Nursery Progress

I am feeling some major mom guilt that Baby Lala is over 5 months old and I still haven't finished her room. Everything takes so much damn time. It's craziness. I brought the twins home to a fully decked out nursery. This kid has been living with nothing but a crib sheet and even that took me three months to have in hand.



Anyway, I kicked it into high gear this week and ordered her draperies. I wanted to also order her crib skirt and bumpers, but the skirt fabric was discontinued (of course it was, because I finally made up my mind) so the workroom is trying to track down a remnant from the manufacturer to make this happen for me. Fingers crossed.



Here are some (iPhone) pics of what it's looking like in there now...



The previously turquoise dresser needs a few more coats of wax (more on this DI-why?! another day) and then I need to remount the mirror. The daybed is actually going to be Ryan's big boy bed, but we're storing it in the nursery for now. So for now, pretend Reese's bed is built. That sloppy mess of crumpled fabric is me elegantly modeling her unbuilt headboard to see how it was all going to look.

We hung some sunburst mirrors and I finally gave up on my search for a dresser/hutch combo that would fit the space and settled on a dresser/bookcase piece instead for the other side of the room. I'm happy the hunt is over and my need for more drawer storage, display space and a place to put all of their bed-night books is solved. Win-win. 

I also picked up a pair of antique child chairs ($30 for the pair!). Joe is going to cut 2" off of the legs making them slightly more toddler friendly and I need to clean them up and reupholster the seats. I plan on getting the girls this little PBK table eventually. The bookcase thing just got here today, so forgive the lack of anything on the shelves. I don't know how to style shelves anyway and I am clutterphobic. But hopefully they'll look better than this someday. 

I have plans to paint the back of the bookcase mushroom gray because it is not the nicest quality of non-wood out there and I think it will help it look fancy schmancier. Hopefully I am not wrong in that assessment.

The curtains will be just decorative panels with an inverted pleat in this fabric. I ordered flat roman shades which are the color of the walls when we first moved. Those should be ready for installation early next week. I found box pleated ribbon for the leading edge of the drapes and I am going to apply it myself to save some moolah. So that will be done by the time the girls are in kindergarten and first grade, respectively.

The art for above Reese's bed came in last week and I love it to pieces. I'm going to pick up some Ribba frames for it next month when I'm swinging by Ikea and those will also be painted in mushroom gray. I think these little touches will help balance out all the lavender and white. 

I still need to find pretty, but not overly expensive, swing arm sconces that fit the bill. And then dare I say it, we may be kind of, almost done. 

Lola seemed to really enjoy her new digs when we sat and admired her space today. 

Gah! Baby toes. I just want to eat them. And how about that hair? It's not easy to pull off nearly bald, you know. Girlfriend is sleeping in her undecorated room 7-8 hours per night. Clearly she is unfettered by my lack of progress. 

Feeling Blue

I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm an incredibly indecisive person. If I'm making a decision for your life, I know the right answer immediately. If I'm making a decision for my life, I labor over everything for...sometimes years. It's honestly painful.



Two fabrics, including custom colored pieces I spent a few weeks designing on Spoonflower are either here or on their way here for the nursery. I'm having issues with that dang shade of lavender, but I'm working with it. And, I really like the plan I have in my head.



While feeding the baby on Saturday I was killing time perusing Craigslist and came across a dresser that was too pretty. The lines, the hardware. Love. So I emailed the seller and we went to go see it yesterday. That dresser is now in the nursery. Except it's turquoise. Or teal. Or a moody blue.

My plan when I saw it online was to repaint it mushroom or white. Except I put it in that fricking room and it's so gosh darn pretty that I'm rethinking everything. I hate it when that happens.



The first thing that popped into my head when we put that dresser in there was this nursery I pinned a few weeks ago.

I love the boho chic that is this little room. But it's not me. The second thing I thought of was this fabric. Oh this silly, stupid fabric that I first spotted in Southern Living a few years ago after the collapse of Cottage Living (when all of the CL editors switched publications for a millisecond). 

Gorgeous. So gorgeous. And more expensive than all three of my IVF conceived children combined. Damn you, stupid gorgeous fabric. 

So I'm thinking I may keep the turquoise dresser as it is and change literally everything in the room with the exception of the crib and the chair. Or I may not. I can't decide if turquoise and navy would work for a nursery/little girl's room. I personally love it. But is it feminine and childlike enough? Probably not. Would they grow into it? Maybe. 

I've been pinning turquoise and navy inspirations here and the lavender and greige here, if anyone is interested or cares to weigh in. I'll probably be up googling fabrics till random hours in the morning this week. Maybe Lola's room will be done before she goes to college? Maybe not. 

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Duh, contracted some version of ebola this week and have pink eyes. Four of them. We were at the urgent care until 10 last night. My twinkies have a knack for getting ridiculously ill when the pediatrician's office is going to be closed for several days in a row. So while my kids are home sick and off of school and activities anyway for President's Week, I'll be laying low. 

Seriously, have you ever seen two sickies happier to be at urgent care? You'd have thought I took them to Disney World. Enjoy the holiday week, if you have off for such tomfoolery. 

And before I forget! For those of you that asked, here are the files for the onesies. I took the liberty of flipping the images for you, so all you have to do is open and print. Let me know if the links give you trouble, I am sometimes a little special when it comes to sharing files. 

Onesies Months 1 - 6 

Onesies Months 7 - 12 

Happy Crafting!

Nursery Finishing Touches

Our nursery is finally complete. The last thing I was working on was art for over the dresser/changing table. After falling in love with this Nantucket drawing (and not being able to get a copy of it from the artist) I blew up the only image of it I had to poster size, mounted it on burlap and framed it. The frame was basic white MDF and I painted it to match the room.

The wall near the rocker was seeming too empty, and I was having problems finding places to put Reese's headbands and clips. Using some Martha Stewart inspiration found on Pinterest, I took an old frame that we had in the house and turned it into a bulletin board. I had Joe mount hooks on it for me so that I could hang Ry's hats and Reese's flowers.

The actual board is lined with cork, so I can pin things to it or slide items underneath the ribbon. I still have to fill the board with treasures and keepsakes. But for now, I'm happy. And the whole thing cost me less than $10 and two hours to make. YAY!

The Twins' Nursery

Please keep in mind I have a new camera that I don't know how to use, I don't know anything about the right type of light to shoot in, and I'm not able to get into many positions these days that would help make a shot look artful. In fact, I got stuck between a crib and a wall taking a few of the pictures below. Ouch! Anyway, I'm still super excited about the nursery, even if I'm not Ansel Adams!

{ the layout }

{ the starting point }

{ Closet Joe built so we'd have extra storage and each baby could have their own space. I told him what I wanted and he made it come to life. Love that man. }

{ View from the cribs looking out over the room, still waiting for a painting to come in which will go over the dresser/changing table. }

The art we're waiting on is a 30 x 40 watercolor map of Nantucket, similar to the one below. My best friend from college is an artist and sculptor (he helped create the new Harry Potter Theme Park!) and we commissioned him to create the map. I'm so excited and can't wait to see the final result. 

The babies glider is from Four Seasons Furniture. We loved that Four Seasons sells slipcovers independent of their chairs, so when this chair is no longer needed in the nursery, we can just order a new slipcover and relocate it elsewhere.  The chair is so comfortable it's ridiculous, and I can fit in it while wearing the My Brest Friend Twin Nursing Pillow (which is ginormous). The woman that helped me rework the curtains in the room made me the cute bolster pillow with some leftover crib skirt fabric I had. 

{ The Libby XL slipcovered in P. Kaufmann's Baldwin Celery fabric }

The two pictures above the glider are from my nursery when I was a little girl. Over the summer my mom dumped a bunch of memory boxes on us cause she was tired of storing them. I was going through the boxes and found these pictures. Ironically they are of a little boy and a little girl. Each was matted and framed in colors that perfectly matched the room I had planned. It was kind of eerie. 

We thought two babies required two chairs. And we were super lucky that Joe's mom offered us the rocker she used for Joe when he was a baby. Joe was born in Germany and the rocker was purchased overseas. If you look at the wood stamp underneath it says "made in Yugoslavia", making it a true antique seeing as that country doesn't even exist anymore!

{ I purchased a yard of the crib skirt fabric and had a custom cushion made. }

Their dresser and changing table was an old unfinished pine dresser I've had for literally ten years. It used to be inside my closet. We found some green stain and Joe got to work on the dresser for me. He found the cute acrylic knobs all by himself! The changing pad cover is from PB Kids, and we got super lucky that it matched the twin's sheets perfectly.

{ I think the humidifier makes the picture, don't you? 

At least it's not our diaper genie :) }

{ view from the hallway looking into the nursery }

{ View from the closet looking out at the cribs, and a good shot of the infamous "R Wall" that nearly drove me to drink. }

The babies' other dresser is an Ikea Rast 3-Drawer Chest that Joe painted. I made knock-off Anthro knobs for the dresser (since paying more for hardware than for the piece itself was out of the question). I fell in love with the Catalina Magazine Rack from PB Kids and it seems to work well here. The babies already have more books than we know what to do with!

The design for our whole nursery started with the crib skirt fabric, which I found right around our first gender scan (16 weeks). The fabric is P. Kaufmann Gypsy in Spring. It's a really beachy mix of blues, greens and coral. A wonderful company called Javis Davis made the crib skirts for us. They arrived in within two weeks of ordering, and they are gorgeous in person. The crib sheets and bumpers are from Serena and Lily's Nursery Basics line, they are the penny dot in sprout and the sprout basics bumper.

{ extreme crib close up }

So the room is ready, we've had all of the major appliances in the house serviced, changed all the batteries in the smoke detectors, bought new carbon monoxide detectors and added doors to our bookcases which previously had open shelving. Now our babies just need to COME OUT. 16 days or less (and counting)!

Nursery Knobs (the Anthro knock-offs)

I finished my knock-off Anthro knobs and put them on the dresser (finally). As you can see we still have to hang things on the wall. My friend Mike (an amazing watercolor artist and sculptor) is painting our Nantucket map for us as we speak. I'm still battling the R wall, but hope to have the letters ready to hang this week). As soon as everything is in, up and hung I'll take pictures.

The knobs cost me $17.82 to recreate, not bad in comparison to the $56.87 it would have cost to purchase them outright. I could have saved even more if I would have just painted the knobs that came with the dresser white like I had originally planned, but we're running out of time and the husband convinced me to just buy porcelain knobs from Lowe's and paint those instead. I'm so glad I did. The knobs took me 10 minutes instead of 10 days!

A Little DIY in the Nursery (Just a Little)

Our nursery is only an 11' x 11' space, which seems big, until you try to fit two cribs, a rocker, a glider, a side table, a changing table and another small dresser in there. Then you start to scratch your head and wonder when the room became so small. Here's a rough sketch of the nursery's layout.

Joe's mom generously gave us the rocker she used for him when he was a baby. He was born in Germany (his dad is in the Army) and the rocker was made in Yugoslavia, making it a true antique since the country no longer exists! With two babies, we were glad to have two chairs. Although, I think even with one baby, it's nice for mommies and daddies to be able to sit together in a nursery! 

On a recent trip to Ikea I spotted the little Rast bedside table. For $29, I decided the risk would be worth the reward and took it home with me. You should have seen short little me with a big ole belly trying to get this thing off of a middle shelf in the "self-serve" area of Ikea. Took me nearly 40 minutes to get it down. Not a single person offered to help! Not sure if that's a Jersey thing or a WTF is wrong with people thing, but I digress...

As it turns out, Mr. Rast was the perfect little table/dresser to put next to Joe's rocker. And we ended up with a lot more storage as a result. Win-win. We had some leftover paint from when we redid our baseboards and trim, and we were super lucky because the paint just so happened to be a dead-on match for our crib. Talk about consistency. So Mr. Rast got a fresh coat of Benjamin Moore's Seashell and a top coat of Minwax's Water-Based Poly (which is pretty much the only poly that won't turn your whites into yellows!)

I must say this little $29 find is looking pretty sharp all dressed up and shiny! I wanted to find some fun knobs and happened upon these from Anthro, which I thought would be a fun play off of the fabric I used on the crib skirt. But at $8 a pop (times six knobs) the hardware would have cost more than the dresser itself. 

So I decided to get creative and replicate the knobs on my own. I painted the Rast's original wood knobs in BM Seashell. And today I ordered a sample jar of Serena and Lily's "punch" paint for $6. As soon as it comes in, I'll hand paint punch polka dots on the seashell knobs and then throw a coat of poly over them. 

If you know me, you know I absolutely abhor DIY projects, so hopefully this is as easy as it sounds and it comes out cute. I'd much rather spend $6 than $48. But I've been known to throw around the idea of "what's my time worth" when justifying irrational purchases to the husband. Wish me luck! I hope to have all the furniture in and done this week so I can focus on fun things like art and accessories! 

Winborg Sisters Cherry Blossom Birdies

Nursery snafu number one. I'm sure there's more to come...



I ordered the Cherry Blossom Birdies 40x30 canvas (can be purchased through PB Kids) from Baby Oliver Boutique for our nursery. The artwork arrived yesterday and it has a lot more pink than I expected and isn't quite as gender neutral as I had hoped.



I ordered through Baby Oliver because they offered free shipping and shipping & handling through PBK was $63. Found out this morning that Baby Oliver has a no returns policy, lucky me.



The canvas is still wrapped in plastic with safety corners on the edges. I literally only took it out of the box before I realized it wouldn't work.



This retails for $245 + S&H on PBK, and $245 on Baby Oliver.



Selling for $200 with free shipping.
email me if interested nikinikinine[at]yahoo[dot]com

Tidbits

My husband surprised me with both a baby shower and my little sister this week. My sister rocks. Like reaaaally rocks. She gave me about 20 R's for my nursery wall and then helped me decorate them all afternoon on Tuesday. 

I love each and every one of them.

Today is my birthday. I'm 31. So far my 30's have been exponentially better than my 20's. After a fantastic week off, today I worked a nine hour day and came home to take out, a DVR full of good TV, my hottie husband and this gorgeous ring. Happy Birthday to ME!

As though my husband hadn't already sealed the deal on husband of the year with the baby shower, the sister, and the birthday present. I also came home to find out he finished staining and applying the poly to the babies' dresser AND moved it upstairs into their room. 

The dresser started out as an old, unfinished pine dresser that I've had for ten years. No before picture; trust me, this is a marked improvement. And I'm loving the nursery as its coming together. Now if I could just get better at taking pictures so that I can more accurately (and beautifully) show off his handy work. But a girl can only be good at so many things, right? (I kid.)

Oh, and I completely realize that green bin does not match the other greens in the room. What can I say? I tried. I'm going to recover it with spare fabric leftover from when I was picking material for the twins' crib skirts. Speaking of crib skirts, I found a company (Javis Davis) online and the owner is too sweet for words and they had our fabric in stock and custom crib bedding was ridiculously reasonable. So I ordered their crib skirts today and we should have them in a few weeks. Cannot wait for that. 

Picking A Glider

I found a chair company I like, a lot. Now my biggest problem is that I can't decide which glider I like better. I've only gotten to sit in the "Sarah" but I sat in a few other chairs from this company (Four Seasons Furniture) and they are all super comfy, so I don't think I can make a bad choice.

This is the "Sarah" which I got to sit in yesterday.

We'd actually get this in an XL as it is a bit taller and wider.

Sarah: 34L x 35D x 36H

The other chair I like is called the Taylor. I like the shape and I love that it's wider, taller and deeper. But I'd have to order it sight unseen, which is never easy to do. I think the fabric that they show it in doesn't do this chair justice. I guess I think it looks a little feminine and old fashioned. But fabric changes everything.

Taylor: 36L x 36D x 39H

So which do you like better? The Sarah or the Taylor?

I suck at making decisions. Although I did decide on a slipcover fabric (go me!)

The pattern is called "Baldwin" and we chose  "Celery" as the color.

Here's a crappy iPhone photo of the fabric with our crib skirt.

If you're interested in Four Seasons furniture you can find them online at Layla Grace and Posh Tots. If you'd like to find a dealer in your area, their website is not helpful at all! Call them during normal business hours and they'll be able to help you find a reseller in your area (336) 873-7520.

And don't forget to help me pick!

Sarah XL or Taylor???

The Letter R

Dear Friends and Family,

I'm collecting the letter R.

If you happen to spy one, please grab it for me!

I'll pay you back in either cash, favors or cookies.

(whichever you prefer)

Love you! 

Niki

Nursery Progress

PB Kendall knockoff from JCP here. 

Half the price and free shipping = two cribs for the price of one!