Caroline’s Nursery

We have been working for weeks on Caroline’s nursery.  Between teaching, coaching, families, traveling, social lives, and sleeping – we don’t have huge chunks of time to designate to a single project.  But, we are both anal retentive and like to have things the right way.  As soon as we found out we were having a girl, we ordered the bedding.  We had had the crib and the dresser since earlier in the year when we got pregnant the first time.  They have been in their boxes in the garage and calling to me every single day to get them out and put them together.  So instead of writing this whole long story, I’m going to let the pictures tell you what we’ve been through over these past weeks!

 

We started out with a beige room (ceiling and walls) with a huge eye sore of a fake attic entrance in the ceiling.  It had crown molding around it and it was all I saw when I walked into the room.  We knew that had to go away if we wanted to have the room we really had in mind.

So Ja pulled off the crown molding, bought some sheet rock and plastered that hole up.  He did such a good job and you can’t even tell there was something there!  We also did away with that heinous light fixture!

Documented proof that we did enjoy ourselves in between trying to rip each other’s head off.  We knew if we could make it through the nursery remodel…we would be just fine!

Once we got the ceiling patched, it was time to paint.  The ceilings got a fresh coat of bright white paint and the walls are a bright teal.  In the bedding we got there were all sorts of colors, including baby pink and hot pink, but since I can’t really get into the whole baby pink thing, we figured this teal would be something bright, fun, and different.  I LOVED it instantly.

We painted the whole room, but left a little bit at the top because Ja was going to attempt to put crown molding up around the room. 

Ja working away!

And he did a GREAT job!  The crown molding and the white contrasted to the teal looks amazing!  Exactly what we had in mind!

We got rid of the light fixture that was in there and got a new white fan.  It will help keep in cool in the summer time and helps to hide the spot on the ceiling.

These poor dogs have no idea what is about to happen to them.  They can’t stand to not be in the room with us and helping us with EVERYTHING that we do.  They are going to be great big brothers, though, and I can’t wait to see them with Caroline.

This is our dresser.  It is Baby Cache and it was different than a lot of cribs and dressers we had found.  We thought we’d go espresso like our bedroom furniture, but for some reason, we both instantly loved this.  It is extremely well made and very sturdy and well worth every penny.  This will soon house the changing pad and supplies, as well as a Diaper Genie, once we get closer!

Ja has been so excited about getting this room together and has had some GREAT ideas that have just added so much color and personality to the room.  He got these letters and the dragonfly as plain wooden figures at Michael’s for about $1.  He then used the wall color and our hot pink accent paint to make those match the room.  Her initials and the dragonfly are on the door to her room.

We knew we wanted to put her name up in the room somehow.  We had thought about getting letters and hanging them with ribbon like we had seen before.  We started talking about different ideas and eventually came up with this.  We got the letters at Michael’s for about $2 each and Ja painted each one with our hot pink paint.  We then bought a picture frame that was bright white.  We mounted just the frame to the wall and then put the letters inside attached to the wall.  And, voila!, Caroline has a home!

This is our crib and bedding and I LOVE LOVE it.  We looked and looked and looked and just didn’t love any of the girl bedding.  Some of it is absolutely HEINOUS and someone thinks that it is beautiful.  Since I’m not into girly, pinky, princessy stuff, it made it a little difficult.  But when we saw this, it was very simple and perfect.  It is from Pottery Barn Kids, which we had to justify spending that much money, but we figured this is our first child and if we want to splurge a little bit, Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, and Happy Anniversary for the next year or so.  That is for the bedding and all the other stuff we got for the room!

This is the crib side of the room in all it’s lovely goodness!

Another crib view.  At Target we found this beanbag chair.  It has floppy antennae and feet and is the cutest thing!  We have names her Lucy the Ladybug and we’re sure we’ll have more than a few pictures of Caroline sitting on that beanbag chair when she is a little thing!

This is one of my favorite things that we have found at Target.  We have named him Scooter.  He is a night light and he is covered with soft baby clue silicone and to turn him on and off you just tap him on the head!

Another piece of Target goodness.  This is an alphabet print for above the book shelf.  We loved the selection for all the letters and it will be fun to use that to teach Caroline her ABCs!

We also got this bookshelf at Target.  It is a Closet Maid cube and the baskets are Closet Maid, also.  We used stuffed animals that we had from our childhood and a few things that we have already been given as gifts.  I’m sure we’ll add a lot of books to that collection!  The teddy bear on top we got at Cracker Barrel for $10!  Love that place!  And that’s Scooter glowing on top of the shelf!

We knew we wanted a rocker/glider of some sort, but we just couldn’t pay the prices that people were asking for them.  So we went to American Furniture Warehouse in Greensboro and got this chocolate brown recliner for a steal.  The bedding quilt is on it, as well as a pillow we got from my Aunt JoAnn.  The side table is another Closet Maid cube and the lamp we got at Target. 

Ja taking a break and enjoying his hard work.  He is also catching up on some What To Expect!  We feel pretty good about where the nursery is right now, but I’m sure we’ll have PLENTY of additions by the time Caroline gets here!  I hope she loves it as much as we do!!