Nursery Time

New babies mean new spaces to hold babies!  Jake and I have been excited to work on this space, which used to function as a guest room and second office.  It was the last room to remain untouched by our eager, if inexperienced, hands.  It's a strange arrangement; the main space is a 12 x 10 bedroom, off the back of which the previous owners built a small additional bedroom.  This means you have to pass through the large bedroom to get to the small room; it also means that the rooms are connected by the original exterior passage-ways: double french doors and an exterior window.

Here is a reminder of what it looked like before Jonah came along.

And here's what it looks like now.

Our main goal was to create a bright, clean and modern but sweet & slightly whimsical space for our little guy.  We decided on pale mint walls, with white, navy and grey accent colors.

Here are a few of the design highlights:
1. Walls and trim:  We sanded down the yellow-beige "textured" walls and painted them a pale mint, "Sea Cap" by Behr. We patched the old trim and painted it (and the ceiling) a bright white. (Oh and by "we" I mean we paid a talented friend to do it for us. Aint nobody got time for that.)  The lighting in these photos makes the mint walls look a little paler than it is in person.

2. Radiator Cover: Jake covered the old rad with a custom built radiator cover, which maintains its function (the heat is channeled into the room through the decorative aluminum sheeting) but hides the whole "ugly cast iron radiator" aspect.  Added bonus:  another surface for decorating! Although at the moment it's holding a water bottle, infant gas drops, two burp clothes and the granola bar wrapper from a late night nursing snack.

3. Furniture: How blessed we were to receive my sweet cousin Tera's lovely white crib and dresser/hutch!  It survived her three boys and remains in excellent shape, a testament to its quality.  I love that we're making new memories with Jonah in furniture that already holds so many sweet family moments.  My generous parents bought us this charcoal grey glider, which has definitely been sufficiently christened with countless late night and early morning nursing sessions, as well as a fair share of story times, made up lullaby concerts and spit up episodes.  Also, I repainted an old book shelf in pale grey.

4. Art: We did a lot of home-made art for this space.  Jake had the great idea to print and frame some old patent drawings of classic toys.  Looking at them framed in the space now, we think they need to be about 50% bigger. But in the meantime they'll do.  Other items on Jonah's walls are a framed piece of fabric that had all our favorite nursery colors in it (hung over the rad), an great fox print gifted to us by some sweet friends (on the rad cover), a framed whale collage of messages from guests at one of my baby showers, made by my awesome sister in law (sitting on the changing table) and DIY fabric bunting over the crib.

5. Other notable decorations: Jake's parents gifted us the gorgeous navy and white quatrafoil rug.  My parents passed along the collection of Stieff stuffed animals on top of the hutch, which my German family gave me as a child.  My sweet friend Leslie made the gorgeous star/chevron quilt draping over the glider.   And our one gentle nod to Jonah's name: the whale mobile over his crib.

6. The adjacent space: In the bonus room we just painted everything white, to make the space feel bigger. In addition, we replaced the old windows with bigger, energy efficient windows.  We initially intended this space to be a guest bedroom (or a room for us to sleep in while guests sleep in our bed), but this bed has been the "Jonah-duty" sleep spot.  From 10pm-3am, Jake sleeps here with Jonah while I get a good chunk of solid sleep in our bed; then at 3am he taps out and I finish out the night.   This bed has been a life-saver!

Sleep well, sweet boy.