My biggest project to date

Hi there! Long time no talk, huh? I have been pretty busy working on the biggest project of my life. What’s that you ask? We’re having a baby!!!

We’re expecting our baby boy Archer, August 31st which, you might realize is this Friday, but I am still hopeful I’ll go earlier (like last week would have been good). I’ve had a ton of stuff I’ve wanted to post about with this pregnancy but between working my full time job, starting photography on the side, all the fun pregnancy symptoms (no one told me about half of them! uggghhh!), and actually keeping busy doing all of these projects (when I haven’t been feeling like complete crap) I’ve been crazy busy. Which is good, because these last 9 months have seriously flown by.
Even though I’ve been a slacker on posting about all the fun baby projects I’ve been up to, I wanted to share with you my favorite. The nursery!
I had a hard time nailing down a particular theme I loved so I combined a little bit of this and a little bit of that to create a modern eclectic nursery. A few challenges I had with the room was it's small size (just like all the other rooms in our house) and the fact that I didn't want to spend a fortune on the room so I tried to be somewhat frugal, only splurging on a few items. The rest were diy projects, sales and hand me downs.

{SORRY the pictures are so blurry! I'll be taking more pictures soon and as soon as I do I'll update the pictures here}


Now, I actually shared this room with you last year when I transformed it from my junk room to our guest room in this post. This room has been busy!
First thing I did was paint the room a nice grellow. The color I used was Benjamin Moore Sesame. Then I ordered this fan from Overstock for about $150 and my wonderful husband installed it. I love the fan! It was a great price, quiet and really cools the room down. My only gripe with it is that the light is really dim, which, I tell myself is ok, because that way I get to use my beautiful brass swing arm lamp giving to us by my grandma (I seriously love that lamp. Thank you Grandma Kathleen!). My two big splurges in the room were the crib and the rug but I think they are pretty important as they really set the tone for the modern eclectic vibe I was after. The crib we ordered from Amazon and it cost about $400, the rug was $200 from Ikea. The side table was a garage sale find for $15. I really debated getting a beautiful new rocker like this one or this one but in the end I opted for a new leather recliner for the living room and using the old one from there in here. It may not be as pretty as the others but I know it will be comfortable which was what made up my mind. That and really wanting a new one for the living room .

Next, we took the closet doors down, put up a shower curtain rod just inside the closet and hung curtains that I got on clearance from the Land of Nod outlet. They were seriously a sweet score. I think I got both panels for $10. If you don’t have a Land of Nod outlet store near you, you can still buy them online here.
I know you can barely see it but I also made a crib skirt. Without the skirt, you can see straight into the drawer on the bottom. So I followed these directions from Sherry at YHL to make a crib skirt using 1 yard of green and tan striped fabric that only cost $7.
The poster above the crib was made by my amazingly talented little sister for my baby shower! I told her as soon as I saw it that it would be going above the crib, that's how much I love it.

To the left of the closet we have a $20 clock from Ikea, a deer silhouette that was a diy project using left over materials from other projects and the tennis racket actually used to be my great grandpas!

Above the window is my old bow from when I was a kid and to the right is a target magnet board from Crate and Barrel outlet (I don't remember now how much I paid for it). We thought they would be fitting since we are naming him Archer, hehe.

The wall opposite the crib has a dresser I refinished to serve as the changing table and the gallery above it is probably my favorite project in the room. All but one of the frames were from Ikea, the two plates were from Homegoods for around $8, the Love sign on the bottom left is a canvas with chalk board paint left over from our wedding, the M is a paper mache letter from Hobby Lobby (painted using this tutorial), also left over from our wedding and the long white thing above the M is actually a shelf I had on hand from Ikea which I plan to add his foot prints to as he gets older.

In case you are interested, here are some more details of the gallery wall. The top left frame I talked about here. Those are my dad’s old fly fishing lures. The A below that is from Land of Nod outlet which cost about $8. The B in the top middle row is from a alphabet flash card pack also from Land of Nod outlet I picked up for about $5. The frame below the B is a fabric swatch (leftover from trying to pick a fabric to make the crib skirt). The globe picture below that is actually a card that we got from one of our baby showers. It says “The world needs more people like you.” I thought it was too cute and decided to include it in the gallery wall. The red bicycle and Illinois silhouette are actually left over iron-on decals from a onsie making station that my sister in law did at my baby shower. So I only spent $50 on frames and  $21 on art since the majority of the art I used was free or leftover from other projects!



Last but not least we have the inside of the closet.

My wonderful husband made the shelf in the middle and I painted it white. We also added curtain hold backs to keep the curtains open for the times when I’m in there digging for an outfit, a toy, more diapers, Narnia, etc.

The baskets are from Target and are great! They’re plastic, so they should hold up well and be easy to clean. They were only $10 each. The labels were another free diy project using a cereal box and left over chalk board paint.


All in all I'd say we spent around $1,100 on the room which in my opinion isn't too bad!

So thanks for taking the time to look at our nursery for our little man! We’re hoping he’ll make an appearance soon so he can enjoy it!

Kristin