Finally Complete!

The nursery is officially done - vacuumed and everything. I now want to destroy whoever invented styrofoam. A hurricane couldn't rip those stubborn white pellets out of carpet, but I did my best. After my epic struggle, it was photo time!

Dresser/Changing table

If I can avoid being exceedingly frustrated by whatever crazy auto-formatting is putting these photos in all the most terrible places, I will tell you a little about some of my favorite things. I will try to put what I'm talking about next to the text but we will see when my patience runs out.

One of my favorite elements of the nursery is the rocking chair. As soon as I realized rocking chairs were a must-have in any complete nursery, I knew I wanted an old-fashioned beautiful wooden piece. We found this at what has to be the world's largest thrift store. I told Ben it would be a quick run-in, run-out type deal - oops! It was the size of a Super Walmart - HUGE. Hard as it was not to get distracted, we managed to find this pretty quickly and I loved it. Also, that tip about rubbing nuts to get scuffs out of wood that I see on Pinterest all the time actually works. Some almonds, lemon oil and a soap scrub on the upholstery got this chair looking almost new!

This picture also shows off what I like to call my "how to work around rental agreements that don't let you paint the walls" trick. Ours wouldn't let us use decals either and those things can get crazy expensive so that was out. I knew I wanted trees on the wall to tie the room together though. Thanks to a great fabric sale at JoAnn's and a very helpful husband (who got to go to Home Depot as a bonus), I created my own canvases to make trees on. Actually, Ben made the canvases... using electric drills can be tricky and my stomach kept getting in the way. I did spend several nights painting trees though. Getting these guys on the wall proved to be the tricky part. But after some tears (or complete emotional breakdown that I blame on pregnancy), 3M strips, screws, kitchen twine, picture hangers and a very patient and dedicated husband got the job done.

The last handmade touch I wanted to mention was the crib mobile. I wanted something that looked natural and woodsy to blend with the room but the ones I found for sale had so much plastic and bright colors. I decided I could easily make my own for cheaper. I was right about the cheaper part but trying to sew the ribbons to the birds at the right angle and with the end inside the bird proved to be much more challenging than anticipated. But if anyone is up for the challenge, all you need is an embroidery hoop, ribbon, fabric, thread and poly-fill. A sewing machine may or my not be helpful. I used one but it would have been much easier to line up the ribbons properly by hand. Fortunately, once it is all finished and hung, it's very forgiving. After making one bird, I was sure the project was a failure but I'm pretty happy with the end result.

All in all, I really enjoyed putting together my half DIY nursery. There is no way I would have had energy to do all that had I still been working in the restaurant though. But all these fun projects were a great way to fill my time off. One thing I learned, however, is everything is way more complicated than it seems when you set out (especially if you have a pregnant belly to contend with). We really only had a few major projects (and Ben did most of the hard stuff) but it took hours spread out over several weeks to culminate in this. Our baby probably won't even notice the difference but I'm happy I took time to give her such a special place. I really poured my love and excitement for her into this room.