Claire's Nursery

I've been meaning to do a post on Claire's nursery for a while now, but it never felt quite right before. The reason for this is that nurseries are a funny room. If you are waiting for them to one day be "done" then you are waiting for a day that will never come. Claire's nursery is constantly changing and evolving as her needs change, and every three months the room feels like a whole new place as things she no longer uses or fits into go into the garage and a new round of clothes and toys take up residence.

On top of all of this, the dirty little secret is that she hasn't even really used the room until recently. Until she was six months it was only the place where she got diaper changes. I know a lot of mom's have diaper changing stations at several places around the house, but diapers only get changed in one place around here. Between pets and husband my house has enough poop in it without adding Baby's into the mix. Around six or seven months Claire started sleeping in her room full time, but it wasn't until the last month that she has really started playing in her room. She loves to roam around from toys, to bookshelves, to dresser drawers, discovering all their secrets. I love that she has a space where she can't really hurt herself besides a red spot or two when she takes a tumble. Not that I leave her alone in there for any length of time, but she is very content to play with her things while I get dressed or put away her clothes.

The original theme of the nursery was suppose to be fairy tales. I always wanted it to be subtle, but I think I went too subtle and only I get most of the references I threw in there. I also hadn't finished the nursery before Claire arrived, and after she got here putting the final touches on her room seemed  a low priority. Still, I like how the space turned out as it is an inviting place for her to play, and that's really the point.

I reused A LOT of items for Claire's nursery. I did this both for economical reasons and because I love that the room has a sense of family history to it. The embroidered birds were a gift made by my paternal grandmother when I was a little girl myself. The unicorn was made for me by my mother when I was still wee. The dried flower bunch are from the trees that my sister made for my wedding. The witch that hangs above the crib was a souvenir from my trip to Prague (and no I don't think its creepy). The new decorations above her crib include a wooden cross the church gave us when she was baptised, a beautiful handmade mobile a friend made and a mirror from ikea (mirror mirror on the wall).

The tree is probably my favorite part of the room, probably because it turned out even better than I had envisioned it. If I had to do over, I probably would have left off the beanstalk. Not that I don't like how it turned out, I just had a bigger vision that it would have fit into when I started and now it's a bit out of place. Claire loves playing with her golden goose eggs though! Eventually she'll figure out that the trunk is full of stuffed toys too! I picked the wicker toy trunk up from Michael's because I was looking for something that was light weight enough that there would be no smashed fingers in the lid. Its not the sturdiest thing in the world, but until she starts trying to jump on it it'll work just fine.

It's hard to see in the photo's, but there are golden embroidery floss braids going down the curtains (Rapunzel Rapunzel, let down your hair). Those were a great idea until I thought about wanting to wash the curtains...We only use half the closet for Baby's stuff, the other half houses Jeff and my dressy clothes.

This dresser was my mom's dresser when I was a little girl, and then mine once I moved out on my own. To save space in Claire's little room it doubles as a changing station. Her cloth diapers are stored in the dresser since they take up a lot of room, and on top we keep her disposables for night time and the cloth diaper covers. To the right of her dresser is her "hamper" aka and ikea trash can. I decided to go with a plastic trash can because I thought it was silly that kids hampers are often made out of fabric. Do you know how many unpleasant liquids end up on baby clothes? I wanted something I could disinfect every once in a while. When she gets a little older she can graduate up to a big girl cloth hamper. Up on the window sill are sea shells from our honeymoon and sea glass we collected on a trip to Fort Bragg. Ariel collects human stuff, humans collect mermaid stuff.

This corner used to have a rocking chair in it, but that got moved out into the living room when we realized it was a lot more fun to feed and rock Claire to sleep with the TV on. Yeah, we're terrible. I would like to get an over sized chair to go in this corner for when Claire gets older and we read books together. For now we just keep an extra chair there which keeps her diaper bag a little out of reach. Actually, I think that chair belongs to Auntie Helen and Uncle Josh. Shhh.



My mom and I built this bookshelf when I was quiet pregnant with Claire. It is painted with the same two colors that the leaves of the tree are painted. We made it as big as we could for the space (and were a little concerned when we put it all together that we had gone overboard), but it really fits the room perfectly. The first shelf also happens to be just the right height for Claire to pull herself up and pick out a story.

There are still plenty of things I would tweak here and there, and I'm sure I'll have the opportunity to as she grows up and into her room. I love how much I was able to re purpose for the space, and really ended up spending very little to put her nursery together. In addition to the obvious money savings this brought, I love being able to see some of the items that filled my childhood (ok lets be honest, early adulthood as well) having a chance at a second life. Actually, not a single one of the stuffies or puppets on her bookshelf was bought for her. Lets just say I had a bit of a collection that is now justified by having a baby. Lets have three cheers for being a pack rat who never gets rid of once treasured items!!