Nursery Tour: Pretty In Pink + Glimmers Of Gold

Our little jelly bean is due this month and I've finally finished furnishing and decorating the nursery for her so I thought I'd take you on a nursery tour.

This use to be my craft/study room before we turned it into the baby's nursery and the design plan was to work with what we had and stick to a budget which I'm happy to say we've done. You really don't need to spend a lot of money when decorating, I shopped around home a lot using decor and furniture I already had, we purchased furniture secondhand, plus inexpensive stores like Kmart and Target are great for affordable decor and everything baby!

I've added links to similar products throughout this blog post to Temple and Webster Australia's largest online furniture and homewares retailer as they have a great selection of baby and kids products and furniture. I have my eye on a toy box and of course every little girl needs a doll house or a teepee ... there's so many adorable things to pick from!

I wanted to keep the design neutral and calming making it a perfect place for baby to sleep so nothing too bright or out there. The colour palette started as white, grey and black and evolved with added pops of pink and gold to make it feminine and pretty.

We bought and hung new blockout blinds over the silver blinds as it's such a bright and sunny room and we need to make it dark for daytime naps!

Some of the furniture we already had (the bookcase, wardrobe and side table), plus the rug and light fitting black chandelier we kept as it suited the colour theme. 

We purchased some furniture items secondhand from Gumtree like the Ikea wing chair - I did lots of research on a perfect nursing chair and Ikea's wing chair was a winner and it's really comfortable. Although I still need to find a foot stool to go with it.

The bookcase had to stay in this room and still holds all my books but I've kept the top two shelves for the baby's books and decor.

I shopped from home and used my own decor items for the  bookcase - anything white ceramic or animal seemed to fit well as nursery decor. I bought a salt lamp to use as a night light as it gives out a nice soft glow and also has lots of other healing and purifying qualities.

If you're looking for some adorable kids bookcases check out Temple and Webster they have a great range to pick from here.

The Ikea Hemnes drawers were also a bargain secondhand find on Gumtree as they are actually brand new and were still in the original packaging. I decided the drawers will double as a change table with a change mat on top and all the change supplies in the top drawers and then clothes in the drawers underneath. 

I just love how much storage this piece of furniture provides and for a small room it's great having furniture that is multi-purpose. I'm also using the top as a dressing table with jars for headbands, dummies and vintage jewellery boxes.

  

Baby's clothes are so itty bitty tiny so a few sets of the Ikea drawer dividers are perfect for keeping all the clothes neat and tidy. But let's just see how long they stay this way for!

I also typed up some labels for each divider so you can see at a glance the size and what the item is.

Over in the wardrobe there's heaps of storage space as well for all the hanging items like dresses, jackets and sleeping bags. 

I made little size dividers from some butterfly blackboard pegs I had in my craft supplies and tied them to string which hangs down to separate the clothes.

I was lucky enough to get a big bag full of matching baby hangers in different sizes for free from Pumpkin Patch as they were closing down.

I've used a hanging wardrobe organiser that I already had for storing all the baby's linen, blankets and swaddles. 

The vintage bassinet was lent to me by a friend and our little one will sleep in this in the bedroom with Mr P and I until we decide to move her into her nursery and into her cot. 

The purple netting was from when I was a baby and covered my own bassinet. I just love that it's been kept all this time and can be passed down through the generations. My Mum has also unpacked all my old knitted and crochet baby clothes which are just beautiful I can't wait to dress my little girl in the same clothes that I wore over 30 years ago! 

The cot is another special item as it's been passed down in Mr P's family. It's the only timber item in the room so we were going to paint it white but like the contrast the timber wood adds so we've kept it as it is.

Above the cot hangs a bird cage I've filled with paper flowers and bird decor and on the wall are some bird mirror wall decals. Both of these were already there from my craft room/study design and I think fit in nicely with the nursery so have kept them there.

The art in the room I'm sure I'll change around over time but for now I have - 

"The First Kiss" angel print is a special one I brought back from Rome on my first overseas holiday 20 years ago. The gorgeous girl with goose art was a baby shower gift from beautiful friends. An Ikea butterfly wall art I've added some flower vines too. Lastly I DIYed the wooden art from a print I found on Pinterest, printed out and framed.

I really love how the nursery has turned out, the room has such a nice feel to it and hopefully I've got everything ready for when our little bundle arrives this month.


What do you think of our little baby girl's nursery? 

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Nursery Inspiration + Organising Ideas

As I've officially hit the third trimester of my pregnancy I'm getting into nesting mode and going on an organising spree throughout the house - the linen, kitchen and bathroom cupboards all need a good tidy up so I can make room for the baby's things!

But first things first I want to finish setting up the baby's nursery and have found so many great ideas on Pinterest to get me inspired. Here's my organising ideas for the room so far ....

As you will see in my earlier post I'm having a chest of drawers that doubles as a change table. For this I purchased the Ikea Hemnes chest of 8 drawers on Gumtree brand new at a fraction of the original price!

I have also purchased some Ikea drawer dividers as the baby's clothes are so tiny the drawer dividers will help keep everything neat and tidy. I've seen some great ideas for organising everything in these drawers with the baby change items like nappies and creams in the top drawers and then clothes in the bottom drawers.

I'll share my chest of drawers and change table organising on the blog once I have set this up in the coming weeks.

We moved an Ikea 2 door wardrobe we had in the Guest Bedroom into the nursery for our baby's pretty dresses, coats and anything else that needs to be hung.

I scored a heap of matching coat hangers for free from Pumpkin Patch who are closing down their Australian stores so I have all nice matching coat hangers in different sizes which is perfect.

I also want to install some shelves in the wardrobe as the hanging space won't take up much room as the clothes are so tiny and I want to make use of all the wardrobe space.  The shelves will be perfect for baskets and storing the linen, boxes of nappies, toys etc ... I have discovered baby's have so many things!

My Ikea 10 cube bookcase will be staying in the nursery (which use to be my study/craft room) and the baby and I will need to share the bookcase as I don't have anywhere else to store my books.

Bookcases are a great addition to a nursery because I can add some decorative boxes or baskets to store toys as well as pretty decor items and books on the shelves.

I want to keep everything baby related in the nursery so whatever I can fit in this room with clever storage I will as I figure it will make it a lot easier to find things if they're all kept in the one room.

Do you have any organising tips for a nursery?

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[Images via my Pinterest 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]

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Nursery Design - The Perfect Nursing Chair

Sometimes I get stuck on finding the perfect piece of furniture and become a little bit obsessed about it and this is exactly what happened when I tried to find a nursing chair for our baby's nursery.

To start with I asked Mr P what style of chair he thought would be good in the nursery .... He asked what do I needed a chair for? If my death stare wasn't enough the harshly spoken answer that followed along the lines of because I'll be up all bloody night and I need somewhere to bloody sit and rest my bloody head made sense to him and his answer soon turned into ..... Whatever chair you want will be perfect babe! Good answer hubby, good answer!!

So the mission to find a perfect nursing chair began !

I asked my Mum's advice on what type of nursing chair she had with me .... She laughed and laughed and said she didn't have a nursing chair it was the bed, the couch, or whatever was close by! 

Oh how things have changed over the years with us new Mum-To-Be's being spoilt for choice when it comes to all things baby!

I asked my sister in law what type of nursing chair she had and she suggested a glider which is a chair with a foot stool attached. When I sat on a glider in the baby shops it made me feel nauseas with all that rocking I just couldn't do it!

I also felt that this style of chair wouldn't fit with the rest of the furniture in our home and when it was no longer needed in the nursery we wouldn't really have anywhere to put it.

Similar to a glider is a rocking chair and whilst there are some great styles around the movement gave me the same sick feeling as the glider.

The main difference between a glider and a rocking chair is that the foot stool also moves with the glider whereas with the rocking chair your feet are stationery either on a separate foot stool or on the ground.

I read a lot of reviews online for the perfect nursing chair and the Ikea Poang chair was a firm favourite amongst Mums. It's inexpensive and it has movement in the back to bounce back and forth but it's not a rocking chair (although Ikea do a rocking chair version).

The only thing I didn't love about the Poang is the wooden arms as they didn't look very comfortable.

I asked friends who suggested a comfortable armchair with soft arms.

Sounds easy enough but most of the armchairs I sat in at furniture shops had a low back and were quite small and not at all comfortable. Whilst I want the chair to look good it needs to be comfortable first and foremost - practical over pretty!

So I came to the conclusion my perfect nursing chair must have -

Padded arms + A high back + No rocking motion

It suddenly dawned on me that a wing chair has all the makings of a perfect nursing chair.

It has padded arms, the seat is wide and cushioned and it has a nice high back for head support.

Plus it looks beautiful it's a really stylish design so would look great in the living room or bedroom when it's no longer needed in the nursery.

Now because I'm doing the nursery on a budget and didn't want to spend too much on a new chair which would most likely get covered in baby vomit in the very near future so I started stalking Gumtree for secondhand wing chairs.

I couldn't believe my luck when I came across the Ikea Strandmon Wing Chair for half price (RRPs for $399 I paid $150) and it was only 6 months old - the bargain queen strikes again!

I had even recommended to a friend this style of Ikea Wing Chair as a nursing chair when I helped her design her nursery so I don't know why I hadn't thought of this chair sooner!

What I love about this chair is when it's not needed for nursing the baby it can be used as a reading chair in the nursery and when it outgrows the room it would fit in nicely in our living room or even our bedroom.

I'm really happy with our latest addition to the nursery and I'm feeling good about the progress we've made so far in setting up the baby's room ready for her arrival in May!

What would be your perfect nursing chair?

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[Images via my Pinterest 1, 1A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, last image my own]

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Nursery Design: Drawers + Change Table

To come up with a design for our nursery I've been trawling through Pinterest admiring the most adorable nursery rooms and getting inspiration for setting up a nursery for our new addition.

It's not hard to see that I really love the look of a chest of drawers that doubles as a change table with a change mat on top.

Not only is this a great use of space as you don't need a separate change table which will take up room but it's also budget friendly as it's less furniture to buy.

I have chosen the Ikea Hemnes 8 drawers (see first photo above) as it's the perfect size in length to accommodate a change mat and change supplies at easy hands reach.

The height also had to be considered and it's a perfect height as it's the same height as most change tables - not too tall for me to use and not too low for Mr P.

As I'm trying to design the nursery on a budget I have been keeping an eye on Gumtree and managed to find the exact drawers I wanted, brand new, still in original packaging, on Gumtree for almost half the price.

Now I'm impatiently waiting for Mr P to assemble the flat pack drawers so that I can set them up and share them with you!

What did you use as a baby change table?

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[All images via my Pinterest 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]


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