The Nursery: Dresser

The Bright, Simple, Vintage, Homemade Nursery

That is C and O's new nursery in a nutshell. And I'm in love. I can't help but walk by their room and just smile. What a cheerful, clean, peaceful, nursery.

After months of working on this room it's done. Or just about...curtains and a couple pillows will add the finishing touches. Hooray! We bought our first house this year and I'm just getty that I get to decorate it anyway I want. For months it sat bare with just a crib and a nightstand. It's not that I didn't have anything to decorate with. I just needed to brainstorm and come up with my plan.

So after a couple of weeks of planning and coming up with an inspiration board (pictures of other nurseries and ideas I loved) I painted the walls, and got busy on my thrifted/homemade room. I went off this room from The Anderson's and added from there. Wow is she talented!

So here is the "before" picture. I had already started on the taping. But you can see that the room is plain and the color is a neutral muted-green. Which was a fine color. I just needed to spice things up a bit.

The nursery doesn't have a closet. So I knew I needed a big dresser. I scored this heavy duty, vintage dresser from a thrift store. It is such high quality. They don't make dressers like this anymore.

It was a light yellow color and had fantastic hardware. I was so tempted to use the hardware. It was pure vintage-awesomeness. But in the end I went with a more clean, sleek hardware choice.

And here is the dresser refinished. I sanded it, primed it with oil-based primer, painted it white, and replaced the hardware with a more modern, sleek look.


We all know that my kids' favorite lady is Mary Poppins. I didn't want a theme room but I did want to incorporate her into the room a bit.

I made this piece of art for them.

Mary Poppins used to look like this (don't you love that umbrella fabric?!) but the frame mysteriously broke when I was spray painting it white. Ah well. I like the new-improved Mary Poppins better anyways.

I got this lamp from a yard sale for $3. It was a gold base. I spray painted it white and recovered the lampshade with Michael Miller's "Red Joy" fabric. And what a joy it is!

And those dolls!!! Those were mine when I was a baby. Seriously VINTAGE stuff. Humpty dumpty and and Little Miss Muffit are great additions to the room. Humpty has a bell inside and Ms. Muffit has a squeeker inside. C can't get enough of them.

Ikea frames. I covered the mat's with fabric

The End.

The Nursery: The Crib and Bedding

Three of my sister-in-laws made our baby's bedding. They are all so talented and generous to us.

Becky made this amazing quilt. It's even quilted with stars. Amazing! It has beautiful fabric, binding, everything.

Sara made these gorgeous bumper pads. Seriously! She made those. Amazing.



Look at the ties. So stinkin' cute.



And Julia made two sheets. One is warm flannel from Sara's shoppe and the other is from her own quilt shoppe. They are the greatest crib sheets! They fit perfect.

And I made these pom-pom's using this tutorial. The white lanterns are from Ikea.

The Nursery: Embroidery Hoops and Hat Stand

A "Tragic" Story

So I had high hopes to find a crib like this one in Norah's Nursery. That yellow, vintage-style crib was perfect. I fell in love. SO instead of buying a new crib for C (18mo. when baby brother was born) I bought one second-hand. I made sure it wasn't on the recall list and that it was in good shape. And then I sanded it a bit. Gave up on that because sanding it took way too long! then I primed it. That was my first problem. I used water-based primer instead of oil-based. Bad idea! So learn from my mistake to always use oil based primer on wood (it had a shiny surface and needed some primer to grip onto). So I primed it with both. It took hours. Then I started spray painting it yellow and decided it was going to take about 20 cans of yellow spray paint. And I'm not kidding! At $3 a can would have cost me way more than my thrifty self wanted to pay.

So I spray painted it white instead. In the end it cost me $70 total for the crib, mattress and paint. And 2 months later it's BROKEN! It broke. Over 20 hours of work on that crib, and it's gone. Ugh. So now C is on her mattress on the floor. We're so "montessori"

But for the fun part: Vintage embroidery hoops filled with modern vintage-style fabric.

Pearl Bee came up with this tutorial. And it was an easy project! And I mean super-easy-anyone-can-do-it-No sewing required EASY. The idea came from Ohdeedoh.


I didn't want this to be a theme room but I did want to add a touch here and there of Mary Poppins. Thus the umbrella fabric.

And everyone who knows Mary Poppins, knows a proper place to hang a hat is on a hat stand! So I bought this vintage one and C and I painted it red together. We hang all of her fancy hats and fancy boa.

The Nursery: Yellow Chair and Bookshelves

Chair was from the thrift store.

We sanded it a bit, primed it and painted it yellow. I love that M was so into this painting job that she almost painted the entire chair herself. Her priming paint job wasn't the greatest but it adds great character to the chair I think. I love to see the clumpy spots and know M had her hand in it.

I made the bookshelves from plans on Knock Off Wood. They cost less than $10 to make and I love that the books are forward facing, rather than binding facing.

This blanket was made by my sister-in-law Julia. She made it 14 years ago for her baby girl and gave it to us when we had our first baby. I love it and it matches the room perfectly.