so i know i’ve been holding out on revealing the entire nursery.  and really, i don’t feel like it’s quite ready for its debut now either.  but we’ve finished up with most of the little things that were left to do, so i’m just going to show you where we are now.

but first let’s look  at how far we’ve come.  this is what the room looked like when we bought the house.

and here it is in the throes of prepubescent awkardness – like the decor version of headgear and a training bra

and finally how she looked right before we had to completely dismantle her

right after my parents left at the end of february, this is how the nursery looked.  very much like a nursery, but without a whole lot of pizazz.  as in, where’s all the orange i’d been talking about?  where was the fun artwork on the walls?  and for those with especially discerning eyes:  where the heck was the baby’s crib mattress?

but here’s what the nursery looks like now…

– we swapped out the rug. the backstory is i had fallen in love with a bright orange rug way back in the summer, but it cost a million dollars and wasn’t even big enough for the room.  although i searched and searched, i could never find another orange rug that met my standards.  so when we found the neutral, natural fiber rug at ikea for a really great price, we just went with it.  but it obviously didn’t have any punch to it.  enter this guy – a little bit smaller than the ikea rug, but for a great price (made even greater by the parentals going in halfsies with us) and with free shipping – so it was a no brainer.  softer, brighter, and just more fun.  i think it totally makes the room.

our desk turned changing table.  love how this turned out, and it has tons of storage.

– we hung stuff! we had always intended to decorate the walls, it was just a matter of getting the frames together and getting some fun artwork to put inside the frames.

it’s hard to see, but here’s the artwork hanging over the changing table. a swatch of fabric from our crib sheets, a letterpress card with a swatch of our crib skirt fabric as a backdrop, and then some homemade art i made in photoshop.  all with frames we already owned, so this whole wall was virtually free.  not bad, right?

our diaper station:  cloth dipes, cloth wipes, and some happy heinies spray.  diapering in general is going to be an adventure for ross and i, as neither of us have done a whole lot of diapering in our lives, so why not make it even more of an adventure by throwing the whole cloth element in?  at least they’re bright and colorful

the chair where i’ll probably be spending many many a long night:  nursing, rocking, rocking, nursing, trying not to fall asleep.  the pillow and the chair were gifts from momma tomko, the afghan handmade by a friend from my parents’ church, and the wicker ottoman a great place for extra storage and propping up the tired feet.

you can just make out the side table next to the chair – i’ve gotten as far as buying a lamp base, but still have to find (or make?) the perfect lamp shade.  thankfully, the room’s lights are on a dimmer, so i’ll be able to light the room enough to get around without killing myself in the middle of the night.

we went pretty simple with the artwork above the crib – mainly because of my fear that the more we hung, the more chances for something to fall on the baby.  this piece is actually a cloth napkin gifted to me by the mother-in-law and we just framed it in a frame we already had.  so again, free art.

– we ordered the crib mattress! yep, through some generous gift cards and baby donations we were able to pull the trigger on buying our splurgy (but definitely worth it) organic crib mattress.  which means we were also able to put on our bright orange striped crib sheet as well.

a nook for storage and some unfinished wall decor

the bumbo, books, and baby’s laundry hamper

i had to have some live greenery in the babe’s space – this moss came from ikea of all places and i love its frilly frizzy texture

so it’s still a work in progress, but it accomplished some of the biggest goals we had for the space:

– be gender neutral, but not your stereotypical pastel green and yellow

– stay away from a distinct “theme” like Disney, Noah’s ark, or whatever other nursery-in-a-bag themes there are out there

– be bright and fun but not cluttered and too childish

– and the bottom line…finished or not, it’ll be home to baby wilsie in a very short time – eek!!