Monday, August 16, 2010

The Nursery Obsession: A journey nearing madness

Since the very moment I found out I was with child, I became obsessed with how to decorate the nursery. Well, if I am to be honest...it's something I've thought about plenty even before I knew we were expecting. DH along with many others have made such points as "the baby won't even use the room for the first year" and "by the time he cares what its decorated as, he'll have outgrown it and you'll have to do it over" and "but, it's yellow". To these naysayers I have three words. I. Don't. Care. It's my first (and possibly only) baby, and I want the room to be just so. Or, at least as "just so" as a tiny room on a non-designer budget can be.

When we first bought this little house, we thought that one little bedroom in particular would make a lovely nursery. In the meantime we used it as a guest bedroom/sewing room/dumping ground. During each other room's face lift, it carefully and selflessly offered a home to all the furniture, artwork and miscellaneous goodies that needed a place to stay. You may remember this little gem of a room from such posts as this and this.

DH has been amazingly tolerant of my obsession with this room's important future. He talked me out of some rather silly ideas by suggesting that he install crown molding. *Splash*!! It's my hearts desire to have crown molding in every major room in the house so I wasn't about to say no. And let me tell you something...installing crown molding is a bitch. I will be eternally grateful to DH for doing it.

Here he is, hard at work:


And I gotta say, I love the way it turned out. He's so good:


Soooo, the next step. I get many "what's your theme?" questions from folks who are thinking of gift ideas and such. I had a most perfect theme in mind for a girls nursery...that involved toile (love) and gingham, and whimsical art work. I didn't have many ideas for a boy, until some swatches of fabric arrived (I ordered them when I thought we were having a girl...that's a story for another time). Among them was this fabric. DH said "hey, I like that one!" and I thought...maybe I can have my toile nursery afterall!!! Inspiration #1 was born.

Inspiration #2 came in the form of this antique rocking chair, which incidentally my mother has a picture of HER mother being rocked in it by my great-great grandmother. It's like 100 years old and aside from needing reupholstery is in great shape:


The fabric makes me think of a whimsical, fantastical circus that might have come to town back in the day when great-great granny was rocking her first baby in this very rocker. So I'm thinking a bit vintage, a bit whimsical, a bit circus.

My darling mother in law suggested that she make a quilt that includes the fabric of choice and some others that she let me help select. I'm making curtains and probably some cute little pillows and a gingham dust ruffle for the crib mattress. Sewing projects!!

I wrestled over the furniture decision in a very big way. My original intent was to find an old fashioned wood crib on Craigslist and pair it with a shabby chic style dresser (that could double as a changing table). But the safety factor of old cribs hindered that plan...as did DH's distaste for the shabby chic style of furniture. In the end we got pieces from this set, which will work nicely and the stain of the wood is just right.

I also debated for a long time over the choice of rug. DH wanted to carpet the room, which I refused. I would have liked something subtle and a bit old fashioned looking like this pottery barn rug, but it was too expensive. I'd hate to clean spit up off of a 400 dollar rug. In the end we went with this option. A bit contemporary for my "theme"...but I figure it keeps it from being too serious, is a fun pick for a kid, and has all the right colors in it. DH likes it which is always a plus. And the price was right.

So much progress has been made, and still a bit left to do. DH installed a light in the closet (he's such a rockstar) and is in the midst of painting it, and we've got some shelving to install in there. I've moved on to the next mind boggling decision....artwork. I've got some ideas for a direction that are keeping with the theme.

Phew!! Stay tuned...next time there will be pictures of the final product!!

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