The Making of a Nursery

Obviously one of the first things I thought about when I found out I was pregnant was how I would decorate the baby’s nursery. What girl doesn’t love to decorate? And to be able to go wild and have lots of fun with a room is ideal, right? You can’t use whatever color you want to in just any room in your house, but a nursery is pretty much fair game.

We waited until we found out the gender of the baby to make any decisions. When we found out we were having a boy I knew that I wasn’t going to use blue as a dominant color. I love green and yellow and wanted a bright, happy nursery that our baby boy could grow up in. I’m not saying that we won’t change anything until he’s in junior high, but I didn’t want something that screamed “baby.” I wanted something that screamed “happy boy!”

My mom is an in home consultant for Calico Corners and I went straight to her to work on the custom bedding and window treatments. We selected some really fun Annie Selke fabrics that were bright, happy, had fun prints, and a little bit modern. I wanted to mix the fabrics for the bumper pads to keep it interested and give him something fun to look at while he’s in his crib. We went with green and white polka dots for the window treatments with a fun little pom pom trim in green and white.

For the furniture, we decided to go with something much more traditional and we selected an antique white finish and a traditional crib and dresser style from Newport Cottages. I love them with the fabrics we selected, but I also know that we’ll be happy to reuse the same furniture with our future children. The white finish isn’t too white and the furniture is very substantial.

I chose a big glider and a gliding ottoman and then had them both covered in one of the Annie Selke fabrics I selected. The chair is so comfortable! I’ve already taken a few naps while I was sitting in it. We have hardwood floors throughout our house and we wanted a large enough rug so that when the baby starts crawling and playing in the floor of his room he’ll have plenty of protection from the hard floor. We found a small sale at Pottery Barn and chose a yellow and white large polka dot rug. That rug makes the entire room!

Artwork was the hardest thing to choose. Everything I found was too “baby” and it all looked mass produced. I wanted something interesting and fun and I knew that I wanted his name on the wall without having to use the little wooden letters. A good family friend ended up painting the four wooden squares on the wall. She painted adorable little bugs, a frog, his name, and one of our favorite verses about children.

We loaded the room up with books, put some great songs from Rockabye on the baby’s ipod (my mother’s day present from my husband) and the nursery was all set. Completely ready for a baby!

The nursery was my favorite room that I’ve ever decorated because I felt like I had so much freedom to do something fun and happy and know that I wouldn’t get tired of it!

What has been your favorite room to decorate? Did you have complete creative freedom?