Baby Clara's Nursery

Setting up Clara's nursery was probably one of the more difficult tasks we had to accomplish in preparation for her arrival.  I attribute this to my inability to pull the trigger on purchases.  I looked at rugs at Target for probably 2 months before I bought a rug to put in front of our door.  I have to take my mom with me to get me to actually buy the things that I need.  On the bright side, I don't have an impulse buying problem! Anyway, once I finally made a decision on the crib things started to come together.  I shopped around and ultimately decided that I wanted a gray crib and I wanted Clara's nursery theme to be hot air balloons, as I said in my post about prepping for baby, this theme as really hard to find things for.   I found a crib on wayfair.com which was honestly really convenient.  On Wayfair, all the big stuff ships free.  I have HGTV to thank for that information.   The next challenge was the dresser.  I had an extremely hard time with this.  I had something specific in mind, and I just wasn't finding it, or I was and it was at Pottery Barn for $699.98.  No thanks.  I was mostly shopping second hand for these.  Lucky for me, my mom was also shopping second hand for them.   She found one that someone had locally for $100 so I decided to go for it.  I didn't like the color and I wanted it to match the rest of the nursery, so it ended up my first furniture transformation project as well. 

I used paint designed for furniture re-finishing and contact paper from the one-spot at target.  I also replaced all the drawer knobs and I left off the cupboard door to make life easier.  It was a challenge, but I really enjoyed turning it into something I really liked.  The hardest part was definitely putting that contact paper in the clear plastic windows. It probably took loner than the whole dresser.  

I was also lucky enough to find matching cloth drawers and a laundry basket. The cloth drawers are filled with diapers and there's an unreal wipes supply on those shelves.  I also have diaper genie refills and the first aid kit.  I had the square shelves in my living room, but when Corey moved in, we moved some things around and put the square shelf in the babies room. On the shelf is a lambs and ivy lamp (on sale! It cost me $5 at Babies 'R' Us) and we also used the favors from the shower to decorate.

In the corner there is a cloth shelf filled with blankets, swaddles, burp cloths and other odds and ends that needed a place in the nursery. We were also lucky enough to find the cute hot air balloon crib set at Target along with the mobile. 

The chair was a pipe dream that I put on my registry NEVER expecting someone would actually get it for me.  Well Corey's parents surprised me and got it as our shower gift.  I cried when I found out I was so excited.  The cart is an IKEA purchase.  it has about 100 burp cloths and bibs in it. 
The adorable pictures on the wall were a gift from my friend in my unit.  She has a friend who does water colors, so she had her paint those custom prints.  I'm completely in love with them.  
While I was in the hospital with the baby, my sister and cousin went to my house and made sure that everything was organized as best as possible, cleaned my house and put diapers and wipes in every room but the kitchen. Setting up the nursery was probably one of the hardest parts of preparing for baby, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.