Baby G’s nursery

One of the coolest things of being a parent is that you get to relive/realize things from your own childhood. I always wanted to have a mural in my room as a kid. They were very popular back in Soviet Union and I remember seeing them at the doctors’ office, library or on the walls of my kindergarten. The scale, the colours, the whimsical characters - I was fascinated by them as a kid.

So when we found out we were going to be parents, I knew I wanted to paint one for my baby’s nursery: And here it is. Perhaps, not as perfect as I thought it would be, but I am happy with it. My goal was to be original with the characters. For some reason, I wanted to stay away from Disney:) And use lots of colour!

Besides the mural, there is one more detail in the room that I like a lot. The doily pendant. It's special because it was the first diy project for the baby that V and I both worked on and it's also made of doilies made by my grandma:)
The rest of the room décor is pretty low-key. No mobile, fancy toys or expensive pieces of furniture. Our “changing table” underneath the mural was an old tv stand donated to V on one of his moves that he spray painted white. The corner closet and the crib were both from Ikea.

Nursery theme inspiration

Canadian Family Magazine

Canadian Family Magazine

I almost jumped when I saw this beautiful nursery. It’s gender neutral, done on a budget and full of fun at the same time.
With less than three months to go, we still haven’t decided on the theme for our nursery. After seeing this woodland-themed one, I kinda want ours to be in the same spirit. V and I both love nature and plan to take the baby out on picnics and nature walks as much as we can, so bringing nature into the room certainly seems exciting.

Now I only have to find out where did they get those toadstools mushrooms from!

Nursery plan: Eames Rocking Chair

For a while I seriously considered not having a rocking chair at all in this room.
First of all, it needs to be super compact to fit in our little room, which is hard to find. It also mustn't be overly expensive. And finally, I want a chair that I could keep and use afterwards.

Once I started my research on rockers, I found myself drawn to this guy:

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It seems that many people favour this particular chair to be used in the nurseries and I might be one of them. Here is why. I love its clean and simple look. It may not look super comfy but I think with a help of a little pillow or a blanket over it, it can get quite cozy. It’s compact and will fit into our small room; it’s light and can be carried to other rooms (which is very handy if I want to rock the baby in the living room when I have visitors), it comes in all kinds of fun colours and it can be used by the kid to sit in when she/he is older. All seem to be valid pros to order one and try it out.

What do you think, aye or nay?

Nursery: PAX corner wardrobe installed

Last week I shared our storage plan for the nursery, this week I’m showing you the end result. The piece (or two pieces) fit in like it belonged in that corner. The inside drawers and shelves are exactly what I wanted and where I wanted them to be and  this whole set up saves us the need (and $$) to get a dresser for this room:  What I love the most about this wardrobe is its permanence. We are determined to have this piece for as long as we can to accommodate the growing baby and use until it’s time go off to college!:) For now, there is enough space to fill in, but if we ever need to, we can always add more sections either to the left or right sides later on.
Since our corner unit is only 201 cm high (as opposed to 236cm option), it only came with one shelve. I wanted to get one more to install in the middle but Ikea doesn’t sell them separately. We’d have to get crafty and cut one out ourselves one day.
The corner looks pretty different than before and it's a big relief to get one step closer to having the room ready:

Nursery plans: PAX corner wardrobe

This weekend, V and I took care of storage. Storage is our main concern considering we only have 600 sq. ft main floor. We have another few on the lower level where stuff can go (and it does, unfortunately) but on the main level, we are pretty tight. We try to keep things simple and not stock up on anything. But with the baby in the future, there will be things to store. As much as we plan to keep those belongings under control and limited to the very necessary basics, there will be things: toys, clothes, shoes, gear, etc.
Back when we were renovating the future "baby" room, we decided to get rid of the closet that was in the room originally: Well, it wasn’t so much of a closet as much as a thick wall sticking out of the main wall and taking up space. It had one shelve, one metal bar inside and two old sliding doors on the outside. It wasn’t functional, it wasn’t built-in and it had to go: V demolished it in seconds and we felt so much better after it was gone (isn't his face expression just priceless?): We figured out that once the time comes, we’d get something instead of it. Now that we are impatiently waiting for the space to be occupied, we decided to fill the corner that we’d freed up with a store bought wardrobe. Ikea’s corner PAX seemed to be so right for the spot. Since the bedroom event is on right now, we went and got one this weekend (V’s assembling it these days): It takes up less space and has lots of storage potential. We can hang some clothes and store seasonal ones without packing them away and bringing downstairs. For little items, we’ve added a side panel on the left that holds shelves, drawers and my all time favourite - basket, which is great for storing shoes. In order to save a little on this investment, we didn’t go for the tallest option but settled on the smaller one and opted out of the high gloss doors. Even though we love them so much on our bedroom PAX, they didn’t seem necessary in the child’s room. (not to mention super pricy)

What do you think? Would you install a corner PAX in the kids room?

Nursery plans

Like any first time parents to be, V and I are in the nesting mode. Truthfully, we’ve been in it ever since we started updating our home but now that we have a little one on the way, our nesting instincts are skyrocketing (mine are keeping me up nights!).

There are lots of things to finish around here. Some are small, like hanging sewn curtains in the living room or adding trim around doors, some are bigger, like finishing our entryway or the linen closet - both have been put so deep on the back burner that I don't even notice their unfinished state any longer, and some are huge, like decorating the nursery! We have the room ready “core”- wise: new floors are done, baseboards are in, it’s been painted, but it remains our “just-dump-things-here-for-now-room” and it’s driving me nuts!
I’ve been searching for inspiration and amongst endless images of all kinds of styles, colours and themes used in the nurseries, found couple that really spoke to me. Those were the ones that had no specific theme or gender definition. They were simple, fun and minimal (not to mention - budget friendly) and I’m hoping to make ours in the same spirit:

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So this weekend’s plans: visiting Ikea, scouring Etsy, budgeting and measuring (perhaps these should be in reversed order but I don’t care). As long as we have a plan and start making decisions and not putting it off any longer!