It’s been a long time coming, but I think the nursery is just about FINISHED! Of course I will continuously add little things here and there (like his name tiles and a birth stats painting) but I’m not going to count that.
First up is the dresser. I scoured Craigslist and Goodwill until I found the dresser of my nursery dreams. It needed to be long enough be hold the changing pad and diapering paraphernalia and tall enough so Jonathan and I wouldn’t have to hunch over when changing the boy. The dresser that finally fit the bill was from a kind Craigslister up in Michigan, for $75. It was kind of an oak finish, but I
It was originally kind of an oak finish, but I knew I wanted it white to match the crib. So it sat and sat and sat in the garage until Aunt Terry and Mom could come out and paint it for me.
It turned out pretty awesome, don’t you think? I painted the existing knobs. I gave Jonathan a choice of many different designs including dinosaurs and monsters, but who would have thunk it…he picked numbers. They turned out pretty cute. Mom sprayed a few coats of high gloss clear coat and they looked like they came from a store.
Now on to a cozy place for bedtime stories and late night feedings.
The rocker was another thrifty find…$15 at Goodwill. It was a lovely shade of greenish yellow, but still super comfy. I wanted to reupholster it, but I’ve never tackled that before and needed some reinforcements. So again, it sat and sat until Aunt Terry and Mom came to visit. Since Aunt Terry has done chairs before Mom and I were just helpers. I chose a canvas drop cloth from Home Depot as my fabric and it turned out great!
Of course the lamp was another Goodwill find, at $3 for the base and $2 for the shade. Mom spray painted the base and I recovered the shade with a pretty fabric we picked up from Hobby Lobby. The little dinosaur next to the lamp was the first little toy I made for the baby.
Now, the artwork in this corner. I repurposed an old canvas by having Jonathan spray paint the same orange from the lamp over top of the original painting. The original painting had some dark lines in it and ridges from my brushstrokes and I wanted to camouflage as much of that as possible, so using watered down white glue and white tissue paper I decoupaged over the whole orange surface. I found silhouette of a triceratops on clip art and used that to make the outline for the dinos. I’m really proud of the finished product as it came out even better than I anticipated.
I don’t know where I originally saw the idea for rain gutter bookshelves, but it stayed in my brain until I had a place to put them. I used the tutorial here for installing them. 
The whole project was less than $20 and I installed them in under an hour. 
The crib nook is the final stop on our nursery tour. This first picture is a little older, and since I took it, the mobile has been lowered significantly, a mattress added to the crib, and artwork hung next to the window. I’d go take a new picture now, but frankly I’m tired and don’t want to.
I constructed the mobile for FREE with paint chips from Home Depot, some card stock I had on hand left over from our wedding, thread, and an old embroidery hoop. I punched out a bunch of circles from the paint chips and card stock and put them back to back. I stitched the line of circles together on my sewing machine and attached each string to the hoop. Easy peasy. I can’t take credit for the idea though…I found it here.
The artwork in this part of the room was created by everyone who attended the baby shower my sister had for me. She had the great idea to have everyone paint a small square tile with the colors of the nursery. To make them more uniform and fun, we had everyone use tape to mask off areas for solid colors. I put them all together, mounted them on foam board and trimmed the edges with orange ribbon. It looks great in his room and it will be a nice reminder of all the people who loved the baby before he was even born!
I hope you’ve enjoyed your tour of the nursery! All it really needs now is a baby…three more weeks!
Brynn, etc. 