Bob's Bloggers
A community of bloggers who live and die to DIY
decor, kids
From Gross to Great: A Nursery Room Makeover
By Picardy Project on Jul 03, 2013
Zoe's room is officially done, yay! It didn't really take a lot to get it done because we left the wall color and one large piece of furniture. The crib, chair and small bookcase were all simple to put together/get recovered. Really what took the most time was all of the personalized artwork we made her. Anyway, enough talking, let's get to it.
When we first moved in, this is what her room looked like:
Yup, disgusting.
We turned it into my office and it looked like this!
And when we found out little Zoe was coming along, we decided this space would work best for her room, and now it looks like this:
It's not a crazy transformation, but I love it. It's bright, colorful, cheerful and perfectly suited for Zoe. It's got good storage, is practical and I love the artwork I made her.
We left the larger shelving unit in the room from when it was my office (but we did cut it down a few inches so that it was narrow enough to fit between the crib and wall).
This shelving unit is for our not-as-frequently used items. Obviously, we're not really onto books yet, though we have read a couple to her. The toys have yet to be utilized as well seeing as she's only starting to figure out her hands even exist. In the bins are various swaddling tools, clothes she can't fit into yet and that blue one is full of 22 bibs. And no, I'm not exaggerating, we have 22 bibs.
Her crib was a gift from Chris' mom and I love it. We got one that converts to a toddler bed and a twin bed so we can make sure it's used for a loooong time. And the painting I made above her crib still makes me giggle!
And just for reference, that wall used to look like this:
The other side of the room looked like this when we moved in:
When it was my office it looked like this:
And now it looks like this!
That chair is SUPER comfy and I'm finally getting to the point that I can actually nurse Zoe while sitting in it, so that's really nice. This shelving unit we purchased holds wipes, diapers, burp cloths, clothes and socks/leg warmers/mittens/hats. The changing pad was a hand me down from neighbors (thanks Anne and Ed!). And the artwork and mobile are of course all very special.
My sister-in-law made the "Zoe" letters on the far right. I love how bright and cheerful all the colors are. Of course the word art of "Sillybagoody" and "Kissyface" are quick, cheap pieces of art I made that were nicknames of mine and Chris' when we were little (my mom called me sillybagoody and Chris' babysitter called him kissyface). The "Battle of the Bay" poster was my brother's from when we were little that I stole when we cleared out a storage unit recently :) . I pined for that poster for YEARS and I'm so glad I found it.
The last 3 prints are new to the mix. The first is the birth print I made for Zoe.
I love doing paper cuts so I made a paper cut print after she was born of all her birth info. The tree is a symbolic oak tree image that is used in a lot of Oakland artwork. The tree alone took FOREVER to cut out and get right, but I think it looks pretty damn awesome.
The last two prints are from family: one of a poem my cousin loves and she made into a print and the other is from a book of my mom's.
The page from my mom's book is super meaningful.
My mom wrote a book called "Day Care ABC" when I was very little
Every page was a letter of the alphabet and had an alliteration (maybe why I like them so much...) Many of the "characters" were members of our family. A was "Adam asks for applesauce, (Adam is my brother), B was "Brenda brushes her hair," (Brenda is my aunt), M was "Meryl munches macaroni." And then with every alliteration on each page was an image of the person acting out their sentence with many objects in the image starting with that letter.
You could read the book to your child and they could identify all the objects that started with that letter. Pretty awesome, right?
Anyway, one day I was at breakfast with my mom and she just blurted out, "Z is Zoe." And I thought, "What the fuck is she talking about?" And she said she just realized that in her book the name she used for Z was Zoe, and she spelled it the way Chris and I were going to spell it (some spell it Zoey). Naturally, we thought it would be awesome to have that page up on the wall in her room with a little love note from my momma :)
And of course, the mobile we made (the other of which hangs over her crib).
It's personal and handmade. And Zoe loves to stare at it when her diaper is getting changed, so it's quite a success :)
The room didn't cost much either. The largest expense was the chair and getting it recovered, which clocked in at $490. Other than that, we spent $200. The curtain was $40 (I designed the fabric pattern), the smaller cubby bookcase was $40, the felt I purchased for the mobile was $5, I bought 1 frame that was $20, we spent $50 on storage baskets, $15 on the bright green hamper, $20 on her diaper pale and $10 on the glitter paper for her birth print. All the other items in the room were gifts, we already had on hand, or we made with materials we already owned. The room rings in for a grand total of $690.
For the time being Zoe sleeps in our room, but we're in there all the time changing her and I'm starting to feed more regularly as well. It's a room I love to be in and I hope she does too.
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