space to get it done.  I'm glad we decided to go through with it.  We basically used the base paint colour that they use to mix all the other colours (Behr Premium Plus in Pure White) and the bright white looks so much better.

I had also picked out the crib sheet fabric around the same time as the cuddle blanket fabric.  I've been obsessed with mudcloth prints for a while, and I think it totally meshes well with the modern desert feel of the room.

I really wanted to find an Austin based artist for a piece of art in the room, so before we moved I did some research and found The Gray Poppy on Etsy.  These prints are on a gorgeous textured paper, and she was so easy to work with and super fast.  I found the frames at Target.  Speaking of Target (RIP Target Canada), I knew I wanted to stock up on things while I still could, so I also found the curtains, side table, the faux cactus, and the little wooden llama at Target.  I also grabbed a picnic cutlery holder from the Target dollar spot section to use on the changetable to store diapers, cream, wipes and sanitizer.  

The mirror over the crib was a feature I loved about the "inspiration" photo, but the mirror I fell in love with is the Stockholm mirror from Ikea. If you've seen this mirror before, you'll know it's got a thicker "ledge" along the bottom, which is super cute for displaying a couple of knick knacks. But, it also seemed like a serious hazard when babe starts to pull themselves up and is grabbing at things.  So, we decided to hang the prints over the crib and put the mirror over the change table instead.

How did you choose a nursery theme? Let me know what you think in the comments below!

Terri