With Margaret turning fifteen months, this room finally being painted after an unfortunate humidifier incident that left streaks all down the walls, and the fact that Christmas is over and I needed to clean all the things I thought it was the perfect time to finally take some pictures to document her nursery/soon to be big girl room.
The two things to know beforehand are, one, my house is not nearly as yellow as it appears in photographs and two, this room is tiny. Like, the previous renters were using it as a walk-in closet tiny. After much deliberation, we decided we would go ahead and sacrifice the extra closet space in favor of having sleeping quarters for all the children :)
I just love this room. It's tiny but it's wonderful. I know The Nester says that it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful, but I'll add that it doesn't have to be spacious, or expensive, to be adorable.
Margaret's room is full of special things--the sampler my grandmother made, the cross stitched pieces that were once pillows on my girlhood bed that I salvaged and framed, my old ballerina teddy bear, the "R" that hung over Chris' crib, the other teddy bears from his grandmother, the frames I found on the side of the road--okay I guess not everything is special.
Even if it isn't all special, everything in the room did come together very serendipitously. Having a tiny nursery is kind of wonderful in the sense that it's easy to pull together. It can really only hold the crib, dresser and rocker. We already had the crib and the dresser, and the rocker was a gift from Grandma and Grandpa Reintjes. It began its life wearing a shade of green that wasn't particularly the look I was going for so Chris, dutiful husband that he is, stripped, sanded and stained it for me.
Almost everything else was gathered from around the house. I suppose the one perk of moving with a two week old is that you can shuffle things to new rooms with ease. The only new things in her room were the crib sheet and rug which were gifted to us as well and the new wet bags that we clearly needed since the old ones clashed horrifically. Chris didn't understand, but I'm sure you do--the effect of the sad old navy blue ones hanging on the closet door wasn't what you'd call pleasing to the eye.
I made the rest of the textiles myself; the curtains, the crib skirt and of course the quilt and pillow that took forever but were very cathartic when waiting out the second half of my pregnancy. I had kind of a specific look I was going for--I'm not sure what you would call my decorating style, vintage? cottage? farmhouse? artistically hodgepodged from things we get for free? (when I'm "decorating" I'm mostly just rearranging things we already have, although we have acquired some really nice freebies over the years which certainly helps)--anyway, I couldn't afford/find exactly what I wanted anyway, even if I did want to pay for it--which I didn't.
I had a lot of years to think about how I would decorate a little girl's nursery if I ever had one, but I didn't realize until I actually did have one what my thoughts on little girl nurseries were. It turns out that I think they should be very similar to my childhood rooms. That is, very Laura Ashley circa 1983 or so. Sweet colors, vintage florals, lots of cross-stitch, ruffles, dolls and teddy bears. I've tried to restrain myself--and the size of the room, my dislike of clutter and also my budget have certainly helped. But if anyone catches me attempting to start a collection of Madame Alexander dolls you have my permission to stage an immediate intervention.
...
crib: Amazon
crib skirt: handmade by me
crib sheet: Pottery Barn Kids, a gift from Aunt Courtney
curtains: handmade by me
pillow: handmade by me
quilt: me again :)
dresser: second hand
rocking chair: second hand, a gift from Grandma and Grandpa Reintjes
blue throw blanket: vintage, from Grandma Reintjes
shelves: Lowe's
rug: Wayfair, a gift from Grandma Kazleman
ledge shelves: Ana White plans built by Chris
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