Thursday, March 14, 2013

Decorating the Nursery

I had the great joy of having two little girls. When decorating their nurseries I completely embraced the pink and I am totally glad that I did. Now that I think about all the reasons that I didn't want pink, all I can remember was thinking it was too girly girl, princess-y or that it saluted Barbie. All of which, now doesn't seem so bad, because at the end of the day I am the parent who gets to teach. I get to have a say on how princess-y they behave and what type of role models they have, so now it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. It really just a color. Pink is fabulous.
When putting together Vivian's nursery we wanted to be sure to make it was a room that was hers, and even though we were going to reuse the furniture that we managed to make it special for her. I had seen on different occasions the alphabet wall and fell in love with it. Eliot and I had a good time coming up with ideas of what how to make the letters and I ran across a fantastic sale at the company store. All in all we spent less than $40 on the entire wall. We wanted to an extra special "V" for Vivian which came to us as a gift from my second mom down in Ft. Myers, it was the perfect addition. Some took real ingenuity, like the "Q" I wrapped in fun yarn I had lying around.




Another pinterest idea was the canvas collage of the book covers. We are children's book lovers (I collected some even before we had kids) and like everyone with hard covered books we had the sleeves that were usually in various stacks around the house. We picked out our favorites and made this extra large canvas. It was very easy to make once we decided which covers to put on there and how to cut them.


For some reason, I obsessed about the bedding with Lydia and as soon as we knew it was a girl, I put in the order for her bedding. Literally on the way home in car in between texting our family and friends, "It's a girl!" Hoping to be fair, we wanted to pick out something for Vivian that could also last and be pretty. So I order from Pottery Barn kids Daisy Garden Bedding, even though it is really nice and good quality, it just reminds me I need to learn how to use my sowing machine.

Above the changing table, we plan on hanging our flying birds that were such a hit with Lydia but still haven't had the time just yet. Meanwhile, I added wall decals of birds because I love them. I wanted them to look like this colorful birds on a wire from my pinterest inspiration, but I lost track of time and finally put them up the other day after finding some I liked on Amazon. I am happy with them.


As all people, there are a few things that now, I may have done different. Next to the glider we have a couple of cubes for storage, but I think I will eventually get a little table or dresser in a funky color with some drawers for additional storage. The changing table drawers don't give as much storage as I think would be best for a baby or even a toddler. Plus it would be nice to have a little more counter type space, to set a drink or stack of shirts on. I may not have worried so much about the bedding, this time it was a matter of fairness, but the bumper comes off at about 6 months, especially for Vivian who would grab it and pull it down. Always afraid she would get stuck on it somehow.

There are also a few things that I really love, for example, in this nursery, we have dimming lights and ability to change the speed of the fan on the switch by the door which is a great idea. We can keep the room dark enough but still have the light on low to go in and check on her without causing a commotion.  I couldn't live without out diaper caddy thing next to changing table that has every possible thing you may need in a changing scenario: diapers, wipes, creams, lotion, blue bulb thing, saline, nail clippers, little brushes, well obviously we don't need all those things for diaper changing but it's nice to have there.

The must haves are really 2 sheets, 2 diaper changing covers and some clothes.We tend to keep all the rooms in the house quiet bedrooms if possible, books but really few to no toys. To be honest, I think it worked out for Lydia who now lays in her room on giant pillows next to bookshelves and "reads" by herself for sometimes a whole hour. As most decorating or parenting, you always have to be willing to change things that don't work or get old.

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