The nursery is complete!

After finding out the kiddo is breech and may have to be delivered via c-section in a few weeks, I was highly motivated to finish his bedroom. John and I are still hoping for the best, that he'll come out "naturally" when he's done cookin', but if not then we are ready for him! Here are just 2 snapshots of each wall in his room. We're thinking of adding a decal of some sort to the closet doors so I'll add pics of that part if we ever do it.



His name is hidden below the black box. Soon enough you'll get to see what it says :) And don't worry, those stuffed animals will NOT be in the crib when he is. For now, they're decoration.

The art prints have arrived!

A lovely package from Adam of Fall Down Tree arrived yesterday with our art prints for the nursery! We chose the elephant, giraffe, lion and crocodile and we love them. John and I kept laughing as we were putting them in frames last night because they're just so funny looking. I'm so happy with these and think they look great above the glider!


(I'll take better pictures with my actual camera once the nursery is complete, so thanks for bearing with me and the crappy cell phone pics!)

The crib & glider have finally arrived!

Finally after waiting for MONTHS, our crib and glider arrived!! John put it all together quickly and I couldn't be happier. I was worried it wouldn't fit in the room but it's actually working out better than I imagined. The crib sticks out a bit but I like the idea of it being on a wall by itself. Next steps will be to finish the crib bedding (thanks, Mom!) and put everything away. All the baby's stuff is currently taking over our living room so I'm excited to finally get it in place. Here's a few crappy pics taken with my phone:

The picture ledges will be taken down (those are leftover from my office) and the baby's name will be displayed above the crib on the wall. We might add a decal if we can find something that will work.

Our super comfortable glider! I love this thing and have already spent a good amount of time sitting in it. We need to find a spot for the little green chair that my sister bought the baby (isn't it cute?!)

Art prints for Baby's nursery

I've spent A LOT of time thinking about the baby's nursery and how my millions of ideas could possibly work together. I've given up on some of them because I realize it's just all too much for a tiny baby's room. John and I have modern taste and our home is full of pieces from Crate & Barrell, West Elm and Ikea. We like clean lines and neutral colors with pops of bold colors and patterns. Like our bedroom– blue-gray walls, white linens and dark brown furniture, with patterned curtains and bright orange accessories (vases & pillows, and hopefully soon some artwork). Naturally, I've wanted something similar for the nursery but as my ideas are beginning to take shape, it just doesn't feel quite right for a baby's room. I need to add more baby-friendly elements, without it being too... Well, baby. I am in love with the argyle bumper, polka dot bedding and solid teal curtains we have and am now looking for other pieces to compliment the colors and patterns without looking completely random or too busy (this place needs to be calm and peaceful, not hectic!) I've scoured the internet and my favorite handmade website, Etsy.com, for kid-friendly art prints and finally found a set that John and I both love!

Etsy seller falldowntree

There's nothing better than cute but silly looking animals :) I think this will work in the room since the background colors are blue & green, like the fabrics we have, but the content is perfect for a baby boy. I found other pieces that would also be nice, since they are the right colors:

Etsy seller sweetbeet

Etsy seller pennypeople

Once we get the crib and glider in place (coming any day now!!), we can figure out exactly what will go where. I can NOT wait for all this to come together!

A sneak preview of the crib bedding

I've posted our ideas for the baby's crib bedding on here, but was never really excited about spending a ton of money on this thing. It's really important to me that we create a comfortable and warm nursery, and it has to be totally cute! The set I found was amazing, but could I truly justify spending $500 on a sheet, a skirt and a bumper? Well, no, but I probably would've done it anyway had it not been for John saying "No!", and my mom offering to sew anything we wanted. So, after I found the argyle crib bumper being sold separately on sale, I snatched it up and asked Mom to help with the rest. We spent some time at Fabric Depot today and I found exactly what I had in mind for WAY less than I expected! And we have enough fabric to make the crib sheet, skirt, a bumper, floor length curtains, and several pillows. I am so excited for all this to come together. Here's a little snapshot of our shopping cart (the argyle print is the bumper that we brought along to match).


I think our little one will be super happy in his adorable room!

Crib bedding options

Aaah we're almost halfway there! AND, we are SOOOOOO close to finding out the gender. We haven't done much baby stuff lately but will get back to it after we know the sex. The other day I received a few fabric samples for this bedding collection that I absolutely love by Maddie Boo:

They discontinued the stripe fabric but replaced it with a soft white linen, which is really nice and I actually like better. This bedding would look so great in the nursery with the blue/green walls! It's supposedly unisex, but I'm not sure I'll want this if it's a boy. I'd probably go with this bedding by House Inc. that I also loooove:


Once we know the gender I'll probably have ten different options to choose from, but for now these are my top 2 faves. They look great here in white cribs, but I think it will look awesome with our dark brown crib. And I don't really care for the skirting along the bottom so it will be more simple in our nursery. I can't wait to get all this stuff and put it together! We'll probably start moving my office into our bedroom at the end of the summer, and in during late September and early October we'll put together the boo's room. Yay :)

Wall graphics for the nursery

I constantly think about our baby's nursery. Every day (and multiple times a day), I look up ideas for furniture, bedding, accessories, lighting, paint colors, closet systems, etc. Now that we've ordered our crib and glider, I can design around them. If only I knew what we're having! July 9th is the date of our next ultrasound, and it can't come fast enough. But until then, I'm having a great time finding ideas for both genders. When we painted my office in February, we chose the color from my business card (robin egg blue) so it would really feel like my office for my wedding invitation business. But we also chose it thinking it would work for a boy or girl when the office was eventually turned into a nursery. The color turned out a bit more blue than aqua, but I really do think it will work fine for a girl if we add some wall decals. I found these today on Etsy by seller byrdiegraphics:




I can see any of these graphics in lavender against the aqua wall and think it would look pretty great. Finding matching bedding might be a challenge, but thankfully my mother is a wonderful seamstress! I have visions of going to Fabric Depot and finding the perfect fabric, and my mom working her magic and creating the coolest crib bedding on the planet. Now if it's a boy, I think a tree or leaf graphic would look cool. The same seller on Etsy has this wall decal, which just so happens to be shown with the Land of Nod bedding that I love and have saved in my Nursery Ideas file at home:


There are a ton of other tree graphics available:

Seller holly

Seller caicai (I like the tree and blowing leaves only)


Seller BadassCustomDecal


Seller BadassCustomDecal

Seller janeymacpress

There's also paper planes by michellechristina:


Or circles by BadassCustomDecals:


So basically there are a million options. It's a bit overwhelming but totally exciting. Once we know the sex of our baby we can make some decisions, but for now I'm having a great time looking!

Glider!

Last month I posted about rocking chairs and gliders, and thought I found one we liked at Target (which is now even cheaper). But during our visit to the Goodnight Room last week, we found the PERFECT chair! They had several gliders and rocking chairs to choose from, but John and I both loved the Hagen Swivel Glider by Best Chairs. The chair is firm, but totally comfortable. Our heads rested oh-so-nicely on the back of the seat and it's very supportive. The other gliders were ok, but didn't fit our bodies like this one. It's still more than we want to spend, but at least we know it's good quality and will be used in our household for years to come.

Now we just have to decide what fabric to choose. There are a ton of options but we didn't look through book yet. The model chair was brown microfiber which cleans easily, and it was really soft. We'll order later this summer after more decisions about the nursery have been made, but it's so nice to know another big nursery item has been chosen!

We found our crib!

John and I stopped by The Goodnight Room on NE Broadway yesterday. What a cute store!! We visited the one at Bridgeport Village when we first found out we were expecting, but didn't have the best experience. It was a big shop and there were 3 young girls working there. Not one of them ever greeted us or asked if we needed help. Good customer service is big for us (working at Nordstrom will do that to you!) so we were really disappointed! So it was a wonderful thing to walk into the Broadway shop and immediately feel welcome. We learned all about safety regulations of cribs, the difference between brands and types of woods, and all sorts of information I've forgotten since (damn pregnant brain!) I've been researching cribs for awhile now, and John and I both like the lifestyle cribs where the front is lower than the back and doesn't slide down. They just look more modern, a style that we love. After looking at several cribs we both kept drifting back toward one in particular, the Metro by Bonavita. Look how pretty!

The Metro Lifestyle Crib by Bonavita

It can be converted into a toddler bed AND a twin:

The woman at TGR told us a huge percentage of her customers don't end up making the bed into a twin because usually the crib is needed for another baby by that time, but at least it's an option. We're going to order this in a couple months but are just so excited we finally found something we love!

Rocking chairs and gliders

Who knew a glider could be so expensive?! I figured they weren't cheap, since it's basically a really nice armchair that rocks. But still. I always thought I wanted a regular ol' rocking chair for a baby's room, but after seeing these gorgeous gliders out there, I've changed my mind. But hello, I don't think we can afford to spend a ton of money on one. Look at these:

Carter by Room & Board ($799)

Attractive American Rocker from Land of Nod ($649)

Luca Glider by Monte Design ($945!)

The Luca is my favorite. I sat in one many months ago while shopping at a baby boutique in the Pearl District and couldn't believe how amazingly comfortable it was! But... $945? Yikes. These are really popular, but just doesn't fit my style (and are still expensive!):

Preston Glider ($279)

After searching several different places, I found this gem at Target.com:

Monterey Deep-Seat Rocking Chair ($399)

Now, who knows what the actual product is like. Target is totally hit or miss. Some of the furniture we have purchased from there is total crap. Other items are great. But this bad boy is actually really pretty and something I would TOTALLY buy (especially since it's currently %15 off). The bonus for buying a chair like this is that down the line, it can join the living room furniture. If it holds up over the years, of course! So we'll see what we end up with, but for now, the Monterey is the front runner!

Nursery ideas

Back in February, John and I painted our second bedroom which is currently my office. We knew this would become the nursery some day, and wanted to pick a color that would work for a boy or girl. I fell in love with a color called Foam, a really nice blue-green that is also the color on my business cards. I figured if we had a boy, it'd be perfect! If it's a girl, I think we could totally make it work. I never really wanted to have a pink and purple girl room anyway. So here are a couple of pics from my other blog of my office:

The color looks more gray here, but it's actually nice & bright.

So what are some gender-neutral accent colors? I've always been drawn to grays and yellows, so when I saw this scrapbook paper at Paper Zone, I almost had a heart attack:

Nice, huh?! It's great inspiration for the color palette I have in mind. Then I found this fabric online by designer Daisy Janie and thought it could possibly work as curtains, crib bedding or perhaps just accent pillows... Not really sure yet.

I ordered a sample and will have to hold it up to the wall and see. It might look great, or totally clash. Another thought is to add some red or orange... If it's a girl, maybe greens or lighter shades of purple. Or stick with aqua, white and chocolate and go with something like this:


We'll see! Our next ultrasound is July 9th and they should be able to tell the sex, so I'll be able to make decisions at that point. For now, I'm just having a great time looking at furniture, bedding, wall decals and other fun things for our little one. There are so many options out there so I'm sure it will be hard to decide!