Tour: Our Baby Boy's Nursery Before + After
This is a very exciting post to write, especially since today begins week 40 of my pregnancy (I'm due any day now!). In fact, this post is right up there one that I wrote last summer: My Biggest News Yet. I honestly cannot wait to show you our baby boy's finished nursery and a few shots of pregnant me.
Other than a custom made roman shade, this room is all set. My husband and I finished it a few weeks ago but needed to get everything up on the walls - so we did that part last week. I wanted so badly to finish the room before our baby boy arrives so to have met that goal, amidst moving into a new home, made me unbelievably happy. Like it's the first thing I accomplished as his mom. He won't be sleeping in the room for the first 4 months but in a bassinet near our bed, but at least when I feed and change him, and when we play and have other babies over to play with him (like his niece who was born last January), we'll all have a cheerful space to enjoy as a family and it's not a full-on construction site so I really hustled to put our little guy first and to get this room finished along with our bedroom so the back of the house where we all will sleep and enjoy those first moments after birth will be chaos-free and baby/midwife-friendly.
I need to first shout out someone extremely special to me for making all of this come true because I never would have been able to pull this room together on my own. My husband! He has been amazing - helping to get everything prepped and he even styled some of the baby's room and picked out lots of the art (he made the star wars art using a shadow box frame and vintage characters, bought the art showing the moon against the black sky at an indie fair last month and he framed a favorite vintage German plane illustration to the left of the window). He also gave me the idea to washi tape some of the prints on our little gallery wall to make it more casual and creative and so it can be versatile for when our son gets older, we can swap out images and there aren't a thousand holes in the wall. He also bought and added little things dotted about here and there, including a few bits from his own boyhood, which made decorating the room so much more personal and loving for us both. I feel so glad that he willingly jumped in and wanted to be part of it all. I didn't even have to ask or beg or bribe him! He put all of the furniture together and in place too - which was an enormous help. I owe so much to my husband for making this baby room a cozy haven. Now I can go into labor and delivery with a big smile on my face because everything is finished and I no longer feel like my house looks like a hurricane hit it. Everything is peaceful and boxes are nearly unpacked in every room - I feel very zen. To top it off, he photographed the room and took a bunch of pregnancy photos of me, most of those we'll keep private and for family, but some are included below. I can't stop bragging, seriously, thank you Thorsten!
BEFORE: Okay so here is where we started (below). This was taken in November when we got the keys to our new place (we rent but received full written permission to remodel as long as the owner approved). At this time, the walls were a mess - covered with old, stained raufasertapete (wood chip wallpaper with millions of lumpy bumps), dirty trim in off-white and a very old vinyl linoleum fake wood floor that was not only peeling up in places and scratched to death, but was almost a glossy orange and was super shiny so you could see every flaw. It was also installed on floors that were never evened out so it felt a little like you'd had too much wine when you walked in.
Once I saw what I was up against, I started to cry. Then I started to doubt myself. Then I started to doubt that things would get done in time. Then I cried again. Then I started to brainstorm. I'm very visual so I got started with a mood board first, you can see it below. This part of the process chilled me the hell out because honestly, I wasn't feeling very zen when I looked at our new place and realized that every single room needed work.
This mood board (above) inspired the room, as detailed in this post: Decorating Our Baby's Room: Part One. In that post, I've included the 12 steps that I took to pull to the room together in case you need some help. You can click on the mood board to enlarge it if you want to examine the details.
DURING: Here is a photo showing our progress. The raufasertapete/wood chip paper was stripped, the walls were smoothed and primed, glattvlies was expertly applied (we hired out for this work!) and all seams removed, then two coats of Farrow & Ball's "Cabbage White" were applied. Walls here are very expensive to renovate, each room (for us at least) cost around 800 Euros for this process. If we wanted to have the walls completely smoothed out (drywall process like in the states), it would have been several hundred more and could potentially start to crack since the walls are over 110 years old in this house. Glattvlies was the perfect solution. The trim, door and ceilings were painted crisp white. I had Ferm Living's "Kite" wallpaper installed only around the window for a bit of pattern and contrast. You'll see that in a minute...
After all of the paint and wallpaper was complete by a local painter, our carpenter came to install our new oak plank (eco!) floors from Weitzer Parkett. I choose them but thankfully the lady who owns this house paid for the flooring and installation for the back of the house where eco-oak flooring was both needed and installed (our bedroom, baby's room, hallway, eating nook, guest bedroom), this was for around 780 square feet of flooring, including sound proofing and leveling them out. I selected the flooring out of around 30 different samples and I love it - it's gorgeous. The best thing about wood, outside of how natural it looks, is that it's so much warmer and lasts ages longer than laminate. Laminate is a huge trend in Germany - it seems all apartments have it and though it's certainly not horrible, real wood is the better and more affordable flooring long term. We've had extremely cold weather over the past week and the floors are always warm and our heat is barely on because of the flooring.
After the flooring was installed in the back of the house, it was time to clean the room, unpack the new furniture and put it all together (a huge thanks to my husband Thorsten and his friend Alexander for their hard work putting everything together on Christmas Day for me! :) Here's the first piece of furniture, the eco-friendly Oeuf Sparrow Crib in White, that they placed in the room. This was the starting point for me to begin decorating. This was my dream piece for the room, so it had to go in place first. In fact, I always place the most important/focal piece in a room FIRST and build around it. Do you do that too?
AFTER: Next came everything else! Here is how the rooms looks AFTER. I will link the major brands below but if I miss anything, just ask me in the comments section and I'll provide brands and links if I can recall them all! Some things I repurposed from other rooms in our home (like the black Eames rocker), the pendant (which was formerly in the guest bedroom) and the wooden task lamp (this was in my office).
More links to explore that relate to this room:
* Nursery images that inspired me that I wrote about are here.
* My Pinterest mood board, which was kept "private" until today. Pinterest is a great place to create a private board and to pin your inspirations while you're working on a project that you don't want to share with the whole world. You could once add only 3 private boards, but now you can add 6 - yeah!
* A progress update on the room renovation was blogged about: Baby Boy's Room - Progress
* Essential baby things that you see in this room above: Baby Essentials For The First Year
* Having a baby? My top tips on how to decorate a nursery: How To Decorate a Baby's Room
SOURCE LIST:
Paint: Farrow & Ball "Cabbage White" which changes with the light - it's usually pale mint green but can change to a gray or even blue depending on the time of the day. It's wonderful!
Crib: Oeuf "Sparrow" Crib in White
Bookcase: Ouef Mini Library in White/Baltic Birch
Dresser with changing table top: Oliver Furniture "Nursery Dresser" in White
Wooden Closet: Car Moebel
Felt Gum Ball Rug: Olli Ella (custom ordered in colors that I wanted)
Flokati Rug: Easy Carpet (on ebay.de)
Nursing Chair: Olli Ella (custom ordered with a natural base which is not typically available and in dove gray/cream)
Eames Rocker: I brought this in from our living room; you can get them at DWR or just google them.
Face Storage Boxes, wall boxes above dresser, bear quilt & wallpaper: Ferm Living
School chart above crib: Vintage, I bought this at a local flea market
House-shaped handmade raffia storage box: RICE "airport"
Pendant: White paper, unknown. When I remember, I'll let you know!
So, what do you think? I am soooo happy with this room. I can't wait to get the roman shade in and hang it - then the room will be complete. My heart is so happy about the room and most of all, our baby boy whom we are waiting for now... We cannot wait to meet him! While Thorsten was taking some pregnancy photos of me today (a few are included above), I started crying tears of just the most overwhelming happiness. This is truly one of the BEST times of my life you guys. I mean it. We have been married for nearly 13 years (in July) and so we're both so excited about this life change and to walk into that hospital a couple, and as one of my reader's told me, walk out of that hospital a family. Thank you so much for sharing this special part of my life with me, it means so much to be able to put all of this out there so publicly to some of the most dear people - all of you have been so kind to me during the past 9 months with your comments and emails (and gifts in the mail)... Really, I couldn't feel more love. Thank you (hug).
xo,
Holly
(Photos: Thorsten Becker)
This post was sponsored by Oeuf, Car Moebel, Farrow & Ball and Oliver Furniture. Products shown from these companies were donated to this project as gifts. I'm so grateful and honored to have been able to work with these four generous and wonderful companies. Thank you!