The Vision

Like my new blog background?? I just had to change it because this one goes so well with the new nursery decor! :) Which means I did it! I finally ordered baby bedding for the nursery. I'll be honest, this decorating process has made me want to know the gender so badly! In fact, part of the reason I finally pulled the trigger was to avoid temptation at our anatomy ultrasound on Sept 9th. I just knew if the decor was still in limbo, I'd break down and get the tech to tell me.

I'm determined to let the gender of this baby be a surprise, but I'm not one of these laid back moms that can just put off decorating until after the birth and the 'gender neutral' decorating concept drives me crazy...I just am not a fan of any of the gender neutral bedding options/color schemes out there, especially for a boy. Yes, there are plenty of bedding sets that will work just fine, but only for the first year or two (tops) of the boy's life. After that, I find all the pastel greens and yellows start to look really feminine.

So what to do about the baby's room?? Well, after a lot of though, I finally decided to just say 'screw it'. If it's a boy, we'll just be faced with overhauling his room in a year or two when he transitions out of the crib and into a big boy bed/room. Plus, I REALLY think it's a girl!!

Ok, so the vision! Here's the bedding (from landofnod.com):

Depending on your computer screen, the picture can be a tad deceiving...the fabric is actually more or a teal green than a blue. If it's a girl I'm going to reverse the ties on the bumper so the circles show on the outside and the plaid is on the inside.

For paint, I LOVE the bold teal paint color of the room shown above, but I'm too chicken to go that bright...I'm thinking a more muted gray-blue/green. I'm currently digging Sherwin Williams' Silvermist (SW7621). I couldn't snag the swatch from the website (damn adobe) but here are a few pics people shared of their silvermist rooms on ths.gardenweb.com



Don't know if you can tell from these pics, but depending on the light it really shifts from looking gray-blue to gray-green. I love it! I'd also like to add some white crown molding. (bet that's news to Mr. C! :)

As for the crib, we SCORED thanks to my wonderful sister and brother-in-law that loaned us their white crib! (For those of you that are following along that's TWO free cribs we've managed to snag...yay for wonderful relatives!!). It's not as straight forward as the crib in the room pic up top, it's more of a sleigh style, so it will definitely add a feminine touch to the bedding. This is not actually it, like I said it's white, but just to give a visual aid :)
We will not be doing a dresser because we need to put a twin bed in the room for visiting Grammies to have a place to sleep when they (hopefully!) come to periodically rescue me during the first few transitional months with a newborn. And, until we can afford our new seabury sleeper sofa from Pottery Barn, or guest bedding options have been overtaken by this new arrival.

Not too worried about the co-habitating of Grammies and baby since #1. the kid will be sleeping in a bassinet in our room until they are 3 or 4 months old so Grammy will have the room all to herself, and #2. it's only temporary until the bed moves to Little C when he outgrows his crib (at which point we will invest in a dresser for this kiddo) (and then hopefully have our sleeper sofa for any out of town guest.

So, until then the new baby will just have to do without a proper dresser and their onesies will have to live in these canvas hanging closet drawers from PBK


Since PBK has discontinued this product, we are lucky to already have a set that we received for Little C, and he has graciously agreed to loan his baby brother/sister the hanging shelves until he/she can get a dresser of their very own. Anything that doesn't go in these can go in the baskets we keep in the changing table (that we chose to keep in the playroom for easy access).

As strange as not having a dresser sounds, I'm not worried about it at all. The whole closet/changing table basket storage system worked quite well for Little C's clothes. We have a dresser for Little C, but we haven't used it much because I like to keep his clothes where we dress him (the changing table) and as a result his dresser currently only contains bedding. That will soon change as we will now need to put it to use in order to clear out space for the new kid.

Because the twin bed means we won't have room to put a rocker in the nursery (our fancy glider/rocker lives in the living room which works better for us than keeping it in a bedroom or nursery anyway), I'm going to invest in this Ikea storage ottoman that will also act as place to sit in the room .

The ottoman comes with the white cover, but if it's a boy, I might spring for this gray cover:
And for even MORE storage (because you can never have too much, right??), we'll be using two of these under-bed storage units to tuck under the crib and twin bed (both hidden by bed skirts of course).


As for the twin bedding, I'm going with a white cotton duvet and all white linens. I'll be using the accent pillow and baby quilt from the crib bedding set to give it some color and tie it all together.


If it's a girl, I'd love to get one of these shabby-chic ruffled shams, but I'm channeling every ounce of self control in my body to hold off ordering them until we actually know 100% for-sure it's a girl.

If it's a boy, I doubt I'll even do a sham...just two white pillows.

We have no headboard or fancy bed frame, just the metal frame we got from the mattress store. I don't want to purchase anything else until the bed moves to Little C's room so I can get something that goes with his room decor. In the mean time, I found 6 square mirrors on sale at Marshal's. They are currently black, but a can of white spray paint will fix that. When I'm done they will look very similar to this:


I'll group them above the bed to create a focal point/faux headboard. It won't be nearly this dramatic because I've only got 6 mirrors, but this is my inspiration:

If the baby turns out to be a boy, I'll probably punch out the mirrors and just use the frames for a less ornate look that resembles something like this (only with 6 instead of 10 and without the pics or mats).


Curtains are plain white version of these ivory cotton drapes and will hang with a pewter rod and rings (target).


Nightstand purchase will wait until after the baby is born. For a girl, I'm leaning towards something with soft lines to accentuate the curved lines of the crib like one of these two Ikea tables.

And if it's a boy, probably something a little more mod/plain like this to off-set the feminine curved lines of the crib.


For a table lamp, I am absolutely in love with these ceramic lamps f/ pottery barn, and I am especially in love with the yellow one...I think it would add a nice touch of color to all the white accessories, but I can't really afford this particular lamp, and I'm reluctant to put anything super breakable in a baby's room, so, I'm currently on the hunt for a wood version. If you see one let me know!!


If it's a boy, I'll do something a bit more masculine like this. (I like the nickle base but with the gray shade)

Like the nightstand and the lamp, the over-the-crib wall decor will have to wait until after the baby is born, but if it's a girl, I'm going to do her initials with three of these awesome PBK scroll iron letters that can later be little photo/postcard holders in her big-girl room.


And if it's a boy, I have no idea....maybe spell his name out in white wood letters

or maybe some framed vintage-inspired pics like these...

I don't know. Can you tell I'm not nearly as inspired by the boy decor?? I'm telling you, it's a girl!!! :)

So that's it. The vision! Hope you like it, don't tell me if you don't. Seriously don't, because it's taken me forever to come up with this. Will post pics of the reality as it comes together!!