Thursday, July 30, 2009

My DIY Nursery

So, this is a big first for me (and a bit of a departure from this blog's usual content) - I'm linking up to the DIY Thursday party over at A Soft Place to Land. I have been a blog stalker over there for quite some time - I think I've pretty much read every post she's ever written - and I've gotten a lot of inspiration. And I've been using a lot of the inspiration I find there (and the Nesting Place and Centsational Girl and Thrifty Decor Chick and... the list goes on) to put together the nursery for Andy (due date is just a week and a half away!!). So, without further ado, here are all the projects I've been working on:

First an overview (you'll probably have to click on the picture to enlarge it if you really want to read my clever in-picture commentary.) :


My inspiration for the whole room was (were? I hate antecedents. I think it's was.) these three prints I found as I was wandering around on etsy. (They can be found in Gumball Grenade's etsy shop.)

I fell in love with them and knew I had to have them. Once I decided to base the whole nursery theme around them, though, I found that there really wasn't a lot out there in the baby realm to complement them, which necessitated many DIY projects - which suits me just fine.

So here are some of the projects I did:

I would have loved to have these prints custom framed, but I'm cheap and working on a small budget, so I bought those super cheap unfinished wood frames at Ikea ($2/per I think?), painted them, and then made "mats" out of scrapbook paper. They deserve so much better, but for now this will have to do.

Also in this picture you can see my shelves that I painted (same color as the blue frame). They look better in person. Really, they look better than the unfinished wood condition that I bought them in. So that's always good.

Here you can see the quilt that I made- it's a rag/shag quilt and it's fairly simple. Just blocks of color that echo the colors in the paintings. I also made that dust ruffle out of a plain red flat sheet I found at DI (like Goodwill). I just ripped two long pieces from it and sewed them together. The bottom was already hemmed hallelujah, and then I just tucked it around under the mattress in a ruffly sort of way. Totally pleased with myself there. Oh, any opinions - to bumper or not to bumper? I'm tempted to make one, but then I keep hearing how you shouldn't use them. Thoughts?



And here's the mobile I made using this tutorial. It uses the red, white, blue, and yellow motif from the paintings (and the rest of the room) and also the sail boat that is in one of the three prints. I like it. It's not amazing, but it's kinda cute.

And, my piece de resistance, the window "mistreatment" ala Nester. When I bought sheets for the crib (from Ikea) I was saddened to find that one of them had a hole in it. I couldn't be bothered to take them back (I'd lost the receipt and Ikea is a bit far away), so I racked my brain thinking what I could do with them. Then, after seeing several curtains and window treatments, I finally hit upon the idea of this, my own window mistreatment. I used 1/2 yard of 50" dark blue fabric for the top, the rest of the red flat sheet (from the dust ruffle) for the trim and ties, the crib sheet (that's the big blue part), and - as the lining - a curtain from Savers that I originally bought for the room and discovered was too small. Oh yeah, and some left over yellow fabric from the quilt, which I used to make the stars to cover the hole in the sheet. Whew. I only sewed one seam (across the top). Everything else I did with hemming tape, which I loved because I have issues sewing straight lines, especially when the fabrics are all different textures (that crib sheet was danged stretchy). Oh yeah, and of course I used the glue gun. How could I not?

Last of all, some advice? This room is doubling (tripling? quadrupling? It's also my office and craft space.) as a guest room while my mom stays with us for a month or so after the baby's born (thanks Mom, you are the best). I feel like that wall needs something, but I don't know what. I've got four prints by the same artist who did the sail boat painting over the bed - they are gorgeous prints of Greece, but they don't really go with the nursery. I was also thinking of doing an alphabet wall, but then I'm worried things will get too busy in the space ... and also that it isn't fitting for the "guest room" zone of the room. Any ideas? Should I just leave it? Really, I should just leave it, seeing as 1.) The guest room will only exist for the month that Mom is here and 2.) we're looking to move out of this apartment (I wonder why?) and into a house in the next few months, so it's probably just not worth the aggravation. Still open to suggestions though.

Anyway, thanks for looking at my DIY Nursery :)

7 comments:

Linds said...

Great themed room! LOVE THE COLORS! Thanks for sharing!Come check out my TRANSOFORMATION end table at DIY DAY!

Kimba said...

It's beautiful! I love the artwork that you used for inspiration. You really did a great job.

Kimba

Gina @ MoneywiseMoms said...

I think the whole room turned out great. I did my son's nursery in red and dark blue, too, and it was great to have the versatility once you get past the "baby" stage. Whatever theme comes next will match! The shelves will be timeless, and I love your mistreatment. Great job on all of it!

Found your through DIY Day. Thanks for sharing!

Elaine said...

Wow...Great DIY!!! Especially the curtains. i probably would've just thrown them away. I'm not as creative as you. For the guest room, I saw something I really liked. An interior designer stamped one whole room with quotes she liked. It was nice to see non-traditional colors/patterns. I like the idea but finding the right quotes would be the difficult part. I think she used a gray-blue wall with light blue writing. It looked really nice. That is my suggestion....and you could use that as your statement wall because every room needs one of those! Good luck!

Valerie Russell said...

How fun! I'm excited for you, I bet it feels good to be almost done being pregnant. I love reading this blog! Good luck :)

Sam, Adrianna, Zoe, Penny, & June said...

Hi, the room turned out great! I saw pics of the little one on your mom's facebook (she knows me from Athens). He is a doll! Congrats! Can't wait to see him in his new space :) Enjoy these precious first days - they are the best!

Adrianna

Jessa said...

That's a very great theme for your upcoming baby, it's a boy I think. Doing the baby nursery with your own concept and design is a very passionate of you. - outlet stores for Juicy Couture