The Sweet Life: Baby M's Nursery

Over the past few months I have slowly been working on projects to put together Sweet Baby M's nursery. At this point it is pretty much finished and I'm kind of proud of the work I did. I started out with a fabric swatch and then chose the color palette based on that.

Since we had just started trying to get pregnant when we moved in to this house, we left this room pretty much empty which was a good thing since we found out we were expecting about three weeks later. This is what it looked like before:

And this is what it looks like now:

The first project that I did was refinishing the dresser. I followed this very helpful tutorial though obviously I still haven't gotten to the white trim. I am still hoping to add that before Baby M makes his arrival but I have been procrastinating it for months so we will have to see if I can manage to get it done. I bought the same Ikea dresser used in the tutorial (obviously mine is the lower version) and even used the same paint color that they used. I'm not very creative :)

From this...


to this.

Eventually I decided to paint a hutch that we already owned the same color and we added it to the top of the dresser. I had considered putting a changing table on the dresser but ultimately decided that I would prefer to change him on the floor since he can't roll off of it. I love the look of the hutch so I'm glad I made that choice! I ended up finding some cute little bins in the dollar section at Target that now have assorted toys in them. I love this dresser because it is super roomy and can store a lot of stuff.

After I finished the dresser, I started a bunch of sewing projects for the nursery. You can actually purchase nursery bedding in the fabric that I had chosen but the set was over $400 and included bumpers which I didn't want. It also had curtains that looked really thin and I wanted blackout curtains for the nursery so I decided to sew everything myself. The fabric only cost me $75 and I still have two yards left even after making the curtains, crib blanket, crib skirt, wall art and some pillows.

I followed this tutorial for the crib blanket and I love having it backed with Minky! It is SO soft. Then I used this tutorial to sew the crib skirt. For the pillows, I just cut fabric to the approximate sizes that I wanted and sewed them together leaving a hand sized gap to stuff them with polyfil. Once they were stuffed I finished the last edge.

I used this tutorial to make the curtains. I used blackout fabric to line them and it works really well. I'm hoping this will help him sleep later in the mornings since I really hate getting up early :)

I bought the rocking chair for $20 on craigslist and then I primed and spray painted it (don't worry I was outside with a mask on and I took frequent breaks) to match the nursery colors. I picked up a $6 unfinished wood footstool at Hobby Lobby and I spray painted that as well. The small table next to the chair was from Ross and I painted the top of that to match the footstool. The little basket by the window is my changing center and it has a changing pad, diapers, wipes, lotion, diaper rash cream and powder in it so that I am all set to handle Baby M's messes.
J painted the walls while I was out of town and I added a few frames from Hobby Lobby. I'm probably going to add a bookcase over by the door but I'm not in a huge rush to get it. I really like how everything has turned out and now we just need the Little Man to make his arrival so that it can get some use!