White + Blush + Navy Baby Girl Nursery

We are expecting our third child any day now, so I figured it was a good time to finally share her nursery!

I turned our 4th bedroom (which served as a catch-all & home office for Nader) into the nursery.  Here are some before photos of the room:

The first thing I did was paint the room a soft white - Bit of Sugar by Behr.  Next I installed some peel & stick floral wallpaper:

The Nursery: Newco International Grand Bella Velvet Glider Review

Now that Sami is about 9 months old, I figured enough time has passed that I could give a fair review of our nursery glider.  FYI:  this is not a sponsored post - just an honest review.

I originally looked at various retailers including Pottery Barn Kids, West Elm, & The Land of Nod.  There were several contenders, but of course, my favorites were way out of our budget.  We also checked out Babies R US where we found a couple of options, but nothing I really loved.  So the search continued...

Side note:  I have since seen several really cute & affordable new styles of gliders @ Babies R Us & Buy Buy Baby that might have won out had they been around while we were on the hunt.

I kept seeing a velvet tufted swivel glider on Pinterest & thought it combined good design with an affordable price tag.

The Nursery: VuSee Universal Baby Monitor Shelf Review

We started Sami out in his crib a few months ago - right before he turned 3 months old.  Between swaddles & not being able to roll over yet, we felt comfortable with placing the monitor at the opposite end of the crib on the railing:

Fast forward a couple of months and he's starting to move around & roll over - which meant we needed to find a different & safer home for the monitor.

As luck would have it, the makers of the VuSee offered to send us one of their universal baby monitor shelves to try out - it couldn't have been better timing!

The VuSee was created by a dad who was trying to solve a few problems regarding the placement of their baby monitor.  Not wanting to set the monitor on the crib due to the strangulation risks & visibility issues, he found a safe & non-permanent solution that allows for a clear view of the entire crib.

It's a very simple, but effective design - the angled shelf is attached to the wall using 3M Command Strips & works with any baby monitor.  All you need is some rubbing alcohol to install:

Our Hamptons Inspired Nursery: Final Reveal!

In case you missed it, we welcomed the arrival of our first baby four months ago on April 19th, 2015!

This post has been a long time coming, as we meant to post it before Sami came...
better late than never, right?!

When we found out we were expecting a boy, we were super excited to start putting the nursery together.  Here's our original design plan:

 We strayed a little from some of our initial ideas & over time the nursery developed more of a travel/nautical vibe - without being too literal, as we didn't want anything too theme specific.  Think, Hamptons meets World Traveler meets baby ;)

The Nursery: Custom IKEA Hemnes Dresser

 Anyone who has researched changing tables or dressers for a nursery has inevitably come across the IKEA Hemnes 8-drawer Dresser.  We decided to jump on the Hemnes bandwagon too...here's why:

-it's not too modern or traditional and fits a wide range of tastes & decor

-it's made of solid pine instead of particle board

-it's the perfect size to double as a changing table

-it will transition & grow with your child

-at $229, it's reasonably priced for the storage & quality you get

-you can easily customize it by changing out the drawer pulls

The only thing we had to decide on was the color of the dresser- more specifically, we had to choose between the "white" & the "white stain" options.  The "white" dresser is more of your typical IKEA white - which is not really a true white & has more of a sheen to it.  The "white stain" option is more of a true white color & has a flat finish.  It is slightly transparent, in that you can see some of the wood grain through the finish, but it's hardly noticeable.

In our opinion, the white stain looked more high end & natural.  The transparency of the stain didn't bother us either, as we liked the more rustic look of it.  It really comes down to your personal preference, but we decided to go with the white stain.

As with any IKEA furniture, it can be a bit daunting at the beginning.  Our advice is to lay everything out in an organized fashion, making sure you have the correct number of pieces as you go (including the hardware & fasteners).  The dresser comes in 3 separate boxes:

With the two of us, it took about 2 hours to assemble.  There were a couple of steps that had us scratching our heads, but we eventually figured it out.  It's better to take your time & do it correctly, so you don't have to go back & re-do anything.

We didn't install the drawers knobs, since we planned on customizing the dresser with different pulls from Hobby Lobby.  We narrowed it down to two options - stars & pulls (the original knobs that came with the dresser are on the far left):

Nader preferred the stars & Mel preferred the pulls, but in the end we went with the more whimsical star pulls.  We waited until they were 50% off & bought 12 new pulls:

The Nursery: DIY Marquee Star Clock

While shopping for nursery decor, one item that I couldn't seem to find was a clock - so I decided to make my own.  So, for the last couple of months, my mom & I were always on the lookout for anything that we could turn into a clock...

One day @ Michael's I spotted this cute light up marquee star that was on sale & my mom suggested we use it for the clock...and bonus - it would double as a nightlight!  We picked up a clock kit & some number stickers while we there too:

The Nursery: Gallery Wall

Our little Sami was born last month on April 19th!  So while he naps, I'm catching up on some nursery posts.

So far we have completed the board & batten wall, painted, installed some star decals on the ceiling, made some reclaimed barn wood shelves, & customized a crib skirt.  Next up - the gallery wall...

Since I am notorious for being indecisive, my mom & I decided the best plan would be to cut out templates before putting any holes in the wall.  We used some brown builders paper (leftover form our mini kitchen reno) & washi tape.  After playing around with the arrangement, we came up with this layout:

The Nursery: DIY Custom Crib Skirt

The Nursery: DIY Reclaimed Barnwood Shelves

The Nursery: Star Decal Ceiling Install

The Nursery: Paint Colors

In out last nursery post we outlined our board & batten wall install - now it's on to paint!

Can you believe that we have never painted swatches on the wall when choosing paint colors?  So far, we have been pretty lucky that our choices worked out.  However, we decided to get some samples up on the walls before we made our decision this time around since we will be using 2 different colors in the nursery.

We decided to try (A)Cool Metalwork Grey & (B)Granite Grey by Glidden for the board & batten wall color.  For the rest of room, we tried out (C)Pebble Grey &(D)Sutton Place Grey by Glidden:

The Nursery: Board & Batten Wall Install

The first project we tackled from our nursery design plan was the board & batten wall.  It was actually a fairy simple & inexpensive project that really transformed the space & gave it some character.

There are a lot of tutorials out there on how to install a board & batten wall, so I'll just detail our experience in regards to how we planned & executed this project.

Here's a before shot of what used to be the guest room (please excuse the mess):

First off, we had to decide on a grid pattern.  I had always really liked the wall that Sarah installed in her guest bedroom, so that was our main inspiration.

With that grid pattern in mind, we measured the height & width of our wall to figure out how many boards we would need.  Our sketch looked something like this:

The spaces between the boards are not perfectly square, but it will look OK to the naked eye.

After we had our measurements, we headed to Lowe's & bought eight 12 foot long primed 1" x 4" boards (as you can see in our sketch, the actual board width is 3.5", not 4").  We decided to go with primed boards instead of raw wood boards because the raw pine had many surface imperfections & it would have required more finishing work in the end.  The boards were originally $9.46 each, but we had a coupon & got them for $8.51 each.

We started by removing the baseboard for board & batten wall only (we kept our original baseboards around the rest of the room).  To do this, we ran a knife along the top of the baseboard, before prying it off with a crow bar:

To attach the boards, we used a combo of liquid nails & a nail gun (with 1-1/4" nails):

We started by installing the horizontal bottom base board & top board.  Afterwards, we attached the vertical left & right boards.  It's important to measure each board individually because walls are rarely, if ever, perfectly square & level.  In our case, each board was a slightly different length:

Here's a close up of the corner - it looked rough at this point, but caulk & joint compound can fix just about anything:

Next, we centered the vertical middle board on the wall:

From there, we centered the right, then left board (again, measuring the height individually before cutting them):

At this point, my dad cut a "spacer" board which would ensure consistent spacing.  He also used a scrap piece of wood to lightly hammer the horizontal boards into place when it was a tight fit:

Once we got going, the whole project moved pretty quickly.

Here it is all finished (but before caulk & joint compound):

Next, we began covering up all the seams, gaps, & imperfections using paintable caulk & joint compound:

We used the paintable caulk to cover all the seams where the boards met the wall, using a finger to smooth out the caulk.  It's also a good idea to have a piece of cardboard or a rag handy so you can wipe off all that excess caulk:

You can see the difference that caulk makes in covering up all the gaps:

Next, we used joint compound to fill in the nail holes & any gaps where board met board:

Once everything was dry, I sanded the drywall mud until everything was smooth.  That was it!

Next up, paint!

Mel

The Nursery: Design Plan

Happy New Year!

We are beyond excited for what is going to be, by far the most important event for us in 2015...the arrival of our baby!  Several weeks ago, we found out that we are having a baby boy & we've been busy working on the nursery ever since...

While we always wanted our nursery to be somewhat neutral whether we had a boy or a girl (no traditional pink or baby blue), it helps to know the gender so we can add some more masculine touches to the room.

First things first - choosing the room for the nursery.  We had 2 guest bedrooms & we needed to choose which one would become the nursery.  Here were the options: