WARNING: PIC HEAVY!Just put the finishing touches on our son's nursery and wanted to share the completed project with you. When my daughter was born six years ago we went all out and decorated her room in a Turtles & Ducks theme. We painted, we made murals on the walls, we hung a wallpaper border and peppered the room with art and ducky and turtle knick knacks. It was soooooooooooo cute. One problem. My daughter outgrew that decor within a year or two. By the time she was 3 she had opinions and turtles and duckies were not what she wanted and oh my goodness what a pain to redo that entire room. Luckily we moved houses so that solved that problem
Therefore I had one major criteria in mind when designing my son's nursery. I was NOT repainting the room again. Any decorating we added had to fit the theme we chose but also be easily swapped for something else. This is what we came up with.
1. First I painted large squares in primary colors halfway up the wall. It's a decent size room but I didn't want to make it feel small by overloading the walls with color so leaving plain blocks of color between the bright colors was a good compromise and kept the walls from feeling too busy.
2. I created a border using removable adhesive wall vinyl. This stuff is brilliant. It's like a big sticker for the wall and easily peels off and goes on.
3. I bought some Seuss themed wall stickers and put those inside the colored blocks on the wall. They can be easily removed and switched for a different theme later.
4. I created a "mural" for the wall using more craft vinyl by drawing the One Fish, Two Fish figures, painting them and cutting them out. Now the wall LOOKS like I spent a lot of time painting a mural on it, but I can peel that stuff right off whenever I want.
5. Rather than invest in an expensive window treatment that was theme specific, I bought a red valance that reminds me of a circus pennant. To fill the half circle window above that I just cut out some mat board and painted the Circus McGurkus whale on it. It's cheap, cute and a fun keepsake for later.
6. I repainted a hideous wood dresser white and then painted each of the drawers a different color. It fits the theme color-wise but will work well with other themes later. Same thing for the wall shelf I hung - I used stars in primary colors to decorate the pegs.
Ready for some pics? Okay a LOT of pics. I'm a bit proud of the room
The finished nursery:
View from the doorway
A before pic
Ick! Boring white walls and hideous dresser of doom.
Changing area & crib
Left wall & window area
On top of the dresser
The Lorax stuffie & Truffula tree with Oncler knitting a thneed were created for me by
Thanate as part of a swap here on Craftster, as was the Embroidered Horton picture which was created by
Troublet.
Refinished wall shelf
"Wall Mural" detail - hard to believe that's just adhesive vinyl, black sharpie & a bit of white paint.
Wall art detail
The cute pictures were made for me as part of a craft trade from the March birthday swap here on Craftster by
Kjbaloo. I re-matted the images with wobbly frames cut from mat board. The window hugger images were purchased from a classroom supply shop and really inexpensive.
Window area - the half circle window is covered with some spare mat board cut to fit and then painted with the Circus McGurkus whale. The "balloons" are plastic and bought at a craft store. I wish I'd bought one more but they are impossible to find now. I love the way they look as if they're holding the window valance up. They were hung with fishing wire so they look like they hang in the air.
Left wall detail - the giant banner is from a classroom supply store and was really inexpensive. The alphabet images came from an activity book I bought on clearance at Borders. The dresser was repainted (waiting on the new drawer pulls to arrive still).
Closet area - more window huggers from the classroom supply store, a cute wall clock I found online, puppy dog hamper that was too cute to resist & a Cat in the Hat growth chart.
Baby's name letters - I painted these wooden letters Cat in the Hat style and hung them crooked for a bit of quirkiness
Seuss mobile - I bought a regular baby mobile and then switched out the animals that normally hang on it for Seuss inspired ones. The Seuss stuffies were created for me as part of a craft swap here on Craftster by
Lanikins.
And that's the finished room, hope you like it! I could not have made that room without some awesome swaps and friends helping out. So in a lot of ways the baby room is a classic example of Craftster enabling. This place is so dangerous for me because there are sooooo many cool projects to look at it and be inspired by!
