A Nursery Tale...
...part 3 in the nursery series…
One item I was terribly excited to include in Finn’s nursery was this simple wooden dresser from the 1960’s. It had been in my Dad’s room when he was a kid, it still has great design lines, and I loved the idea of sprucing it up to use in the nursery. Luckily, I have parents who were willing to spend a weekend in LA putting in the time to help me make it beautiful!!In addition to the dresser, I had this 9-square that I had found on the street back in 2000 and it’s bounced around from room to room in every house I’ve lived in since. With a new coat of paint, it makes a brilliant bookshelf for practically pennies.
Before I was even pregnant, my friend Ashley & I were wandering the streets of Silverlake and happened upon this adorable store called Yolk. In the window was the most beautiful grey oval-shaped crib. I fell in love then and there, and when it came time to design our nursery, nothing in the world could have dissuaded me from that crib! Until I saw the cost—half of my budget. Whoops. Then, Stokke agreed to gift us the crib!! Thank you Stokke! You kinda made me cry. In a good way. (I know this is an unusual situation and we got super lucky and I’m so grateful!)
If you like this crib but it’s out of your budget, too, try checking online sources like craigslist or local mama sites to see if anyone is selling theirs at a lower price.
Ashley was able to find the whole grow-with-me set for a crazy inexpensive price that way!
Here’s the result of the finished dresser, the origami birds, and the full crib.
The ABC print I picked up on Etsy (love that site!), and the cute bronze book ends were a gift from my mom.
Another key piece in any nursery is a changing table. I fell in love with a beautiful orange lacquer dresser online, but it was again waaaaay out of my price range. So I headed to the flea market, and at the Melrose Post I came across the beauty below (the dresser. not the dudes.) It’s a vintage credenza that the sellers painted a great shade of teal and then distressed; I scored it for $200 and it even fit in the Prius. I love it! It also turned out to be a pretty handy replacement for a ladder…
Another element I knew I wanted in the nursery was an art wall. I’d gathered a lot of great prints from Etsy and friends & family over the years, and I wanted to display them in a curated non-hodgepodge/college dorm/crazy-lady way. Right around the time I was working on the nursery, I saw Joy’s episode on Secrets from a Stylist, and Emily designed a really fantastic art wall for her. Even better, she then posted a how-to on her blog (!!), so as much as I’d like to claim the credit for the art wall technique, it’s all thanks to Emily. For the details, check her blog, but the basic rundown is you lay out the art pieces on the ground until you like the look, then make paper cutouts of each piece and tape them to the wall in the exact same order. Then put the nails in right through the paper—when you hang the actual paintings, you know exactly where everything is going, limiting your mistakes (and holes in the wall).
Stay tuned tomorrow for the final reveal!
xoxo
