Saturday, July 21, 2012

The nursery unveiled

Baby girl's nursery has been an act of love since the beginning. We love how it turned out and are excited to share it! The theme will be pretty obvious from the after pictures...
Before:

After:

The changing table was a $15 Goodwill buy - Matthew painted it and turned it into a shabby chic piece of furniture that matches her crib and dresser.

The most expensive buy was probably the Ikea system above the changing table - it was my personal splurge.

The glider rocker was a hand-me-down from a friend - we recovered the green and white checkered gingham with this striking coral, ivory, and blue striped upholstery fabric from Joann's.

The crib came from my parents, a classic Jenny Lind crib that Matthew refinished in our robin's egg blue.

The bedskirt was probably the most time-consuming of my projects (Matthew would definitely argue that the furniture took longer, which I'd have to agree, but this took longer than I thought it would...). I bought a sewing machine for myself and went to work. The ruffles got very old very quickly but they sure turned out nice!

The dresser is possibly my favorite piece of furniture, simply because it was mine as a little girl. Of course, it helps that it turned out so striking thanks to Matthew's perfectionist skills...

We had fun with the bird accents - we did everything ourselves, from various sources. My creative side took off with all sorts of ideas and resulted in some lovely results, with lots of help and suggestions from Matthew. The bird prints came from NYPL's website (free!), Zulily (super cheap with matting and frames completed by Matthew), and TJ Maxx, Etsy, and Michaels (a fun craft project that I spent many fun hours on).

The mobile was put together from a wood-carving shop on Etsy, two branches from our back yard, and fishing wire and eye hooks.

The hanging birdhouses and door decoration we picked up for $5.50 total at Michaels; we used the three paint colors that currently decorate the walls and furniture to finish them.

I found this card in a little shop on the boardwalk in Long Branch, NJ. I couldn't resist...

So now it waits... for sweet little baby cries and coos, for kisses and hugs at nighttime, for rocking with mommy and daddy, for very special memories.

4 comments:

  1. I love, love, LOVE it!!! (you knew I'd love it, right!?)

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  2. I knew you would- and I thought of you the whole time we were decorating and now when we go in, we often comment how it makes us think of you. Makes it all the more special!

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  3. Laura, this nursery looks absolutely beautiful - definitely magazine worthy! Best wishes this coming week to all three of you together :) Maybe one day you'll teach her to play piano as well!

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  4. That's so beautiful!!! I love the color of the accent wall and all the bird touches...soon enough it will really be 'complete'!! :-)

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