We've been working, working and working some more on Baby K's nursery, and I'm excited to say that everything is finished and I can finally share the room with everyone!
When we first moved into our house last November, the room that we knew would be the nursery was, well, a little sad! As you can see from the picture below, it's a teeny tiny little room in the basement with low ceilings. It was just kind of "blah" and made me sad to think that this was going to be our baby's room. Fortunately, it has gone through quite the facelift over the past few months!
At the back of the room you can see a circle shelf that we have the baby monitor set up on. I made super simple panel curtains for both of the windows.
We had paint tinted to match the turquoise fabric I'd used throughout the room. Steve painted an old shelf (once upon a time this shelf had been in my mom's childhood room!) and we put fun little odds and ends on it. Oh, you've probably noticed the question mark hiding something, right?
On closer inspection, you can see that it's our little family! For our wedding, we'd had our cake topper made by Goose Grease, and before the wedding we'd done a little photo shoot with our "mini mes" that we used for our table numbers. A couple of months ago Steve and I were looking at the pictures and I thought about how fun they were. But, obviously, we needed an updated version of our family! So I contacted Goose Grease about doing a custom family for us and I absolutely love how they turned out! Me, Steve, our pup Charlie and Baby K are all represented! Of course, you'll have to wait until after Baby K arrives to find out if they made us a little boy or a little girl!
I knew I wanted the dresser to be the focal point of the room, and love the custom dresser we had done by Mint Home (conveniently located in Chicago but don't worry, they can ship to you!). And, of course, it also doubles as our changing table.
Above the dresser we have a little collection of pictures and other things. The frame in the bottom right corner - currently displaying fabric - will hold Baby K's hospital bracelet, and we'll update the photos with other shots (probably newborn photos). Right now it's just photos of us!
To the right of the dresser it's all set up with things we'll need for diaper changing, including cloth wipes, wipe spray, lotion, etc. It's super convenient and right within arm's reach! Tucked away underneath is also our dirty diaper bin.
I made a few different crib sheets as well as the simple crib skirt. Sitting inside is a stuffed owl that I also made.
Because the nursery ceilings are so low, I was afraid we wouldn't be able to hang a mobile. But we were able to hang something high enough that should stay out of baby's reach! This mobile was a fun, easy and inexpensive project for me.
I love our little rocking nook with the pillow and Moroccan pouf made by me, and the books all within arm's reach. It was hard to find a tree decal that would fit for such a small wall - we love the one we finally chose and that it has a fun, modern feel to it. To the left of the rocker is a table that was here when we moved in. Steve painted it with turquoise paint (also used on the shelf) and it was like a brand new table!
Baby K received a lot of books at both of our showers! I love that we have a good start to our library. And, of course, the room would not be complete without a plush little camera (made by me) for Baby K!
So, there you have it: Baby K's fun, bright, turquoise, yellow and gray nursery! Even though there are things that I would change or wish I could do differently, I know that Baby K's nursery is absolutely perfect because Steve and I have put so much TLC into every little detail! There were plenty of things we could have purchased for the room, but it was much more special to us to DIY so many of the details.
Beyond sentimental reasons, DIY'ing also meant we were able to control the costs a bit. The rocker and the dresser were our big splurges. Projects like the mobile and the pouf cost absolutely nothing (as I already had the fabric) and other projects (like the crib sheets and the table and shelf) were relatively inexpensive - you only need 2 yards of fabric for each crib sheet and the table and shelf only needed two coats of paint each.
Now we're just excited to have Baby K arrive and start using the room!
Baby Monitor: Motorola Digital Baby Monitor
Beatles Print: Ex Libris Journals
Bird Mobile Pattern: Spool Sewing
Bookend: CB2 (already owned)
Camera Pattern: Pink Stitches Blog
Changing Area Items (shelf, containers for wipes): IKEA
Changing Pad: Summer Infant Contoured Changing Pad
Changing Pad Cover: Land of Nod
Clock: Decoylab
Cloud Decals: Monkey Threads
Crib: Baby Mod Modena from Wal-Mart
Crib Sheet Pattern: Bundles of Love
Crib Skirt Pattern: Young House Love Blog
Dresser: Mint Home
Fabric - Tulip Pattern (for pouf, curtains, etc): Jessica Jones "Tulip, Dusk" Fabric
Fabric - Crib Sheet: Lotta Jansdotter "Choma Golden Rod" (difficult to find anyone selling it)
Fabric - Miscellaneous: Odds and ends left from other projects
Lamp: Land of Nod
Moroccan Pouf Pattern: Bromeliad Living Blog
Picture Frames: IKEA
Rocker: West Elm
Stuffed Owl Pattern: Toad's Treasures Blog
Tree Decal: Wordy Bird Studios
Wall Paint: Leftover from painting the rest of our house (custom color)
Wall Shelf (for books): IKEA
Wall Shelf (for monitor): Land of Nod
Baby K has now been showered with sweetness all around! At around 34 weeks pregnant, we had a small baby shower with family, which was special and sweet and perfect. And then at 36 weeks pregnant (a little over a week ago) we had a larger shower with all of our close friends.
Because we moved into our new home in November and knew we wouldn't really be having a housewarming prior to baby's arrival, a couple of our wonderful friends kindly threw us a combination shower and open house! It was great to have all of our friends over to see the new house, ooh and ahh over the nursery, and help us celebrate Baby K's upcoming arrival! It was also great (and so very much appreciated!) to have fabulous friends do all of the prep work for the event because I've been so tired these days.
Everything was within a grey and yellow color scheme, and the table with all of the yummy stuff was so perfect!
One of the friends who planned the shower is a graphic designer, so she custom designed the invitations with a bee theme, in honor of my being a Weddingbee blogger and now a Hellobee blogger! The bakery was able to perfectly replicate elements of the design onto the cake.
Love this!
Let's just say that the Koo household has been on a bit of a sugar high lately because on top of that delicious cake, there were also cupcakes. Yep, you guessed it: the guests ate the cupcakes and we were left with an entire cake! Delicious but I'm sure I've been just packing on the pounds over the last week!
And, of course the cupcakes each had an extra "bee" touch!
Yummy nibbles were set out for guests...
...including these gorgeous rainbow fruit kabobs.
Guest favors were freshly popped popcorn and M&M's (that matched the color scheme, of course!), all drizzled with white chocolate. Absolutely delicious.
A "wish tree" was set up for guests to leave wishes for Baby K.
Now we have all of these fabulous wishes to incorporate in Baby K's baby book!
At the very end, we opened gifts! Because it was an "open house" style where friends could come and go over the course of 3 hours, there were people who had already left when we opened gifts. And I think this worked out just fine! Otherwise, we would have had to open gifts right as guests arrived, as some were there early and some later on.
(Note that our pup Charlie thinks everything is for him!)
We were so lucky to have so many fabulous friends and family who have shown their support and excitement for Baby K's arrival!
There were a few things we learned from having showers so late in the pregnancy (34 weeks and 36 weeks):
Thanks to everyone who attended and made Baby K feel very, very loved!
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