Nursery for Baby Ray

OK, it has been a looooooong time coming, but I am finally posting pictures of the nursery I’ve been working on for months.

I still feel ike there’s more to do (like buy a crib … but we’ll do that after all the family comes to visit this summer and we actually move baby Ray into his nursery). But basically, this is it. I do love it. Especially when I was looking at the before and after pictures.

The hardest part of putting the nursery together?? … by far, picking the paint colors. The gray was super hard to pick and then I did, and then I asked my mom for a rug as her baby gift to me and the chevron striped gray and white rug came from urban outfitters and …. the gray on the wall didn’t match the gray in the rug. So, of course, it was back to Home Depot for more gray paint. I am a bit of a perfectionist (Daniel is laughing and saying “a bit??!”) Anyway, I made and painted or sewed everything in the room because I wanted everything a certain way. Even the changing pad cover. I wanted to make sure it didn’t sag but was nice and taut, so I made one myself after I ordered very specific yellow fabric online at fabric.com and added velcro to the back to make sure it didn’t sag … you get the picture. I will just show pictures now and then as we go along, I’ll describe my various projects:

First, the before pictures (I love this. It’s so satisfying and it completely bypasses about 6 months of work).

The room and closet:

 Then I organized all of the above craft stuff into my basement, here:

And then I did the nursery and here we go .. after pictures:

 

I sewed the elephant art myself after looking at etsy for days for a perfect elephant print and never finding it. So I combined ideas that I saw and this Dr. Suess quote and did it myself. The frame below it is something I made a long time ago and never used, so I put it away, then pulled it out when Noah made this little note for the baby (totally unprompted). Noah came up to me one day and said, “I made a card for thr new baby. He can open it on his birthday, when  he’s born. That’s his birthday right?” I love it. It’s one of my favorite parts of the room, and one of the smallest too. It’s the details that count. Look what he wrote inside:

I made these numbers … twice. yes. twice. I loved the numbered hooks I saw at potterybarn kids and land of nod, but they were so pricey. Then I saw some girl online that made her own numbered pegs by getting metal house numbers and hooks from home depot …. and this idea was born: to get wooden numbers and wrap them in yarn for a soft and textural affect, then use hooks below. The only problem was that I wrapped the numbers in the wrong color yarn. I didn’t really realize it until they were on the wall and the yarn color looked too teal. So I had to rewrap them and I did. And I love them.

The diaper bag was something I researched for a while and decided on this one. It is by Jujube and I love it like crazy. The best part? It is originally $225 and I got this one on ebay for $100 less!!! Woo hoo! I felt like I won something when I bought it. It was totally like the ebay commercial “shop victoriously” … seriously.

The hat is the infant newsie hat that Baby Ray will wear on his blessing day. I got it from Children’s Place at Easter time. Daniel asked me if I was really going to “make” him wear it. of course I am. sheesh. Silly question.

I saw something similar to this mobile online but they didn’t have the right color scheme, so I just got a large hole puncher and I already had some fishing line (who doesn’t?!) and I made it myself. It’s perfect.

These shelves and picture above were something I had been planning on doing from the very beginning. The print I bought off etsy from Lisa Barbero. I adore it. Daniel thinks it’s not that cool.

These shelves are spice rack shelves from IKEA. I’ve had them forever and used them in various ways and here’s another – as a baby library. I have been adding new board books over the past few months, because the baby books I’ve kept form the other two boys have been basically ruined – torn apart, chewed through, ripped and I thought this little guy deserved a few good books. I have lots of little favorites in these shelves:

the Sophie the giraffe toy I got form my sisters,

the Sandra Boynton “Hippos Go Beserk” book in the perfect colors of the room (aqua and yellow)

the Matthew Van Fleet “Heads” book seemed especially appropriate since Noah’s first baby book he received was Matthew Van Fleet’s “Tails” book,

and my most recent addition: the colorful tiny board books of feelings. Adorable. I love this part of the room.

It may seem silly to take pictures of the closet, but scroll back up and see those hideous before pictures of the closet and you will be as impressed as I was when it was all complete. ahhhhh, I take a sigh of relief everytime I open the closet door. This will probably be short-lived, since I will actually start using the closet soon and then it will all be destroyed, but for now – it looks divine.

Do you see the blessing shoes my sisters got me on etsy?? They are the crocheted ones, fourth ones in from the right. Wha? Too many shoes for a newborn that can’t walk?? I don’t think so.

This little elephant came from Daniel’s mom. I love it. She brought it home to Liam from the British Museum in London and when you blow on one end, it sounds like a mini horn. It’s all wood and just pretty. Liam is just loaning it to the baby room.

This has to be the easiest, yet biggest impact project of the room. Made from paper and sewn together on ribbon. It’s so cheerful.

And there you have it. I always love it when people put lots of details and pictures of their homes, so I did. Maybe too many. Oh well.