We woke up early Saturday morning and hit the Belk Charity sale to pick up a few Lilly dresses for the maternity pictures and then headed to the craft store for some last minute supplies. I am so thankful to my mom and husband who worked their behinds off to make my "vision" for the nursery a reality! Our Sunday was spend being lazy (i.e. I stayed in bed until 3pm!). We finished up the weekend by a quick trip to the mall and a nice dinner out.
Now on to the nursery:
Jay has truly transformed this room. Here are some before and during pictures.
This is the best one I have of the before pictures. This room was our second guest room before it became a nursery.
Adult furniture out, some baby furniture in
Still had old art on the walls.
Chair before covering
closets before painting
Holden's "naked" crib
Emma Cate's "naked" crib
testing out the wall color
close up
Added the second glider
painted the upper half of the walls
painted the lower half of the walls
installed all of the board and batten treatment. Realized that the lower wall color was too yellow and needed to find a different color.
Adding the shelf above the board and batten. You can see it on the right hand side of the picture.
Missing a board and the shelving on the left side
unfinished closets
updated belly shot and nursery progress.
painting the amoire
one of my new favorite hobbies. Stalking my husband as he works in the nursery.
I've been spotted. Jay's finishing up the trim around the windows.
the lower walls are now painted white and the armoire is in place but has no hardware.
Other side of the room, everything is pretty much in place, the trim has been painted but the things on the shelves need to be moved around and the chairs are waiting for their covers.
Now, those are pretty much all the before pictures that I have! Here is the almost finished result.
Sorry the lighting is so crummy. These first 3 were taken on my iphone because I was too lazy to change out my lens on my DSLR to get wide angle shots. This pretty much shows the entire nursery.
Details
Window Treatments
My mom made these simple box pleat valances and we attached them to 4x1x? pieces of wood to adorn the windows. We're sticking to regular faux wooden blinds for privacy. The valances are made from the same tan linen fabric as the bed skirts and crib ties.
The Cribs
Both cribs are the Sophia style from Pottery Barn. They were super easy to put together and the crib mattresses we got from Buy Buy Baby fit in perfectly. The mobiles are originally from Pottery Barn Kids and we picked them up at the mothers of multiples consignment sale. They were still in their boxes! We went with a classic toile pattern for the outside of the bumpers and off-white with polk-a-dots for the inside. The cording around the bumpers is the same fabric as the window treatments, bed skirts, and crib ties. I had a hard time deciding on crib sheets and went with natural organic cotton jersey knit crib sheets from Buy Buy Baby. The bears in the corner were a shower gift and play different sounds (lullabye, womb, heartbeat). The animal blankets in the cribs were a gift from my mother in law and are the softest things I have ever felt!
Those that know my husband, know that he can be a bit particular. After asking him what he thought of my mom's sewing, he said he didn't understand why the bumper pads were flat. He wanted them to be "fluffier". On Saturday morning, we headed to the craft store for batting to make them fluffy. The employee there warned us that having the fluffy bumper pads but the baby at a higher risk for suffocation. I know that all bumper pads are a suffocation hazard and we do plan on moving them out of the crib and replacing them with the mesh ones when the babies start moving around. We decided to stick with the flat kind until then. On Sunday we swung by PBK and after feeling all of those bumper pads, Jay proclaimed that my Mom's were much better than what we could have bought. :) I think she would be pleased.
The crib skirts are not 100% finished yet. My mom is going to add pink/blue trim to the bottom of the skirt when she comes back Mother's Day weekend. The skirts will look similar to the window treatments but have pink or blue at the bottom rather than white.
These blankets were hand knit for us as a shower gift by the grandmother of a set of twins that both my mom and I taught. My mom had the girls as four year olds and I taught them as middle schoolers. They both cheered for me and we've become quiet close with the family.
The Gliders-
My mom would probably be embarassed that I'm putting these pictures up because the gliders are not done at all but I think they look great! She whipped up these in a few minutes for the nursery pictures. I know nothing about sewing so I'm using her terms, she basted them together for time being. She plans to take them apart, ad a lining so that the previous cushion fabric doesn't show through, add snaps to the arm rests, and trim the edges in the same tan linen cording that is on the bumper pads. She also said that all the wrinkles and gaps would be taken out in the new version. Like I said, I am so happy with what I've got now but she wants them to be fabulous. Also, the pink pillows are just for time being. She's going to make other pillows out of the scraps of fabric.
The Changing Table
Not too exciting. The changing table is the Catalina dresser from PBK. My mom found it at the outlet near Atlanta and it was a great deal but was missing one knob. I decided to replace them with glass knobs and love how it turned out! The topper is also from PBK but I found it on craigslist for $40. I think it was originally like $120. I like that it is removable so we can use it as a dresser later on. The color is really off in this picture. It is the same white as the cribs and gliders.
The Book Shelf
The bookshelf is also part of the Catalina collection from PBK. My mom found this piece at the outlet too. I love that it is short and we can put it in front of the window without blocking too much light. The books are ALL courtesy of our friends and family who spoiled us at the Baby-Q shower (pics still to come!). The canvas bins were our easter baskets this year. The sweet lamb banks were a gift from Jay's Aunt Vic and the lamb night light was a gift from his sister Ivey.
The Armoire
We painted this the same color as the top of the walls and added glass knobs for a little makeover. I'm really pleased with how it turned out! The crosses are gifts from Jay's mom.
The Decorations
(descriptions are at the bottom of each set of pictures)
Our hospital bags are from Land's End. My talented friend Jennifer made the adorable bag tags for us as part of a shower gift! She also sells them on her blog, JM Papers.
This teddy bear was given to me by a student and her mom as soon as I announced I was pregnant! This is one of the softest stuffed animals I have ever touched. I wasn't quiet sure where to put it but my mom and Jay both suggested on top of the armoire to give the room some height and I loved it up there! The frame is from my mother in law and it says "Twins, two are better than one!". I love it!
My mother in law also gave us this cute magnetic family frame. Jay did all the arranging and I think he did a great job. We just need pictures to fill all these frames in!
These frames are currently above the changing table but will relocated when another piece of art we're getting comes in. I'm not sure exactly where they will go but we'll find the perfect spot! These were also bought for us by my mother in law and match the lamb banks perfectly!
I put these pictures up on facebook and had a lot of questions about these monogrammed signs. Jay and I actually made them ourselves. Jay made the frames from molding and I covered sheet metal (the light-weight kind used in air ducts) with nursery fabric. The letters were purchased at JoAnn's and Michael's. JoAnn's had the large letters and Michael's had the smaller ones that matched. I painted them the same color as the top of the nursery walls. The tiny E and C in Emma Cate's monogram were black to begin with so I primed those with white spray paint primer. I would suggest priming ALL the letters before painting because it helped the paint stick so much better! We added heavy duty magnets to the back of the letters. I figured these board could double as magnetic memo boards and be recovered as the decor changes.
btw- I know that Emma Cate's toile is facing the wrong direction. I ran into the board before it was up and knocked the letters off. Jay scrambled to rearrange right before the photos. We'll have to fix it soon :)
One last bit of excitement. Jay and I were debating what to do about carseats. We have two infant carriers and bases for my car but weren't sure about what to do for his car. We thought about ordering another set of bases but with each base being $84 we didn't know if we wanted to spend the money on that or use it towards purchasing the convertible seats that the babies could ride in now and also when they outgrow their infant carriers. Lucky for us, the Britax seats we wanted went on sale $100 off on Zulily. I quickly snapped up four of them. Two for our car and two for my moms. I love getting deals!
