Have you guys ever seen those gorgeous online nursery reveals? Looking through design blogs is a guilty pleasure of mine and when I was pregnant, I poured over image after image of beautiful nurseries. Should I go blush pink with soft ethereal accents? All white with bright pops of color? Light aqua, perhaps? What I did know, is that I wanted my baby girl’s room to be light and airy…like a breath of fresh air. Serene and a bit whimsical. Feminine but not Pepto pink. We ended up settling on a very pale mint color – one that pulled more greenish than the typical aqua I usually go for – paired with pops of hot pink, and accents of gold.
My baby girl turned one year at the beginning of this month, and is quickly on her way to toddlerhood. Life has sped up since her birth, and I can’t believe that I’m just now documenting her space! My hope is that the room, while fit for a baby, of course, will grow with my girl easily, without the need for a major overhaul for many years. So…come on in!
This room gets a lot of natural light, so the paint color seems to change depending on the time of day. Below is what it looks like when you enter the room as the late afternoon sun pours through the west facing window.
And below, is typical of mid-morning. The paint on the top half is “Lightest Sky”by Pantone. It’s so light that it looked white on the walls when the paint was still wet, but at night appears decidedly green. The bottom half is a bright white.
Now I’m going to spin you clock-wise around the room. Hang on!
Are you dizzy? It’s hard trying to capture the essence of a room in photographs! At this point it may be dawning on you that there are four doors in one half of the room. Our house was built in the 1920s and has had 2 additions put on it since then. The door to the left is the entrance to the room. The second one to the left is a very small closet. The 3rd opens to a “bonus” room of sorts; it’s part of a 1950’s addition designed to rectify the fact that in the ’20s people did not use or have any need for closet space at all. And the 4th door is a walk-in attic, the result of a 1980’s addition that added a room onto the first floor only. (So you’re walking into the “roof” of the added-on room.)
I’m going to let you take a little peek into the tiny little closet, but I can’t bear to show you the mess that is the other two spaces.
I know, it’s pretty bad! But it’s still better than the attic, trust me. Before this room became Audrey’s room, I was lucky to call it my office. My office is now downstairs in the basement, but I have yet to deal with this closet. It’s only now starting to be an issue, as our girl is collecting more toys and will soon need this storage space.
Let’s talk details. I’m a visual person. And I needed to “see” the room, before I could start pulling it together. So I created this little design board. It is nowhere near the amazingness that you will find on Pinterest if you search “design board.” (On a side note, how can WordPress NOT recognize the words “Pinterest” and “Pantone?” It keeps highlighting them as misspelled.) 🙂
I first saw this crib skirt on Etsy. I fell in love with the bright colors, mix of fabric and feminine feel. I’m not a particularly fou-fou girly-girly. I like pink okay, but it’s not my favorite color. But when mixed with the light paint, I found these fabrics to be not cloying at all.
I did not fall in love, however, with the price tag. So I spent a shameful amount of time scouring the web, looking for the same fabrics. (I found all but one! The pink we went with was different, although I like it even better.) My mom graciously offered (or did I beg?) to sew the skirt. She even made the bottom ruffle detachable with velcro, for when the mattress must be lowered (which is now). How cool is that? She’s got mad skills.
I put considerable thought as to what should go over Audrey’s crib. I didn’t want anything heavy that could fall on her, and I considered painting something, like her name, directly on the wall. But when I saw these light-weight laser cut frames at Michael’s, I knew they were the answer! The frames come unfinished. I spray-painted them and taped/glued (the tape didn’t stick so well) the prints directly to the wood frame. No glass. They are held up with Command Strips. Of course the newborn ones weren’t put up until after she was born! 🙂
I must make a confession….I probably could have hung heavy glass and pointy metal objects directly over the crib as she has slept in her crib twice. Like twice ever. When the boys were babies, I did not sleep well with them in our bedroom. They made weird little noises and I jumped up many times throughout the night to see what the problem was only to find they had fallen back to sleep. But Audrey is a quiet sleeper and my last baby. So the spoiled little thing sleeps in a Pack-n-Play (what used to be called a “port-a-crib”) right next to our bed. However, we still get lots of use out of her room. We play/read up there and just enjoy the serene surroundings. Of course it’s not always tidy, as it tends to gather bins and stuff that needs to be packed away, but I still find it such a calming space.
Audrey’s wallpaper is from Hygge & West and I just love it. Here are my two main men, my husband and my dad, hanging the paper. Our house – this room – has extra-special meaning to me. It’s the house I grew up in, and this was my room. It had navy and pink and white wallpaper and it was beautiful. But I’ve removed enough wallpaper in my years and never, ever imagined I would be the one putting it up. (And by “I” I mean my guys, of course.) We went with just one wall as an accent wall. It keeps the wallpaper from becoming overwhelming, and keeps us from having to spend all of our retirement savings on it. Wallpaper ain’t cheap, ya’ll.
The zebra rug is from Rugs USA. They have a ton of beautiful rugs and really good prices. In fact right now they have an over 70% off sale going on. Yes, I’m sure the standard prices are inflated, as they always seem to have some sort of deal going on, but you’ll do much better here than say, Pottery Barn. We did find a caveat: make sure you will be keeping what you order. I loved the zebra rug, but I did not like it with the wall paper in the nursery. It was too busy. So we packaged it back up, only to find it would cost $100 to mail back. Dude. That was almost half the cost of the rug. So it came back into our home and we now have a zebra rug in our living room. Finding a rug that went with the room, that wasn’t too matchy-matchy (like the same color as the walls) and that fit our budget was definitely the hardest part of the entire nursery. We finally found the beige/gold rug at Lowes in the remnant area. I think it was only $45! And it’s huge, 8×12 or something. It’s low-quality for sure, but we are happy with it.
The white crib, dresser and changing table were all pieces that both of the boys used. We bought the little white bookshelf from Target. The dresser was originally from Target as well (circa 2003). The little shelves on top are actually not part of the dresser. I found it in the bathroom section (Target, again) and attached it to the dresser. With both of the boys, it had silver knobs and the dresser had white knobs. I was looking to unify the pieces a bit and to infuse some gold into Audrey’s room, so I ordered these sweet little knobs online. The company’s name is eluding me, but if anyone really wants to know, I can do some digging.
You may noticed the top looks different than it does in some of the other pictures. I found this adorable flamingo (above), on sale for under $5 at, yes, you guessed it…Target! And the wood paneled “A” was a recent Marshalls find.
The sweet little owl though, had to be moved off the dresser to the changing table.
One of my besties just happens to be an artist. She painted the lovely flowers you see on the bottom shelf; I just love them! And another friend’s sweet mom made the quilt (in the basket) and the yellow and pink blanket. I know some talented people!
Pink and gold-edged frames hold photos. Let’s see those baby toes a little closer, shall we?
The green bins in Audrey’s changing table came from the dollar spot at, um…this is getting embarrassing….Target. The baskets below were in both boys’ nursery, but I made new liners for them.
I spent quite a bit of time coming up with the gallery wall. I found items I liked online first and then did a digital mock-up of exactly how it would look. The frames are things I had lying around that I sprayed gold and white. I took the cloud picture, and most of the art prints are from Etsy.
Pretty much the only piece of furniture that didn’t come unassembled in a box is the armoire. No….that arrived completely assembled in a giant box by a freight UPS driver that wanted to leave it at the end of our long driveway. It weighs a ton. But those issues aside, how cool is it that you can order something like this online? I’m so glad we love it because there’s no way we could have shipped this baby back, logistically speaking!
The wardrobe ended up being a bit more cream than I had expected, but so did the background of the wallpaper, so it all worked out. But it did not look great right next to the rest of the bright white furniture, which fortunately is home to a different wall.
I was thrilled to find the gold tassels at Michaels in the dollar section.
I just love opening up Audrey’s armoire and seeing all her sweet little outfits.
That’s a lot of shoes for someone who still prefers to scoot around on her bottom. We’ve been very blessed with lots of hand-me-downs and generous aunts and friends! (And Mommy might be enjoying a “bit” of shopping for her girl.)
Picking a comfortable glider was very important to me. It was one purchase I did not want to make online. I sat in a lot of gliders before choosing one from Babies R Us. I love it! It’s a very comfy place for my girl and me to hang out. Beside the glider is a gold bin that holds extra blankets and a few toys, and sometimes, books. It is from H&M online.
To the left of the wardrobe, is a recent find from Marshalls – a magazine rack for easy book clean up. I love the ethereal feel of the cloud art (also from Marshalls).
The gold and wood table and the curtains were both bought online from Target. (I really had no idea that her entire room was from there!)
I did not intentionally set out to create a bird theme. The bird fabric and wallpaper were coincidence. But when I found this inexpensive (Marshalls) bird tray and $5 Walmart bird art (below), I thought they’d tie in perfectly. I love that it says “dream” over her bed. The bed that she does not sleep in.
This little shelf is at the foot of the crib. The art on the left is from Land of Nod, which I put into a spray painted frame.
On the other side of the crib is the card stock mobile. I was inspired by seeing those “paint-chip” mobiles online, but confiscating loads of paint chips seemed less practical than just using card stock. I love the way it turned out, but sturdy, it is not. I didn’t completely trust my crafting skills, so it’s not hung directly over the crib. If it falls, it will go onto the floor.
Sweet little friends inside the crib. (Yes, they will go out of the crib when she sleeps here.) 🙂 Mr. Owl is from Pier One several years back and used to live in our play room. And my mom made the precious doll with remnant fabrics from Audrey’s room.
More toys can be found next to the crib. (Bin and metal tag from Michaels)
Well, hello, Cutie!!!
All parents know just how ridiculously fast kids grow. It seems like we always have a pile of things to pack/give away and we also usually have a pile of hand-me-downs to grow into from those aforementioned generous people in our lives. AND…..my sister is expecting her first child, a girl!!!! I love that our items will be lovingly passed on as well. (SO, SO exited!) You should see this bin now…it’s literally overflowing. Looks like it’s time for a trip to the attic. (Not the one in Audrey’s room, though. Is it weird that we have 2 attics?)
At the far end of the room is a window seat. It was originally built by my dad over the radiator that stretches the width of the room. I recovered the pillow and made the pillows. I did not inherit the “sewing gene” from my mom, unfortunately. The things I make are pretty much all square things, ha! The white frames were clearance at Walmart. Before Audrey was born (and before I’d taken newborn portraits), I stuck some pretty scrapbook paper in the frames.
Sweet little rabbit from Land of Nod. Below is the other end of the window seat and home to a newborn portrait canvas of my girl at just 5 days old. I’m so glad I have pictures of her so young!
On the other side of the room, when you first walk in, we have these funny vanity lights. My dad installed them when I was a teenager in effort to stop the bickering between my brother and I over bathroom time in the morning. A vanity table and stool used to sit below it. I can still remember poofing my bangs, curling my hair and using far too much hairspray. Dating myself, am I? We keep thinking we will take the lights down, because..well…they’re weird. But I really appreciate the light they produce, so here they remain for now. Plus there is always something better to do than take down vanity lights. Gold canvas is from Marshalls and I believe the footprint set is too. TJ Maxx and Marshalls have so many pretty art pieces, but I’m all out of walls! (And money.)
On my original design board, I had this gorgeous Amy Bulter fabric (peacock). I was hoping to incorporate it into her room, somehow, but in the end, it didn’t work. So I made it into a blanket that became our go-to stroller/carseat blankie all fall and winter.
This was a small piece (fat quarter) that also didn’t get used, so it’s now a “lovey” blankie. (See…I told you I sew square things!)
Here we are in action. Audrey loves her room and so do I!
And I’ll end with a gratuitous shot of baby toes, just because! I hope you enjoyed the nursery tour!
Catherine Amiss Photography {the Blog} 