It’s not that big of a reveal, since I’ve already unveiled most of the changes and projects in here. But maybe you can just pretend to be surprised.

Abe’s original nursery was in a sectioned off part of our bedroom. It looked like this:

To celebrate Abe becoming a toddler, we moved him down the hall to his own room, our former guest room. We won’t be doing a complete redesign for a couple of years…until Abe’s ready to move out of his crib and old enough to maybe offer some preschool level input about how he wants his room decorated. But we did make some modifications to make his new room more toddlerish.

I loved, loved, LOVED Abe’s original nursery, but I’m really excited about this new room, too. I’ve always liked kid rooms that have sort of a friendly, cluttered, lived in look to them. The original nursery was pretty sparse compared to the book and toy filled room we have going on now. It looks like a real one year old hangs out in there making a big mess. And indeed he does.

 

Okay, now for the photo spew. I couldn’t really stop myself.

 

 

Here’s the view looking in the door. Before we started moving stuff in, I spent a lot of time fretting about how we’d arrange all the furniture. But it turned out there really weren’t a lot of options (at least once we put in the long toy shelf and the book ledges), so we just put everything where we could fit it.

That dresser was Dave’s dad’s when he was a kid, then Dave’s, then all of our other kids. We painted it for Abe and added the whale pulls from D. Lawless Hardware. Read more about the DIY vintage Fisher Price art here. The paint color in here is Benjamin Moore’s Newburg Green, same as in our bedroom/his old nursery.

 

Here’s his little reading corner. The shelves are Ikea Ribba ledges. The rocker and pillow are from Ikea. The footstool is from Goodwill, but someone told me in a comment that they think it’s from Target originally. Brass lamp from Urban Outfitters, faux bois basket from TJ Maxx.

 

Wider view of that wall (yeah; I told you I took a lot of pictures). Martha the big wooden whale is back over the crib. I’m thinking of putting something else on the wall over the rocking chair, but I don’t know what yet.

 

The diving mask is from Hobby Lobby. The little turtle from the thrift store is a new addition for the new nursery.

 

Here’s his little (thrifted) rocking chair and whale step stool, the no sew curtains I made him, and his badger-in-a-jacket from Ikea. For some reason, Abe really objects to stuffed animals wearing clothes, and he rips the jacket off the badger at every opportunity.

 

 

Thanks to all the other places we have to keep books now, you can actually see the squid fabric again now! This is a vintage bookcase we’ve had for years that we painted and added squid fabric from Spoonflower to the back of.

The lamp and gold sea urchin are from Target, and the prints are from Studio Tuesday on Etsy.

 

It’s hard to show you the closet because there’s no light in there, but here’s the shelf on one side where we’re keeping his shoes and overflow books. Eventually I’d like to do something really fun in his closet, but for now I’m loving having the extra storage (I’ve got his diaper pail and dirty laundry basket in there now).

 

Wide view of this side of the room. His gallery wall is all the same pictures as before; I’d like to keep adding to it and have it kind of wrap around the corner eventually. We made him that toy shelf, and it’s working so well. He can see all his toys, it holds a ton of stuff without looking too crowded, and it’s really fast and easy to clean up in the evenings.

 

Oh, here’s the light we wound up with (there used to be a ceiling fan in here):

 

 

At $45, it was a good bit cheaper than a lot of the ones we were looking at. I picked it up at the store, so I just noticed now when I went to find the link online that it has universally terrible reviews. Umm. The things people say about it are true: it was very hard to install (it took 4 trips to the Home Depot to finally get it all right) and the light is a lot yellower than I expected. It’s not too dim for our purposes, since it’s a small room and we also have a couple of lamps in there. Now that it’s up and I’m used to the yellow, I’m happy enough with it, though.

Phew! There you go! I’d still like to get the aforementioned something or other in the reading corner, and I cannot WAIT to get hardwoods down in here (and the whole upstairs) and get a nice rug instead of that cruddy carpet (but I’ll have to wait for some undetermined amount of time). But aside from that, I’m really happy with this space and happy to have another room saved from yellow paint and neglect.

Linking with:

Inspire Me Please

Tatertots and Jello

Creating with the Stars at East Coast Creative