Baby Room Sneak Preview

A few people have asked about how I'm decorating the baby's room, so I figured I could share my vision and a few of the projects I have been working on.  If you don't care about baby-related stuff, you've been warned - just go ahead and come back on Monday when I will be showing an outfit I wore and talking about something else.

Pinterest is a blessing and a curse when it comes to everything.  Baby room decor is no exception.  Before we even found out the gender, I wanted to paint the room navy, so I was pinning navy room ideas like crazy.  John asked if an entirely navy room would be too dark, and then I wasn't sure, so we decided to make even more work for ourselves by painting the bottom 2/3 navy, and the top 2/3 white, and adding molding.  Here's the final result (with the crib, too!)

After searching for ideas, I pretty much fell in love with this entire room.  A million dollars later...  Just kidding.  I wasn't going to spend too much money on a baby room, so I just decided to focus on the navy/white color scheme with some other bright colors mixed in (mostly orange and green).

Way back in the olden days (probably the late 1970s?), my parents bought a very nice/modern furniture set for the living room.  I claimed it when I was in middle school and they redecorated our house.  It is orange velvet.  It's also very comfortable.  I briefly considered trying to re-upholster it, but then I decided to leave it as is (equal parts lazy and sentimental).  This chair has lived in our basement for the past few years, but it's moving on up to the baby room.  I hear it's nice to have a chair to sit on in the middle of the night when the baby isn't sleeping.  I'm hoping to make a throw pillow in some kind of navy/white pattern for the chair.  We got this ottoman for a foot rest (and it doubles as storage!)

We also didn't want to spend a ton of money on furniture, so it seemed easier to repaint an old dresser and night stand that had been in the guest room.  I mostly followed these instructions.  Of course, I didn't take any before or during pictures because I'm not a DIY blogger, but here's the finished night stand.

The other idea that I just HAD TO DO, was this little corner library thing.  Our room has the same kind of nook for the door, which is just wasted wall space, and I love the idea of the books being front facing, and part of the overall room decoration.  I was going to buy the picture ledges, but the sizes weren't quite right and they are kind of expensive, so John said he could just make them.  Awesome.  I painted these letters to hang about the shelves (totally stolen idea from the aforementioned favorite room):

As I was pinning ideas for the room, I noticed a lot of fun artwork with stripes and animal silhouettes (like this).  This is a pretty cheap and easy project, so I've made a few canvases to hang around the room.  I think these sets of 3 will be pretty cute on the walls.

I have a couple more canvases (including 2 bigger ones), but haven't decided what to do with them yet.  I'd like to do one of the big ones with baby's initial (like this), but I'm not sure we will have a finalized name until he is born, and then I doubt I will have time for craft projects (I hear babies are super needy!).  So that might wait a few months.

Here's another completely stolen idea!  I thought this DIY mobile was really cool, and looked pretty easy, so I did it myself.  I used felt instead of paper, but it's a pretty straightforward little project.

My final project was making curtains.  I thought I could just buy some, because it should be easy to find navy/white stripe or chevron curtains, right?  You would think.  But the answer is no - unless you want to spend $80.  Or maybe I am just bad at shopping.

Plan B was to sew some curtains, because it should be easy to find navy/white stripe or chevron fabric, right?  Apparently not.  I went to every fabric store in town and completely struck out.  The navy was either too gray, or the white was too tan, or they only had 3 yards when I needed 5.  I was getting SO FRUSTRATED.  But then I went to Hobby Lobby for the third time in a week and found this chevron print that hadn't been there the previous times.  HOORAY!  Here's a closeup of the curtain.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

So what now?  I still have a few projects in my mind.  I got a plain white lamp shade that I want to paint something on, but haven't decided what.  I want to sew a crib skirt, but need to find the perfect fabric.  And otherwise, it's just a matter of getting all the furniture into the room and arranged in the best way.  And then organizing all the baby stuff that we are acquiring along the way.  

I'm sure I will share more pictures when everything is somewhat finalized.