We are big DIYers and over the last few years, have DIYed a lot of the renovation on our 1960s house. When we found out we were expecting our first child, I knew I wanted to do something fun and special with her nursery. Before we got to the fun stuff like decorating however, the husband did a bunch of research on some bones-work on areas he wanted to improve on the room (things like removing the popcorn ceiling, adding sound-dampening measures to the room etc) and he got to work!

We were gifted a dresser from some friends that had used it with both their kids, so we knew it would be a great project to refresh for our own nursery!

Then, after all that work, it was finally my turn to have fun with designing and painting the nursery (at 33 weeks pregnant too!!)

While I love “themed” rooms and have done my fair share of them in the past, I wanted to design something that would be easy to buy accessories/items for, and not box ourselves into a corner with a too-specific theme. I also wanted to try to design something that in 3-5 years from now, she might still enjoy having as her room.

We are big gardening/nature people, and we also love the feel of mid-century-modern decor, so I took those areas of interest and loosely designed the room around them. I did a combination of MCM and plant shapes for the mural, picked a warm color scheme (most of our house is a combination of warm yellow/green/brown colors as well) and carried that theme throughout the room, by designing and painting some art and unfinished wood decor items to tie the room together!

We’re thrilled with the end result, and it’s been so easy to add items to the nursery, as the colors I used for the mural are very common to find in crib sheets, changing pad covers, baby clothes, stuffed animals etc.

Here’s all the DIY work we did before decorating the nursery

Here’s what we did to turn an old dresser into a modern-looking changing table

Here’s some behind-the-scenes pics on the nursery mural I designed and painted