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I don’t think I enjoy decorating anything as much as I enjoy decorating a nursery. It is such a special project because it makes the baby’s imminent arrival so much more real, doesn’t it? You are creating something for a child you have not yet met, but somehow you have a mother’s intuition of what the room should look like and how it will fit his or her personality. Perhaps it is silly and maybe I am alone in this experience, but with all three of my children, their nursery bedding just jumped out at me as “the one”. The same was true for their names, by the way. As soon as I heard or saw the names that ultimately became theirs, I thought, “That’s it! That is definitely the name.” It just felt right.
I found Bryce’s nursery bedding online after scrolling through dozens and dozens of options. I saw it and instantly loved it. It was a perfect mixture of masculine and sweet, which is tough to find. I always start the nursery decorating process with the bedding and then go from there. Once that arrived, I needed to decide what color his furniture would be. Cameron had all white furniture in her nursery, and Cade had all dark wood in his. Should I try something completely different this time? Should I use Cameron or Cade’s old furniture? I initially felt that a brown-toned wood would look best with his bedding.
Since Cameron had long-since graduated to “big girl” furniture, her nursery set was in our garage. Cade was still using his crib as a toddler bed when I was pregnant with Bryce, and I wasn’t quite ready to switch him to a normal bed. So, we tested Bryce’s new bedding set on Cameron’s old crib and, to my surprise, it looked amazing. I loved the white-on-white, it just looked so clean and fresh. I decided to go with it!
Cameron’s nursery furniture included only a crib and changing table/dresser combo. The changing table was pretty beat up from our move to Miami, so I unscrewed one of the drawer knobs and took it to a paint store to match the color. I then sanded the piece, repainted it, and it looked good as new. Prior to my pregnancy, Bryce’s bedroom was our office. We repurposed a couple pieces from the office for his room, including a bookshelf and small table (which we used for his diaper station). Both were originally brown wood, but we repainted them to match his other white furniture.
I next needed to choose the wall color. I took Bryce’s new bedding to the paint store as well, and found a color that very closely matched it. The color I chose was “Aleutian” (75%) by Sherwin Williams. His room already had chair rail on the walls, so I decided to put the new wall color above the chair rail, and had beadboard installed below it. It turned out absolutely beautiful.
Once the walls were finished, we arranged the furniture we had thus far, and it was looking like too much white. White beadboard, white furniture, and white bedding. I needed to break it up a bit, so I decided to incorporate a third color to the blue and white: brown (and many shades of it). The only piece of furniture I actually needed to purchase for his room was a rocking chair, so I decided that was going to be a light tan linen fabric. I found the perfect one at Pottery Barn Kids, and even got it on sale!
For the finishing touches, I decided to add mixed wood tones all over the room. While I love things to match, sometimes too much matching is not pleasing to the eye. I went to Home Goods and picked out a brown wicker hamper, some light brown wicker baskets for his diaper station, a lamp with a linen shade, and a wood crate to add to his bookshelf. None of these matched each other, and I loved how that looked. I also found an amazing jute rug at Home Goods for a steal! Their rug prices are unbeatable.
It can be hard to decide what to put on the walls in a nursery. I only had a couple areas that needed decor, and I decided that I would focus on family photographs in his room. This lucky boy was going to be loved by so many people, and I thought it would be nice to surround him with pictures of those who love him most. I bought this shelving on Amazon, and put them up on the wall above the changing table (ok my husband put them up and I just sat there and said “to the right, down, over, over…”). I had several wooden frames laying around the house, so I added photos of family and put them on the shelves. I also found some beautiful burlap frames at Home Goods, and added them to either side of the window behind the rocker. They were too small for the space, though, and looked strange. So, I bought 11×14 white frames at Target and glued the burlap frames on top of them. They turned out great and fit the wall space nicely.
I have always incorporated my kids’ names somewhere in their room, but I don’t like to make it a focal point. For Bryce, I decided to continue with the wooden decor theme, and found a custom wood sign on Etsy. I added it to one of the wall shelves, next to an empty frame that would later contain a picture of him.
The last decorative piece of the puzzle was window treatments. I decided to add sheer white curtains with dark brown curtain rods, both from Bed, Bath, & Beyond. This gave the room a soft, dreamy look. I could totally picture my little baby boy peacefully falling asleep in this room and couldn’t wait for him to arrive!
It took a few months to complete the room, but I loved every minute of it. I often found myself hanging out in the new rocking chair, daydreaming of my little guy. Anyone else do that? Hang out in the nursery before the baby arrives? I did that with all three children. There was just something comforting and special about it.
My days of nursery decorating have come to an end, and I mourn it a little bit. It was certainly one of my favorite aspects of pregnancy, and a fun creative outlet. I’ll just have to look forward to redecorating their rooms when they outgrow their current decor, but here’s hoping that day doesn’t come too soon…
