A Peak Into My Nursery
My little girl celebrated her first birthday with a party at our house this weekend. So I decided I should probably finish putting her nursery together, you know, so I can show it off to all my family and friends. Luckily Ace can’t talk yet and complain about my wall color choice or beg for Dora posters. The nursery still isn’t complete. There are two blue v-shaped floating shelves that I am waiting for my husband to hang.
We started the nursery when I was pregnant. We didn’t find out the gender so we wanted a gender-neutral room. Also, we are planning a second child some time soon and I didn’t want to re-theme the same room for the second one. I am way too cheap frugal that way. We chose a light lime/apple color for walls. We matched the wall paint to a pair crib sheets we picked out. Then anchored the room with white furniture and blue and orange accents.
The Room
* Diaper Champ! love it. Gift from baby shower
* White Dresser from Ikea – $69.99
* Changing pad from a baby shower gift.
* Oatmeal laundry basket – Gift from baby shower
* Dump truck from my niece.
* Orange hanging storage unit from Ikea – $4.99. This is a great place to store all those bazillion stuffed animals that we receive as gifts. Really, how many stuffed animals does a girl need?
* Dimmer on the wall from Lowe’s – $20
* Art by me.
* Crib from Babies R’ Us – A gift from my in-laws and Uncle at my baby shower!
* Sage Gerber Crib Sheet from Babies R’ Us – $7.99
* White Dust Ruffle from Babies R’ Us – $17.99
* Art by me.
* Do you see the strange blue things in the corner? Those are the two blue wall shelves from Ikea that need to be hung – $6.99 each.
* Hedda Multicolor curtains from Ikea – $29.99
* Bright orange sheers from Ikea – $14.99 for a pack of two
* Curtain hardware from Ikea – $3.99 for rod – $1.49 for hardware.
* Marley the monkey and stroller were gifts.
* White bookshelf is a hand-me-down from my friend, Barb.
* Blue storage bins from Ikea – $1.49 each.
* Books, frame, and stuffed animals were gifts.
The Closet
* Large storage boxes from Ikea – $6 for pack for 2.
* Small boxes for clothes (notice: they are all labeled!) – $3.99 for 2.
Lighting
* Magnesium Spotlight System from Ikea – $69.99. I saw a picture of a nursery with cool track lighting and found this alternative. They were really easy to install. We also added a dimmer. I also like how the S-shape mimics the pattern in the curtains.
Art
* Canvases were a total of $35. I can’t remember. Brushes – $3. I used leftover wall paint for the paint. I am not an artist and this was my first attempt. I used to see abstract pieces of art and think, “I could do that!” Now I know why art costs so much. I didn’t have the right paint and my skills simply aren’t the best. I did these really quickly last week.
* The circle art is inspired by Essence-Chocolate and Essence-Blue from art.com.
* The alphabet piece highlights my daughter’s initials in orange. I remember seeing a website where they would create an artwork piece with your child’s name highlighted in the alphabet. It just worked out the A,C, and E are the beginning for me.
Putting together Ace’s nursery was incredibly fun for me. Can you tell I love Ikea? Did you put a nursery together for your little one? Do you kid’s room have a color palette or theme?
We’d love to see your nursery or kid’s room – post a picture or video to your blog or to flickr or YouTube (etc) and leave a link in comments below!
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Amanda I loved seeing the nursery this weekend. I think it fits Ace very well.
We found out it was a girl and ran with it!!
My nursery is girl themed. Inspired by my love for fashion and design. But I hated all of the babyish themes. We do not let our daughter have things with Dora or Disney on them. I am holding out for as long as we can as parents, we have gone so far as not to buy any clothing with charters on them. So I searched for a while and found a the ending results we think is very chic and something she can live with for a long time.
You did such a great job! I love how she has a dump truck in one corner and a stroller in the other!
It look so great! You did a great job and I love love love the artwork! 
The nursery looks so much better in person than any picture can show…you did such a great job!
I LOVE it. Clean, simple, modern. And organized!
I knew by glancing at your first picture and hearing you say something about V shelves that I was going to see a lot of IKEA and I love it!
I’ll have to go way back to the blog’s infancy, but here’s a link of our first nursery, http://verwaynia.blogspot.com/2006/09/lets-begin.html
Our housing situation was a little temporary at the time so we didn’t do everything we wanted. But check out the wall art – I used a shadowbox and scrapbooking materials. It was super easy!
When we moved, we kind of scrapped the whole “nursery” thing, opting for a “big boy room.” But we hope to be more creative the next time around!
It looks great Amanda. I love the colors. I am just starting to redo the boys room. I will post pics when the project is done. probably in a month or so
How neat! I love Ikea too, though I don’t own as much from their store as I would like. I’m book marking your post so I can come back for inspiration!
@Trina – You have the coolest room with you Bombay Kids stuff. I love the deep purples.
@McKenna and Kara – Thanks for coming to the party and indulging me!
@Vered – Thanks! Really I am not that organized in real life. My husband cleans out my purse for me.
@Jeanelle – Thanks for posting a link to your nursery! The scrapbook shadow box looks awesome.
@Sara – It takes forever to finish rooms, so don’t stress too much. I think in the 2 1/2 years we have lived in our house only 2 rooms are near completion.
@Jennifer S – Oh, how I love Ikea. Our Ikea store is about an hour and fifteen minutes away. We can’t go in if we don’t have at least fifty bucks to spend, because I always want too much!
You did a fantastic job with the nursery Amanda! I love the look of contemporary, modern nurseries. I’m like Trina….don’t like baby/character themes at all. I love pink/chocolate color combo, so that is how Ava’s room is decorated.
I love the nursery too!
Very contemporary, but not cold or TOO modern.
I have the same color on my kid’s walls! (I use hot pink and purple as accents).
I love what you did here.
Well, since we live in apartment, the baby’s room will NOT be painted. It’s a lovely white color with beige-y brown carpet. The room is huge, so we’re keeping the full size bed in a corner…it seems so silly to get rid of it when we’ll likely be moving to a condo or house in the next couple of years and needing more furniture!
Now that we know Addie is a girl, we’ve decided to go with yellow and purple for the room colors…just something simple and fun…stripes or polka dots maybe.
It’s funny…I love the simplicity of your bookshelf, Amanda! Our bookshelf is stuffed (read: overflowing tubs with more boxes in storage) with books from my school days. We’re enjoying picking out baby books now.
I love posts like these…especially since we’re right in the thick of planning her room!
omg.. good work, dude