Friday 17 January 2014

How to design a perfect nursery!!

Hello. I know I've been gone a while but I'm in the last few days of my pregnancy and I'm pretty uncomfortable. I thought you might like one last post so I can share my favourite room in the house - the baby's nursery!

First of all, I had to pick a colour scheme.

My choices were dictated by the green carpet that was already in the room so I kinda had to work around that! That meant that blue was out of the question so I took inspiration from one of the Mamas and Papas ranges and went for spring green, yellow, red and orange.



The cot mobile was one of the first things we bought (as it was in the sale!!) and then we found the cot bedding (also in the sale ) that seemed to match. I won't put in links to every item as, well, everything was in the sale and probably is no longer available! What can I say? I love a bargain!

Then I upcycled furniture I already had.

We had a pine storage chest which is now being used as a toy box (and happens to be the right height to double up as a changing table) and a pine chest of drawers which I painted to match the colour scheme!


I bought some cheap tester pots in the right colours and had some white paint left over from doing the walls.Then I simply painted each drawer in a different colour. The wall stickers were a bargain buy from Kiddicare in one of their many sales and will give the baby something to look at whilst I change him!



Wall stickers and free printable wall art really brightened up the room and are a good option if you rent a home like we do. Luckily, my landlord is super nice and doesn't have an issue with us decorating so 2 of the walls in the room are "pedal pusher" yellow!



We got the cot from Ikea and managed to get £10 off by timing it right and having an 'Ikea family card.' The mattress was from a website called Precious Little Ones who often have good prices on bedding and will give 5% off if you sign up for their emails.

Calming lighting is a must in a nursery as you don't want to turn on super bright lights in the middle of the night! The yellow, cloud pendant was from Ikea.


(The floating shelf in the background was another good buy from Ikea.)

I'm a big fan of anything retro so the other light in the room is an orange globe that I bought years ago when our local Habitat closed down. It sits on 2 vintage G Plan tables that I got for free from outside our local charity shop!


I wanted his room to be cosy so he has a big pile of blankets at the ready - some of which have been handmade by me, my mum and my friend.Handmade is just better!


I got his moses basket from Ebay - it's originally from Mothercare. He has 2 sleeping bags with beautiful, embroidered designs from Sainsburys - only £12 each which is a lot cheaper than the branded Grobags ones. A top tip is to wait for Sainsburys to do one of their '20% off' TU clothing weeks. Bargain!



The final purchase was a pair of blackout curtains which I bought online from Woolworths. I then bought some pom pom trim (about 4 metres) from Hobby Craft which I used as tie backs! It's all in the details.....


And finally, we bought some funky toys in matching colours.


The rattles were bought in the Kiddicare sale, Ewan the sheep is a best selling, musical and light up toy, and the dinosaur and teddy bear were hand crocheted by me! They were definitely a labour of love, I can tell you!

Well, I hope you like it! As I said, it's my favourite room in the house and I can't wait for my little baby to come out so he can give his seal of approval!

If you want any links to anything you see (from furniture to printable art to crochet patterns) then just leave me a comment and I'll do my best to reply.

Wish me luck!!!