Lindsay’s Nature Nursery

Description

This gender-neutral nursery was prepared last fall in anticipation of our bundle of joy arriving in February.  We wanted to be surprised with the gender of our baby, so green with white and brown accents was chosen.

Design Inspiration

I was most inspired by looking at nurserys that had trees painted or tree patterns on the walls.  I wanted to capture this in our nursey and I really liked the blend of a soft green with dark brown and how that comes together with the furniture.  This worked well with our animal theme.

Decorating Style

Probably a mix of contemporary and eclectic since the room blends older, re-used items with newer items.

Project Details

The first project in the room was repainting the walls and trim.  We chose two soft green shades from the same color chip.  The paint is Behr with satin finish.  I hand painted the trees using a level and blue painters tape to keep the trunks and branches straight.  I also handpainted the birds using nursery images I found online for a reference.  The name was painted after we brought our daughter home from the hospital.

Like most DIY nurserys, the crib was the only real baby product that we bought for furniture.  It is a DaVinci Emily crib bought from Target, that took well under an hour to assemble.  I like that it had one of the highest weight ratings, several levels to set the matress, and is convertible to a toddler bed and other beds.

The dresser was my first Craigslist purchase, for $100.  It was a fun refinishing project and came with a mirror that our daughter could use when she's older and I refinish it again.  The numbers are made by Pottery Barn Kids.  They have been discontinued for a while, so I found them on eBay and repainted them white.

I built the toybox myself using one sheet of 4'X8' birch plywood from Home Depot.  It is held together with wood glue and drwall screws.  The hinges are torsion hinges from Woodcraft.

The nightstand is a hand-me-down table from a neighbor that was sanded and repainted, similar to the dresser.

We bought the glider from Oak Express; perhaps the most expensive piece of furniture in the room but it gets a lot of use.

The paper crane mobile was made at one of my wife's baby showers.  The small stuffed animals were also from a baby shower.

The curtains are Ikea Lenda and the curtain rod was also purchased at Ikea.  Our windows were larger than the longest curtain rod, so I cut it in half and added a 1" wood dowel in the middle of the rod, then repainted it all white to match the trim.

Favorite Items

It's probably the toy box since it was so much fun to build from scratch and I got the idea to do this from my grandfather, who built my toybox.  I also like the large size of it, since I know I never had a large enough toybox for my toys!

I also like the 1984 Burlington Northern railroad calendar, which I got for free.  I have a large interest is trains (note the model locomotive and caboose in the room) and I wanted a 2012 calendar; the BN green color matches the nursery and 1984 was the last calendar year that was the same as 2012 (except for Easter).

Advice

The best decision we made for the room was not getting a separate changing table and buying a used dresser to use for this purpose.  The dresser will last many years into the future and was built very solid.  Considering that, it is a really good value since it was one of the cheaper pieces of furniture for the nursery.