Our guest bedroom has basically been an extra room we posed as a guest room for the last 4 years, but rarely ever used as a guest room. Our families both live pretty close to us, so we've never really had to use the room for guests. What we have used it for is ironing, gift wrapping and the closet as extra storage for seasonal clothes and seasonal decor.
Now...it has a new purpose since we are expecting a baby girl in early November! So this room has become my new decor project and I am excited to see what it will become in anticipation of baby girl Teeter.
Since we are having a girl, we decided to leave the wall paint color as is (Lowe's Olympic Kiwi Splash) and add an accent with coral/pink colors. The color scheme inspiration came from what I already have -a Peacock Alley custom floral bedskirt and silk multi-color check round table skirt. I am repurposing these items for this room. The bedskirt lays perfectly on top of the mattress spring platform and will be held in place with the mattress. We have a 24" round wooden table (hidden shelves underneath for storage) with the silk check table skirt. Need to find a glass topper to protect the table top.
We settled on a crib style (Charleston 4-in-1 Convertible) and color/finish (white) and ordered it through Wayfair.com (a great home decor website). My sweet husband and I worked together to put it together, which was pretty simple.
Sorry for the blurry drawing; I tried to get a clearer picture. In my head I had planned the floor plan layout for the nursery and then sketched it to scale to make sure it would work. The crib is on the main & longest wall, so that wall is naturally a focal point. When you walk into the room you face the window wall and to the right is the crib wall. A couple of weeks ago I was scouring antique and consignment shops for a chest and found an old pine chest which will fit perfectly on the wall to the left of the window. We are working on refinishing/sanding it now and will paint it (what color yet TBD?) soon. We have cream carpet in the room, but I think adding an accent rug will brighten up the floor space and add some interest. I'm thinking a white storage cubby/bench for the right wall beside the window, so we can put some basket bins/cubes for storage. I'm also planning on adding wall shelves above the bench for books, nick-nacks, etc. We have a traditional wing chair in a green velour fabric (that we've used in our bedroom), but my plan is to make a slipcover with tailored skirt to re-upholster it and use it for this room.
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| In progress |
My next thought was "what could I do to make the crib wall a focal wall?" I have looked on Pinterest.com for nursery ideas and saw something that sort of inspired the above. After lightly drawing with pencil and with careful measuring using a yardstick and level, using a plate to draw the cut-in/curved corners and after applying 1" masking painter's tape to outline and tape off the border, above is the result. We selected Lowe's Valspar Coral Banks wall color to paint the inset. When I finished painting the inset coral color, I removed the tape and painted the border a semi-gloss white (which took 3 coats and was time-consuming). Originally I had planned on using wood molding for the border, but to save time and to keep things easy for the future (in case we ever want to repaint the room), this concept works better and I love how it turned out. What I plan to do in this wall space is hang 3 white frames with some sort of artwork, fabric or letters for a monogram. I also plan to make a ceiling mount mobile with either flowers or butterflies hanging above the crib.
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| After |
As I mentioned earlier, I found this 1940's old pine chest in an antique shop and saw the potential for it working in the nursery. The size and height are perfect and it has good storage. Just needs some loving care and some sprucing up. So, here's what the skeleton & drawer fronts looked like when we started sanding it. We used 80pt sandpaper to smooth it down and used 220pt sandpaper to give it a final smooth finish. Next comes the cleaning, the primer and then the paint for final finish.
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| In progress, sanding complete |
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| After |
Let me begin by saying this chest took some tender loving care and a lot of devoted time to complete...but I definitely think it was worth all the effort. After sanding, cleaning and priming with an oil based white primer, I painted several coats of paint, including a final polycrylic clear coat to protect it from scratching and give it a nice semi-gloss finish. The drawers match the wall color and the coral painted sides of the chest coordinate back to the wall accent I painted above the crib. It really looks so cute in the nursery and I'm excited to have some great storage too. This piece will also function as the baby changing location.
I found this really cute pink shag pouf in HomeGoods and think it is perfect in the center of the room floor. Not only does it function as a footstool for the chair, but when baby girl starts crawling and pulling up on things...it will be a really great piece for her to use to pull herself up and it's soft too, so no worries about bumping her head.
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| Polka dot bumper |
I found the above polka dot fabric at a local store and decided to tackle making a crib bumper. Never made one before, so I learned some things in the process. But I found a pretty basic tutorial off Pinterest, and after some tweaks, sewed the bumper. I will say (having never worked with a bumper before) it isn't the most simple piece of bedding to install on a crib...so many ties. I'm hoping I don't have to remove this too much. The good thing is we can still remove the crib mattress without taking the whole bumper off.
Next on the list to do...make the curtains, make the mobile above the crib, find a mirror or something for above the chest, wall art for the accent wall above crib, find a rug and decide on the chair. Whew...I hope baby girl eventually appreciates all this effort.
