Emma’s DIY nursery

Our design plan for Emma's room came together pretty quickly after we found out we were having a girl. We wanted her room to feel sweet and personal without being overly girly. I put together a budget worksheet to see if we could really have the nursery of our (okay, my) dreams on a $1500 budget. Thankfully, with a good amount of DIYing and a bit of repurposing, it was actually possible!

Here’s the breakdown of what we DIY’d:

• Painting the walls, ceiling, trim, Poang, bookshelves, and built-ins
• Fabric covered 7″ cornice for the window
• Crib skirt
• Bunting
• Crib/play quilt (Amy Butler pattern from Little Stitches for Little Ones)
• Gum Drop Ottoman (Amy Butler pattern)
• Monogrammed throw pillow with ric-rac trim
• Paper circles mobile
• Bird mobile
• Song lyric art prints
• Laundry bag

All that hard work paid off because we ended up coming in under budget at $1302.24! The biggest expenses in the room were the Naturepedic organic crib mattress ($259), the Ikea Hemnes dresser ($199), the DaVinci Rivington crib (on sale for $191.99), the Elfa stacking drawers for the closet ($99), and the Naturepedic organic changing pad ($89.10). Together, those purchases made up almost 2/3 of our whole budget. We could have cut corners a bit by not going organic for the mattress and changing pad, but raising Emma in an eco-conscious way is very important to us, so we were willing to invest a little more for those things.