As I posted earlier, my mom painted the nursery a dark gray color instead of the beige color that our entire house was painted. We also installed some room darkening disposable shades-- I highly recommend these as they are less than $10 at Lowe's, EASY to install, and the gray color conveniently matched the room. We'll eventually replace or do something different with the windows, but it works for a quick fix for now. Our main pieces of furniture were a white crib and dresser we had delivered from Amazon and then a gray rocker chair.
Let's talk the crib first. We didn't feel like we needed anything expensive and went with one of the cheapest options, but should work fine to get the job done! We went with the Graco Sarah for about $150 from Amazon. We also ordered our mattress from Amazon and is one that can be used as a more firm side for babies and then slightly softer side for toddlers eventually. Instead of purchasing a whole bedding ensemble, it is much cheaper to just get the pieces you actually need. We got a solid gray fitted mattress sheet. And then I bought fabric in the color scheme of our room for a DIY crib skirt. I had seen this on Young House Love blog which gave me the idea to just use the iron hem and velcro to simulate what a crib skirt would do. What I liked about the method I used is that I got to use 2 coordinating fabrics and as the mattress height gets lowered as the kid grows, then I can easily adjust the polka dot layer to be smaller. (I cheated for now and just did the front...will work on the sides later!) I found that Michael Miller fabrics were the ones that really caught my eye...unfortunately I didn't find some superstore in St. Louis that carried these that I could go look at them. But many sellers on etsy offer these in coordinating bundles and www.fabric.com was a good price and retailer to use.
For anyone wanting to use fabric for a DIY crib skirt, I recommend looking around the internet for ideas. I can share my steps at a high-level, but really differs based on your crib and the look you are going for. Step 1 was taking measurements for your areas on the front and sides of the crib for the pieces of fabric. Hopefully you ordered the right amount and the next step is cutting it down to size. For the polka dotted fabric, I was lucky and able to cut one long piece for the front. For the striped fabric, the longest length I could get a piece was 44 inches and I needed more than this, so I had to cut 2 pieces and sew them together. I was terrified I would screw this up, but it really turned out looking fine...even though it was sloppily done!
For the polka dotted fabric, I didn't need to do any nice looking hems after cutting because the edges are all hidden (either under the mattress or behind crib parts. For the striped fabric, I had to hem (or make pretty) the edge that is displayed near the floor. I am in love with this iron hem tape- which you can find at wal-mart or any craft store!
I just followed the directions on the tape. I used a measuring tape and folded over about an inch and ironed that.
Then I placed the tape in the 1-inch seam I just created.
I then ironed the seam with the tape inside pressing for 3-5 seconds each section.
We then used some velcro and just assembled to the crib where it made sense! End result:
Now, on to the dresser- this thing was a pain to assemble, but in the end was worth it cause we didn't want to spend a lot of money and just wanted something functional that looked decent. We ordered from Amazon, but usually Wal-Mart has slightly cheaper. On top we have the changing pad along with a basket full of diapers, wipes, and supplies. Above the dresser I bought white frames from Target and then just made my own pictures and printed. Etsy was a great source of inspiration for DIY nursery art, so definitely recommend looking around on there and then just doing yourself to save some money.
In the corner between the crib and dresser, we have a rocker chair. It was around $350, so definitely one of the more expensive items in our room, but we felt like it was worth spending something decent on....and this is still cheap compared to some of the rockers out there! We had to get it custom upholstered with this gray fabric, so took about 7 weeks for it to come in and we ordered from Philips Furniture here in St. Louis. I have some other Yellow/Gray Michael Miller fabrics, so will probably sew a pillow to sit in here too.
Above the chair are some floating white shelves we got at Lowe's. I really didn't have anything to put on these, so had to scramble a little! I bought some wooden letters at Michaels to spell his name and then spray painted them gray and yellow. This cost less than $10 to do since I already had the spray paint at home. I then put some baby books we've received up there with some metal bookends purchased from Amazon. I had started making some felt-stuffed owls for a mobile, but decided to nix that idea and use them with the bookends. I filled the bottom of the owls with popcorn kernels to weigh them down....then filled the top half with pillow stuffing.
One items we still need to install in the room and will be here Thursday this week is a large vinyl wall decal. I ordered this from etsy and is similar to this listing shown below, but I've changed the colors to make it basically white, gray, and yellow. It will be 5 feet by 7 feet and go on the right side of the crib...slightly extending some over the crib too.
That's about it for the nursery progress! Will share more as the room changes!
