Last week was completely horrendous for me, so I didn’t post his nursery reveal like I had promised. I won’t go into details, but it may have been the worst week I’ve ever had and if it wasn’t, it was pretty close. Hopefully, things are turning around now, but goodness, it was not a good week. The baby is great, so it had nothing to do with him, thankfully!! Just nothing else seemed to go right. Do you ever have weeks like that? Luckily, I don’t have them often, and I seriously hope I don’t have another one like that anytime soon.
Anyways, as I explained in this post, I had a really hard time deciding on a theme for the nursery, but once I picked one, the creative juices started flowing. You definitely would not know the meaning behind his room if you just saw it, but as I explain everything, it’ll all make perfect sense.
This is what the room looked like as a guest room before we turned it into a nursery:
And here’s what the room looks like now:
In my previous post, I revealed that the nursery is actually all about Colorado (one of our favorite places to vacation), which honestly, you probably wouldn’t really pick up on that without any detailed explanation.
So here’s how it came about: I wanted to use animals that we’ve actually seen in Colorado, and I wanted them to be more masculine than babyish, so I chose ones that looked more like animal sketches versus watercolor or baby ones (which I do love too).
I picked a moose, deer and bighorn sheep (or as Jacob likes to call it ram). You probably don’t know this about me, but I am absolutely obsessed with moose. Our little babe already has a ton of stuffed ones (oops!), and he also has a ton of outfits with a moose on them. I need to stop… but it’s so hard! They are just SO cute!
Deer are pretty popular in Colorado, and the sheep are very hit or miss. I’ve been several times and haven’t seen any sheep and then other times, they seem to be everywhere. So those were my 3 main animals. Of course, there would be a little bit of elk involved too, but those were the three main ones I used for his room.
Once I had the animals, I had to come up with a color scheme. It seems like so many people do very light/white nurseries, which are absolutely beautiful, but we’re having a boy, and I can’t imagine white staying clean for very long in our home (we’re messy/clumsy already without a baby around)! So I wanted to do something different. I’ve been quite obsessed with black ever since I painted our living room walls, so I knew I wanted to incorporate black into the room. I also wanted to use gray and white to compliment the rest of our home, but I also needed an accent color. I could do blue, but that seemed pretty predictable, so I went with green instead, plus green went very well with my mountain/Colorado theme.
After I developed my color scheme, I started working on the design of the entire room wall by wall. One of the main things I wanted to do was to add some moulding. It didn’t have to be much, but I wanted the look of the room to be a little more upscale and masculine, so one weekend, Jacob and I worked on adding molding to the walls in the room. We took a pretty simple approach to it. Nothing too fancy, but just enough to add something extra to the nursery. Jacob did most of the work by cutting and installing all of the pieces, and then I painted everything, which took so many hours.
I really wanted to create a feature wall behind the crib, but I had no clue what to do. The biggest hurdle was covering up the electrical panel that’s on the right side of that wall. I still have no idea why they installed it there when building this house, but it’s very frustrating trying to work around it, and the people that lived here before us painted it yellow. Yellow! So I decided to just hang some mirrors on the wall, plus I hoped it would make the room feel larger. I know you’re not supposed to hang something over the panel, but I couldn’t live with it showing, so whatever! 😉 We also installed some plug in sconces above the mirrors. They’re really cute and simple, but provide some nice light at night.
For the feature wall, I toyed with the idea of using wallpaper, but I’ve never used wallpaper, and I worried that it’s a trend that’s going away soon. Sure, wallpaper has come a LONG way, but I do fear that it’s just another fad, so I really didn’t want to use it. Plus, it’s a big pain to remove, and I know Baby B won’t want that wallpaper forever. My next idea was doing a stenciled wall, but I had never stenciled anything in my life. I looked for some patterns and read tons of tutorials on how to do it. It seemed kind of “easy” at least according to the tutorials, so I picked out some of my favorite designs and showed Jacob. He selected one, and that’s the one we went with for the room.
I ordered the stencil and then got to work. I wanted the feature wall to be the black wall, so I did a matte and glossy stencil. It’s definitely not perfect, but considering it was my first time ever stenciling anything, I think it turned out really nicely! It took a while and was seriously not easy trying to do black on black (it was hard to see what I was doing), but I got it done, and I love how it turned out.
Since I went with a black wall, I wanted to do a white crib, so that it would stand out against that dark. Picking out a crib is so hard! I narrowed down several choices and then let Jacob choose which one he liked best. Once we figured out the one he liked, we ordered it. Woohoo! Decision made! I’m really pleased with this crib. It’s simple, but it has a slightly taller back, which I really liked.
For the mobile, I actually ended up purchasing one from Target. It was totally random, and one day while I was shopping, I just happened to see it in the clearance section, so I scooped it up. I loved that it was black and just had a hint of gold on it. Plus, it has trees, which goes along perfectly with the theme. I thought about painting the trees green instead, but for now, they’ll just stay black.
Above his crib, I really wanted something small that didn’t cover up my wall stencil too much, but I wanted it to fit the room. I searched for tons of ideas, but I just didn’t love anything. Eventually, I just settled on putting his name on the wall. I ordered his name from Etsy, and had it painted black and white. It turned out really cute! It’s simple and a bit less creative than I really wanted, but it works for the space!
After that, it was basically choosing all of the decor accents. I knew I needed to use my green accent color throughout the room for a little pop here and there, so I started thinking about doing a green rug, which I could play off as “grass” in the mountains. I can’t tell you how many times I looked at rugs online. I’m a horrible shopper when it comes to rugs and comforters. Those are the things I struggle with the most when it comes to design, but I’m trying to get better with decision making when it comes to those.
I showed Jacob some green rugs I liked, and we both picked the same one. I waited for just a few days for it to arrive. Dragged it into the house and ripped it open. Oh no! What in the world did we order?! It was SO wild, so bright!! I had serious buyers remorse, but I told myself it was outside of my “rug box” and to just give it some time. We laid it out in the room, and eventually it grew on me. I’ve never owned a bright colored rug before (all of our rugs are very neutral or animal print), so this was very wild, but I love it now, and I’m so glad we stuck with it.
Since we went with a green rug, I really wanted to be selective with the rest of the green in the room because the rug is huge and provides a very large pop of color. To bring in a little more Colorado/woods to the room, I decided to use trees. I thought about aspen trees, but I couldn’t really find any I liked, so I decided to search for some pine trees.
My main goal was that I did not want the trees to look like Christmas trees at all. I searched for a really long time, and finally found one on Amazon that would work. I ordered it and hoped it would be exactly like I envisioned for his room. Luckily, it was perfect! It didn’t look like Christmas at all, and it had some pine cones on it that made it look more natural and like something you would see in the woods. I added some lights to it just to add a little bit of coziness to the room, and I love how it turned out. It provides extra lighting, but it’s not bright light.
Next on the to do list was designing the wall above the dresser. I had a mirror that I wanted to use, and then I just needed to fill in the rest. I saw a cute little shelf at Michael’s one day, so I picked that up and just needed to decide what to put in each of the boxes.
Right now, there’s a clock, some baby shoes, a bow tie, a rock and pine cone from Colorado along with a fake succulent plant and my countdown blocks. I’ll probably change it up from time to time, but this is how it looks for now. I also glued some letters to a small piece of wood to add his name above the shelf, and I accented it with a pine branch just to add a little more green.
Below the shelf, I really wanted to use “footprints” of the animals to tie in with the ones I chose for his room, so I designed some black footprints for elk, moose, deer and sheep. I had them printed by Persnickety Prints (how fun is that name!?). I was really pleased with their quick printing and shipping, and I definitely plan to use them for any future photo printing needs when I don’t want to print something myself. The prints were placed in some black frames, and they’re perfect.
We decided to purchase the white Ikea dresser to use as a changing table as well. I’m not sure how long we’ll be able to change him on it (depends on how wiggly he is), so I didn’t really want to purchase a separate table for that. We also installed a tv on the wall, along with a firestick, DVD player and Amazon echo dot, so we have a way to watch something if we are in his room for a while or we can play music for him to go to sleep. I also found that cute pine tree at Ross one day. It was already lighted, which was a huge plus! I added an Ubbi trashcan and a floor lamp in the corner of his room to add a little more light if we need it.
That wall was basically finished in terms of design, so I moved on to the two walls next to the large window in the room. I wanted to create some signs or posters that I could hang on those walls. The wall to the right of the window is the wall I chose for our hikes. I made a sign with all of the hikes we’ve done together in Colorado or hikes that I’ve done myself (with my mom). I know no one would know that without an explanation, so that’s the meaning behind that sign. Jacob really liked the idea of including our hikes in his room, so I’m glad this sign turned out so cute!
Jacob and I hiked Deer Mountain when I was 12 weeks pregnant. It was by far the hardest hike I’ve ever done (very uphill), but it’s a fun memory now.
On the wall to the left of the window is a Bible verse. I really liked it, and thought it would be perfect for his room with some mountains incorporated into the design. I designed it and had it printed at Walgreens.
Black curtains were a must for his room, and luckily, I found some inexpensive ones from Amazon. They’re velvet and oh-so-soft!! Plus, they’re blackout and block a ton of sunlight coming in the huge window.
We also needed a rocker for his room. I looked online for a while, and my main thoughts were that I wanted it to be tufted and dark (preferably black); however, I really couldn’t find what I wanted, and I worried that the black would clash with the black curtains. My mom and I ventured off to some local furniture stores in hopes of finding something that would work, and luckily, we did! It’s a glider rocker, and it’s so incredibly comfortable!! I wasn’t sure about the light color (and it certainly wasn’t tufted), but I think it helped keep the room on the brighter side. If we would have bought a black one, I think it would have really made the room look darker.
I picked up a super cute black and cream gingham ottoman and switched out the light fixture in the room. That light fixture was one of the first things I purchased. At first, I was worried it was too small, but once we added some brighter bulbs, it really seemed to give the room life. Plus, I just loved the black drum shade with a little bit of gold accent to tie into the rest of the gold in the room.
Here’s what his room looks like lit up at night with just some ambiance lighting:
All of those lights are on clickers, so I can easily click them on and off when I want to use them, and I don’t have to turn all of them on at once! Such a great idea for when I need to go in his room in the middle of the night… maybe he won’t wake up quite so much if the lighting is dim? Wishful thinking, huh?!
Well, there you have it! Elliott’s nursery is officially complete, and we absolutely love how it all came together. It took so much time to gather my thoughts and come up with a plan, but I really couldn’t be more pleased with how it turned out, and Jacob really likes it too, which is always a nice feeling. I am definitely biased, but I think it’s the cutest nursery ever, and I hope Elliott loves it in there. It won’t be too much longer until he’s here in his very own room. Eeeek!
What do you think? Would you have figured out the nursery was based on our Colorado travels without the detailed explanation? What’s your favorite part of his room? Would you love it in here if you were Elliott? I sure hope so!
Sources:
Crib – DaVinci Autumn 4-in-1
Mobile – Project 62 from Target
Sheep – Marshalls
Black pillow – Ross
Glider Rocker from Changing Spaces in Lake Charles
Wall Stencil – I used Sherwin Williams Caviar paint in eggshell and semi-gloss
Moose – At Home store
Ubbi Trashcan – I bought it from Zulily
Mirror – Marshalls
Tree – Ross
Shelf – Michaels
Rug – 8×10
Deer Head – Hobby Lobby
Moose Head – Hobby Lobby
E (above door) – Michaels
Ottoman – Kirklands
Best baby room ever! Absolutely as cute in person as in the pictures! He’s really going to love it!! Soon!!! 💙💙💙💙💙💙