The Big Nursery Reveal

Our nursery has been finished for weeks now...so here you go, a run down of our nursery including money we spent on it. A few things you should know first:

1. This was our most expensive room ever--this was the first room I ever had the opportunity to plan from start to finish. I had LOADS of fun doing it. 
2. I pretty much stole the entire decor idea from Young House Love and Clara's nursery. Thank you Young House Love for your inspiration!
3.  The bedroom is small-8 ft by 10.5 feet. Go ahead, measure it out and compare it to a bedroom in your home. It's small.  This was another reason I chose to follow Clara's nursery design. Her room is the exact same size.
4. It's gender neutral. Because we're foster parents and knew we would have a mere hours between the time we'd receive a phone call about a baby and the time that we'd be parents to that little one, we knew gender neutral was the way to go. 

Because we're currently renting, we chose not to change the wall color or rip out the carpeting to expose the hardwood floors, but you better believe me, I would have loved to!

Enough of the pre-post wording hoopla, now to the fun part: Pictures!

We chose a pretty basic green, brown, and white color palette. We wanted to make sure everything in the room could  be used for babies 1, 2, 3, & 4....and also be transitioned into the next stage with the baby. We should be able to reuse everything until the baby is 12 except for the glider. 

The green curtains are actually table cloths found at Wal-mart for $10 each (you can't find fabric cheaper!) and you can read about why we needed to purchase those faux wood shades from Target here. 

I had so much fun finding good deals like the rocking chair on Craigslist for $40 or the ottoman found at the thrift store for $10 transformed by spray paint as seen here. The ottomon works perfectly as a foot rest and a storage spot for our little one's toys.  

In the end, we were a little excited about the radiator taking up so much space, because it is the perfect spot for books.

I loved redoing the baby dresser I found on Craigslist for $70. The basket found on clearance from Michael's is the perfect spot to place all of those diaper changing essentials and the lamp is perfect for all of those 3 am wake-ups.  

One of my favorite parts about the dresser?  The knobs.

Not bad for $1 each at Michael's!

What do you do when you want specific sayings on posters? Make your own! You can find instructions for how I made the posters pictured above here.

I love that it will always be really easy to make new sayings if I am ever bored with these. 

Every child's room needs a few hooks on the back of the door to place the pj's, jacket's, and sun hat. I could not pass up the deal I found for these brand new hooks at the thrift store. 

I love our practically brand new $400 crib found on Craigslist for $100. Not only does it work well as a crib, but it will transition with our baby as he grows and needs a toddler bed then a twin size bed.  I found the bedding for just $14 at Target on clearance. The mobile was given to us and we DIY'd the mirror above the crib. 

The photo collage is just extra scrapbook paper that we lined the drawers with (shown below) as seen here.

 Can anything be cuter than baby shoes?

I know all of you are wondering....so, how much did it cost?

The Baby Room Budget Breakdown:

• Crib and Mattress-$100 from Craigslist
• Bedding-$14 on clearance from Target (original price $65)
• DIY Mirror Supplies: $10
• Dresser: $70 from Craigslist. Paint from Home Depot and knobs from Michael's totalled $22
• DIY drawer cover project: $3
• White Lamp: $6 thrift store find Lamp Shade purchased for $8 from Target on clearance
• Basket: $5 on clearance from Michael's
• Basket Hamper: $10 from thrift store, $3 can of spray paint to paint it
• Shelves purchased from Target from a gift card
• ABC blocks: after Christmas clearance  buy from our grocery store: $2.50
• Bamboo plant, "friends forever" plaque, book, and toy-already owned
• White Ceramic Pig $1 from the thrift store
• A to Z book ends: $8 thrift store
• Rocking Chair: $40 from Craigslist
• Ottomon: $10 from thrift store-can of spray paint $3
• Curtains: $20 from Walmart
• Curtain Rods: $15 from the Dollar Store
• Faux Wood Blinds: $20
• Poster Prints: $15 each, totalling $45
• FAMILY hooks: $8 from thrift store
• Frames: Christmas gift-ok, I know this was the biggest expense, but I promise this my only Christmas gift this year from Joel...NOTHING else!  Not even my annual pair of Christmas PJ's. But if you have to know, frames came to about $130

Total comes to $298...if you count the frames, total comes to $428 (but I think it's unfair to count the frames because it's all I got for Christmas!). 


Not too bad considering Young House Love spent $717 on their nursery and had their crib given to them & they're the decor budgeteers!  Really, not too bad when you consider most people spend $200 for just their crib bedding set!

Now that you have seen our nursery, do you want to know the birth story of our child? It's a special one and it's all written out here. 

Spray Paint Season

Last week marked the first day of spraying paint season around here!! We haven't been blessed with a garage or a basement yet where I can spray paint all winter long, so until then, I store up lots of treasures from the thrift store until the weather goes above 55 to hop outside and paint.


Last Thursday was one of those days. Sunny and 70...it was gorgeous. Baby and I made a trip to Home Depot to pick up some paint, then I got to work painting while he napped.  We really only tackled 2 projects, but they are pretty important projects to help make the baby room match a little better.


You may remember my post here about these items?

Before

After

(it matches the small brown basket on the changing table!)

Before

After

Nice change for just a $4 can of espresso spray paint, right?

Finding Their Home

All of my little thrift store finds have found their home in our baby room. 

I am totally convinced that I have world's greatest husband who spends his evenings helping me  with all of my silly projects that I really should be able to do on my own!

Some of my projects (like this one) are no fun for him at all. 

I usually stay away from cheesy signs that say things like "family" on them, but I was ok with this one because I needed door hooks & want our baby to be reminded that he is a part of our family.

A to Z book stands. Someday I'll paint these brown or green

An ottoman that has been perfect for extra storage...someday soon this will be painted too!

A laundry basket that will be painted as well to match the small brown basket on the changing table.

$5 Thrift Store Buffet Redo

I have really missed not having a buffet type set up like we've had in every other house. Our kitchen table is tiny and can't quite fit 4 people and the food. We have always needed extra food storage at dinner time.

In our first apartment, we stored our dresser in the dining room & loved using it as a place to display the food when guests came.  We only had a couple of awkward moments when our guests opened the drawers to find my undies, but overall it worked well!

Our condo had this nice little 1/2 wall that worked nicely as a buffet...you can kinda see it next to the door.

Our current apartment had nothing except counters which just didn't cut it for me!
So I spent several hours on craigslist and was willing to pay $50 for a buffet that I could redo. Until I spotted this $5 beauty at the thrift store. 

And gave her a lot of paint one day.

Until she looked like this

Now she stores all of my craft supplies.

Did you notice the paper I mod podged on the bottom? I repeated the steps I did for the baby dresser as shown here. 

Cost Breakdown of Project:

Buffet: $5

Paint: used leftover paint from other projects

New Hardware: approx $20

Project How To:

I started by disinfecting this piece like crazy because it was from the thrift store & I disinfect everything I receive from the thrift store. I had Joel remove all hardware. Next, I used an oil based primer. It's messy & not good for the environment, but because this piece was not solid wood, I needed a primer that covered everything. Next, I covered this piece in 3 layers of black paint and waited for it to dry. Finally, I added new hardware. 

Let's chat about hardware options for a minute. Hardware is super expensive. Because I knew this item was pretty cheap wood, I wasn't ready to pay much for my hardware.  Although, I certainly considered breaking my budget for these knobs from Anthropologie.

or are you kidding me, how perfect is this checker knob? It would have matched my candlesticks perfectly!

but I also did not care to go through all the work of moving the holes and using wood filler on this piece. So I opted for my a few much cheaper options at Home Depot.

Now we have a nice buffet area to place food for our guests. Not too bad for a rookie, right?

I love how it is the perfect spot for the tray I redid a few weeks ago.