The Nursery

The long awaited nursery reveal is here! I spent Sunday morning making the room look photo shoot worthy. It will probably never look this way again, but at least I will always have it documented, right? So, without further ado...welcome Luigi's new room! If you are curious about where things came from, there is a resource list at the bottom end.

This is the view you see from the hallway. 

Once you get to the doorway, you can see a little bit more. 

I'm really happy with the way my scrapbook paper animal faces came out. At some point, I would like to add more art on the other wall above the crib, preferably something with words/letters. But, I think that can wait for now.

When you turn around, and look behind you, you can see the big wall of stripes. Have I convinced everyone that purple is completely acceptable in a little boy's room yet?

I'm sure the objects on the floating shelves will be constantly changing. 

Here's the crib from the closet wall. 

From the far window, looking back at the closet, you get a good view of the rocking chair and dresser. 

We created animal face artwork to compliment the colors of the stripes, and the subtle zoo animal there.  It was really important to Greg that Luigi have some faces to interact with. Of course, I wanted something very graphic and not too characterish or themey. I think we came up with a good concept. 

And coincidentally, the mobile has almost the exact same combination of animals. Just swap a zebra for a tiger. But they both have stripes. 

Zoo mobile

Cuddly Courdy Roy the Horse, sits on the rocking chair and adds an extra splash of purple. 

Yes, I even got coordinating cloth diapers. But only a few so far...we still need to see how it goes. 

But they look really cute on the changing table, don't they?

Luigi's first Matchbox car, a purple pickup truck selected by his cousins H & L. 

Cool wooden race cars from my friend T who is expecting a boy in January. I think Luigi will be playing with these much before we let him touch the purple pick-up. And maybe someday T and her son will come to Boston so he and Luigi can play cars together. 

Toy/Book shelf, stocked up and ready to go with so many wonderful and
generous gifts from family and friends. 

Really cool robot piggy bank, a gift from Granny's friend. 

Resource List:

• Dresser - my old dresser, painted in the same colors as the stripe wall
• Eiffel Tower Lamp - have had it for awhile, it will probably be replaced eventually when we find something different. I think Target still carries this in black. 
• Rocking Chair - found in my Gram's house years ago, and painstakingly painted and reconstructed to get rid of the horsehair and hay cushions. Amateur no-sew upholstery in Boca Pacific. 
• Blackout Curtains - found at many online retailers, can't quite remember who I actually bought the from. 
• Ottoman - from Target
• Carpet Tiles - FLOR, Feeling Groovy in Lime, Sky and Iris. 
• Crib - Babyletto Hudson
• Changing Table - IKEA Gulliver
• Toy/Book Shelf - IKEA EXPEDIT, in high gloss white. Can be used vertically someday as well, if need be. 
• Wall Shelves - IKEA LACK in high gloss white. 
• Mobile - Nojo Jungle Tales
• Bedding & Changing Pad Cover - Morning Zoo from Land of Nod.
• Striped Pillow in Crib - IKEA VLABORG
• Lamp on book shelf - IKEA VIDJA
• Paint - Sherwin Williams:
• Main Walls - Cay
• Stripes - Secure Blue, Lime Rickey, Aquarium & Genetian

Empty Walls

I have been staring at the empty walls in our dining room for over a year now...granted, it's only been about six months since we painted them gray. The weekend before Thanksgiving, we finally had time to hang up a few things! I am so excited to finally be activating this formerly blank space.

Below, you can see two framed photos that we had in our old dining room. One is of the magnolia tree at our old place. The other is of some umbrellas hanging in a glass dome at the Venetian in Vegas. To the left of the window, are three ceramic "dot" vases that we found this summer in P-town.

On the opposite wall, that backs up to the kitchen, we hung Greg's beer labels that I framed for him as a gift for our anniversary one year. We hung them high on purpose, with the intention of adding more objects below at some point. 

Here's how things are looking from the living room. (Please pardon the half chewed chenielle blanket in the front left corner. Roy has been slowly devouring it, and I have yet to get rid of it...it's on my list, but anyway....!) We were really excited when we found those dots, for a few reasons. One, because the colors tie in with what's going on in the living room. 

And two, because the dishes we got for our wedding strongly feature dots! You can see why we couldn't resist picking up a few of these. At some point, I plan on making some flowers, either of paper or beads, to put in them. I would like to add a touch more green to the dining room, to tie in with the living room, and this seems like a perfect opportunity. 

We did pick up one piece of green art this fall that we thought we were going to put up in the dining room.  But, it seemed to have found a better home on the shelves in the living room. It will probably show up in a photo soon. 

I'm pretty happy with this way this turned out, for now. I tend to stress out a bit about silly decisions like this, so Greg just encouraged me to get it done. It's only a few holes in the wall after all. I'm sure it will evolve with time. But for now, like I said, I'm thrilled to no longer be staring at empty walls!