Nursery Complete!

Well I guess it's done. For now. I can't commit myself to saying a room is "done". So here is the grand tour for now. Wow- a lot has changed since the day we painted this room! I am thrilled with the result. To keep costs down, I made the curtains and bedding seen in the first picture. I gave leftover fabric to my wonderfully talented sister-in-law Auntie K who made the quilt hanging over the edge of the crib. I made my own mobile since I didn't find anything I liked in the store. I love how big the mobile is and how it fills the empty corner of the room visually.

We took the door off the closet and put a curtain up so we could utilize that corner a little more effectively. We really wanted the glider rocker in that corner. Speaking of...remember when it used to be an ugly green? I also made some fun little art for the wall out of some leftover fabric. Check out the little table next to the rocker. I just added it and am really happy with how it turned out. That table hasn't always been so cute- in fact, a week ago it was an ugly brown and cost $3 at a yard sale. Stay tuned and I will show everyone the transformation :) The light is from IKEA that we had in our old apartment. Oh and for everyone with a perceptive eye...i blocked out the little hanger holding the jacket on the wall...it's the first initial of Little B's name...we can't tell you yet!

Here is the closet progress thus far. We painted the rod and top shelf to match the walls and added some shelving to the far left out of wood scraps. We used a shoe organizer from IKEA to organize things like burp cloths, hats, etc. More on organizing that another time. It's fine for now!

Here is the side that no one has seen yet. I am really happy with how it turned out. The two outside shelves we had from our old apartment and are from IKEA. The middle decorative shelf is from Christmas Tree Shop for around $6- can't beat it. Do you like the decal on the wall? It's from Etsy given to us by Auntie K. The changing table was an antique shop purchase for $50 a year ago. We totally lucked out on that piece.

Oh and look at the little shelves! They are actually leftover spice racks from IKEA that I painted the color of the trim. I just love them.

Doesn't the sailboat decal look like we painted it? It's amazing!

This corner doesn't really have a purpose yet. We have the bassinet stored there right now. This bassinet was used by my dad when he was a baby. My wonderful mom made it look brand new with the eyelet fabric and quilted lining. Little B will love her little abode.

Well that's it for the nursery at this point. We have had so much fun with it but I am glad we are done! Now it's time for Little B to see it. I will try to get a 38 week pic up soon for all you bump-date followers!

Big Reveal: Glider Rocker Done!

I just love a happy ending. From start to finish my little glider rocker project has been nothing but joyful. Let me start from the beginning. I knew I wanted a rocker for the nursery but was not willing to spend the $350+ dollars it costs to get my hands on a Dutailier (for some reason i say this with a French accent and really have no idea how to actually pronounce it. It sounds "fancy-pants" that way). People rave about them saying they will "last forever". If they last forever then why don't I buy it from someone else?

I looked all over Craigs List for the perfect rocker. My search criteria? White wood and good cushions. That left me with a bunch of options to choose from. I settled on contacting a young family that was moving away and had only have their Dutailier (said with French accent) for less than a year. Price tag  after some friendly email barter....

$50

Say what?! I just couldn't resist. (We were still in our apartment at the time and really had nowhere to put it. But how could I pass it up? Answer: I couldn't. I happily rode down with Peter one Saturday and made the exchange. We Peter hauled it up to our third floor walk-up and just couldn't resist snapping this photo of Peter testing it out in the kitchen:

Is that Little B? Nope. It's a pineapple.

So this little treasure stayed with us a month or two giving extra seating to our already crowded living room and anxiously awaiting a room of it's own.

Fast forward a few months...

I finally got around to tackling the cushions. Seafoam green is quite a cute color but would not match the nursery I had in mind. I used this nursery for a lot of my inspiration. I liked the idea of the chocolate brown fabric with white accents for the chair. If Little B is anything like her mother she will need a chair that hides stains!

So I went to Joannes and bought some basic chocolate brown home decorating weight fabric (2 yards) and 4 zippers (one for each cushion). I wanted every cover to be washable because of my aforementioned problems with stains. The fabric and zippers cost me around $15- Joanne's was having one of their amazing sales.

I won't try to bore you with all of the sewing details but here is a quick tutorial of what I did:

With a sharpie I generously traced two pieces of all four cushion pieces.

I sewed (right sides together) and added a zipper to each piece. 

Here is where I cheated a little. (Again- not a professional seamstress here but I can guarantee a finished product in under and hour or two:) ) Each cushion either had two ties or snaps that were attached to the green cushions previously. Instead of making new straps and adding snaps I cut small holes in the new covers and pulled through the straps/snaps to attach to the chair. Much easier.

Not something you want to "show off" to your friends when they look at the chair...but you don't even see it once they are snapped/tied!

Here is the final product:

Using the same nursery for inspiration...I wanted to find a pillow with pink and teal starfish. There were a few options out there but some of them cost close to $75! For a pillow! No thank you. So I went the route of looking handmade through Etsy. Have you ever gotten lost on Etsy? I just love it and love selling my things on Etsy. (My shop has been hibernating the past few months with all the house/nursery projects).

I found this great shop Crabby Chris and she was willing to work with my color scheme to paint little teal and pink starfish all over my pillow.  Yay! Her prices are super affordable and the quality was excellent. When the pillow arrived I was beyond excited and couldn't wait to share it with the world (Once the rocker was done). So here it is! Drum roll please...

 

I just love it! Doesn't the rocker look great in front of the curtain closet? If you look hard you can see I painted the shelf and rod the same color as the walls. Another success and happy Craigs List find.