.jack's room.

jack's room is currently my most favourite space in our house. it's been completed for ages, minus a picture hanging or two, but most days i sit in my old beat-up vintage rocking chair [handed down to me from my grandma, which was handed down from her momma!] and smile while i watch jack play and explore.

with jack being our first baby, we had this little room completed well before he was born. you know how it is. it was one of those projects that just needed to be done so that my pregnancy with jack would feel real. and it really did help. once we started putting paint on the walls, nestled his crib into the corner and filled a bookcase with childhood treasures, i remember thinking 'whoa. we are really having a baby!'.

i also remember it being a daunting task to start. what colours? what theme? do we even have a theme? boy or girl? budget? baby enough? too adult-ish? how do i incorporate [fill in the blank]? it was never-ending and i probably changed my mind 100x before settling down with a simple colour pattern.

benjamin moore

since we didn't know the sex of our baby, i had to go gender neutral. and to be perfectly honest, that was fine with me. i don't really feel that you need to go pink or blue nowadays anyways. that being said, i definitely knew i wanted something that i would truly enjoy since i figured i'd be spending quite a bit of time in that space. i also knew that i wanted it to feel a little more 'adult', without the cartoons wall decals, etc. i figured as jack grew older we could always pull baby or toddler items into the room if he wanted them, with toys and stuffed animals. 

another small issue i had to work into the equation, besides it being teeny-tiny, was a dark cherry-wood hand-me-down crib that peter was determined to use, no matter what sort of begging i came up with for a modern square white one. in the end, i suppose it was where i went from thinking of a monochromatic colour scheme to soft whites and creams to the palette above. and to where a sort of 'woodsy feel' was born. remember this diy bookcase peter helped me fix up?

the room might have a bit more of a masculine feel but in the end, with jack being born a boy, it worked out to be the most perfect room. and i simply love it, which is all that really matters.

now with jack almost ready for a 'big boy room' [kidding! he's staying my baby forever!] and the twins due date only 4.5 months away, i'd better get cracking on their room! we haven't even begun to start in there! such is the life of the 2nd child [and third, i suppose! ha!].

.jack's nursery: wood bookcase diy.

i know, i know. it's about time i show you all jack's nursery, but till i can manage to figure out how to take pictures in a way i can really show it off, you'll just have to be stuck with little sneak peeks like this one.

to give you the back story, basically peter put his foot down on a new crib when we received a working one from his sweet aunt & uncle. the problem was, it was dark wood and i wanted white. after humming and hawing over whether or not i could safely paint a crib, i decided to just leave it as it was and try to tie in a few dark wood elements to the white/grey space i was creating for baby's nursery. and that's how the wood-bookcase-hunt was born! i wanted something that looked natural, but functioned as a great place to store books, toys and a few decorative peices. i was also on a pretty tight budget. 

well, have you ever tried to find a natural looking wood bookcase on a tight budget? next to impossible [or perhaps my standards are a little too impossible! ha!]. and that's where homesense came in and this ugly yellowy-peach-stained wood bookcase was found. i mean, this colour?!? why? 

so i showed peter it in store. he laughed. i asked him if he could sand and stain it. he laughed again. said it would be too much work. i smiled sweetly and rubbed my big preggo belly. said it was for baby bugg. and then we bought. 

[note to self...using baby to get things works!]

this bookcase was actually priced at $770 [even at homesense!!! wth, right?! i wonder what the price was before homesense came into the picture? ouch], but after markdown after markdown we managed to score it at a whopping $140. now that's a budgeted price i can work with. and here's what my handy husband did to it....

not to darn shabby, hey?! i am super happy with the results and think pete did a fantastic job. it now serves the exact purpose that i wanted it too and i think that jack loves being able to pull out his toys and book at his own leisure. it's the perfect height for him and the perfect piece that i needed to tie everything in with his nursery. more too come on the rest of the space shortly.....

**and not to worry! i was major preggo at the time, but wasn't present during this diy [only for 2 seconds to snap a few pictures], we slept in the basement and the house was well ventilated the entire process :)

.diy: rustic felt ball mobile.

after searching [and searching and searching] for an affordable 'modern-rustic' themed mobile for jack's nursery [yes, modern-rustic! i wanted a wood rustic feel, with a modern twist to it], i decided that it couldn't be that hard to make one. so, while I absolutely love the look of the feather/arrow mobiles floating around pinterest [favorites seen here and here], i wasn't crazy about the price tag's going along with them. i was also searching for something with a little wood on it to pull some darkness to the area above the change pad and match a few darker pieces i had in jack's room. and this is what i came up with.

a fun, super easy project that adds just the right amount of modern-rustic to the little man's nursery. 

and bonus: he adores it!

here's how i did it:

.jack's nursery: a sneak peek.

it occurred to me the other day that i have yet to show any photos of jack's nursery! i guess it's because i am still looking for a chair for the space and have yet to hang all the pictures, etc but it's slowly coming along and may even be done by the time the little man spends his first night in it.

as for the decor or theme of his room, i knew that i really wanted to stray away from the obvious baby nursery and stick to a more mature space [i mean its probably more for me than him at this point!], so after working with a few hand me downs [more to come on that later] i decided to try out a sort of rustic modern woodland theme [if that even makes sense! ha!].

here are a few highlights.

.diy: pom-pom crib skirt tutorial.

I have another nursery related tutorial to show you all. The Easy Pom-pom Crib Skirt!

Initially was going to just buy a standard crib skirt, but after knowing how easy the diy crib sheets where, I figured I'd again take a crack at making my own. This also gave me the opportunity to customize them a little and put my own personal spin on it with those wicked cool pom-pom's.

Done and Done.

I'd consider this another check off the old baby to-do list :)

So here's how I made mine. Easy, Quick and Unique.

1] Get your supplies. You will need: 2 yards of fabric [for a standard sized crib], scissors, sewing machine, pom-pom thread [if that is even what it's called], measuring tape, pins, flat thumtacks, and an iron.
2] Measure your crib. You'll need three measurements and it'll probably be very similar to mine if you have a standard-sized crib. Length of the longest side [51.5 inches], Length of the two shortest sides [27.5 inches] and height when the mattress is at it's highest setting [20 inches].

3]  Cut your fabric. You'll be cutting out 3 rectangles of fabric [two short lengths and one long length. I didn't do the backside as my crib will be against the wall]. Add 2 inches to the height measurement so that you have room for the top of your fabric to wrap over the top of the mattress support beam. Add 1 inch to all the measurements for the seam.

• One long rectangle length for the front. For me this was 52.5 inches x 23 inches [length of the long side, plus 1 inch seam allowance x height, plus 2 inches plus 1 inch seam allowance].
• Two short rectangle lengths for the sides. For me, this was 28.5 inches x 23 inches [length of the short side, plus 1 inch seam allowance x height, plus 2 inches plus 1 inch seam allowance].

**I found this to be the hardest part of the whole project as you need to cut these panels straight. I used a bunch of pins and measured all the way around pinning every 2 inches or so and then cutting along the pins. Seemed to work pretty good.

4] Hem and sew sides. You will now need to iron and sew all four sides of each rectangle piece which is super easy. Turn up 1/2 inch on each side, iron that down and then sew. This will make your edges nice and clean.

5]  Be happy that you are almost finished. Turn it over and make sure it looks similar to this.

6] Attach your pom-pom ribbon. Now you'll need to secure your pom-pom ribbon by sewing it to the bottom edge of each of the three rectangle pieces. I just pinned mine at a couple spots and then sewed it onto the panels. Pretty darn easy.
Hint: When sewing the pom ribbon on, make sure the you follow the same hem as before so that you won't see two rows of thread.

7] Attach all panels to your crib. Now the fun part, attach each panel to the crib with flat thumbtacks. I have a crib with a wood support beam that I just pinned them too. If you have wire springs instead of a wood beam, at this point you'll have to sew a ribbon onto each corner of the panels and then tie them to the springs. I found a great tutorial by Christine, over at her blog Just Bella.

7] Put your Mattress back and high-five yourself on the back for a job well done! Or is that something that I just do? Either way, You're finished! Now you can go hide all those extra storage boxes of baby's clothes, diapers, books and toys.