Nursery Reveal

I am so excited to share these photos of our little guy's new nursery!!! The term "nursery" almost seems silly to me because I really planned and designed this room to grow with Jensen. Maybe not until he's 18, but hopefully through his childhood years. I used these rooms as inspiration {Pinterest 1, Pinterest 2} and then made it my own creation based on what we already had, our budget, and my own artistic skills. My first priority was color scheme {red, navy, bright yellow} and then I mixed in various little boy themes {airplanes, vintage, sports, cars, etc.}.

This is the view when you open the door to Jensen's room. The crib and changing table were both used with Eva. I sewed the drapes myself! I was pretty proud of how the turned out for it being my first attempt. I orginally really wanted navy striped drapes but I'm actually glad I went with yellow to contrast the rug. Also we will have black out curtains behind them, but I took them down to let the natural light in the room for theses photos.

PS Part of the fun of this post was using the new Cannon EF 50mm 1:1.8 lens that I got for my birthday. I feel like I am no where close to being a good enough photographer to be worthy of this awesome lens, but you have to start somewhere. So if you see a photo that looks especially cool, I probably switched to this lens.

The bunting banner above his crib was one of the few things I actually ordered from Etsy instead of sewing myself. I wanted a mixture of patterns and by the time I figured in the cost to buy strips of different materials plus the time it would take to make this, and questioning my ability to cut a perfect triangle and then sew it evenly, I decided it was way cheaper and easier to order it. Even the husband agreed on this one.

For crib sheets we went with geometric patterns from Amazon. We also have a fun navy print but this is what is waiting for Jensen first. 

I love this rug. I debated about getting a rug for a while....I wanted it to be the right size and some rugs are sooooo pricey. Then I found this one on Amazon and decided to put it on my registry. I am so glad I did! It really pulls the room together and makes the room actually seem bigger. 

This is our changing area. Nothing too fancy. The shelves above were left in our home when we purchased it so I chalk painted them red. The picture board on the right was from my room growing up. We actually have a bigger one in our guest bathroom that matches that we use to hold all of Eva's bows. 

I found this great changing pad cover at Kohls. The ones we had for Eva were pink and green so Jensen needed one that was more manly. 

I found this laundry basket at Target. I like how it mixes the navy stripe with the khaki and I thought it looked good to contrast the yellow vertical stripes on the curtains. 

How cute is this train? My mom picked this up in Kansas City and I think it is perfect. 

Okay, so I honestly do not love bracket shelves. This also came with our house and I had originally planned to take this down. Then I thought about how I would be leaving holes in the wall that would need to be fixed. And I do like that it has additional shelves that we can put up if we need more spaces for things like toys or books. So I kept it.

These model airplanes were put together by my late grandfather. I really like the idea of mixing in a few heirloom pieces to give the room a bit of vintage feel.

I already shared this silhouette photo of myself on Instagram and Facebook but I wanted to show it  one more time. Guess what? My husband took this photo of me using my iPhone 5s. I found a blog that gave tips for how to do this on your own, versus with a paid photographer, and it worked really well! I downloaded 2 camera apps to get the look I wanted and it was so easy. I took it exactly one month before Jensen's due date so that I could remember how pregnant I was right at that moment. I'm sure one day we will relocate this to somewhere else in our home but for now it is perfect for the nursery.

My old baseball glove. I know, I am not athletic, so I'm not sure why I had this little glove, but my grandparents saved it for almost 30 years before giving it to me. It even has "Katie" and "1987" written on it so I guess I got it when I was about 4 years old.

This book makes me laugh. Ryan's brother Greg gave Jensen The Dangerous Book for Boys for Christmas so I figured it needed to be displayed somewhere until he is old enough to enjoy it. 

The final corner includes my dad's old dresser that I chalk painted and our gallery wall.

For the top of the dresser I found an inexpensive lamp from Target and a vintage looking clock from Amazon. I may have spent way too much time a little bit of time searching for just the right clock. I know it's just a small alarm clock but I wanted the look to be just right and I wanted an auxiliary connection for my phone or iPod. Then I finished off the dresser with a bomber plane model that my was part of my grandfather's collection. It even has a tiny man glued to the back left that looks like he is about to jump out! How cool is that? I might still find a way to suspend this from the ceiling near the window but I haven't decided so for now it has landed on the dresses.

For the gallery wall I mixed some old frames that I chalk painted in red with a few new brown frames. I used a wooden classic sports picture and printed off a few free prints from Pinterest. Then I painted a big yellow sign! Okay, I saw this a while back on Etsy but for the size of the products I could find I felt they were way too expensive. Then I remembered that I had some extra wood and yellow paint in our garage. I wish I could have artistically painted on the lettters but I cheated and used a sharpie. Regardless, I like it. It's not perfect but it's for a little boy's room and little boy's aren't perfect, so it works right? 

My wonderful husband managed to fix the broken springs inside our glider so I am happy to use the same one I used with Eva. Instead of a nightstand I got a faux leather storage cube that my mom had and wasn't using anymore. I actually like this idea because it is easy to store extra blankets or bibs inside so that everything is right there when I'm nursing.

My final piece of art! I made this all by myself. I took an old canvas that a friend was throwing away and painted over it to make it my own. When I first showed Ryan my idea sketched on paper he lovingly said, "It looks like something a kid would draw." Then I reminded him that Jensen would be a kid so I was completely okay with it looking like a simple drawing. I think he caught on to my vision :) So yes, it is simplistic, but I really like it. And I painted it myself so that means it was made with love, which is absolutely the best kind of artwork.

There you go. My months of dreaming and planning and collecting all summed up. I'm only 5% sad when I walk into Hobby Lobby and see all the pink and gold things I would have used for a little girl's nursery. Just kidding....maybe 3%. I am happy with the way things came together to create a special room for our little guy.