Nursery Design- The Crib

This post will be our first in a series about designing our nursery :)

We were pretty thrilled to be able to start this process, as its taken us a very long time to get here.

Designing the nursery was actually something that we started a very long time ago. We've had countless images, inspiration, colours and ideas set aside for years, so this has definitely been a room that has been well thought-out!

There has been one nursery in particular that has hugely inspired us and we have built many of our ideas upon that. Having a great deal of time to think about how we wanted to design the nursery also gave us a lot of time to search for deals and source items for the lowest price we could find. Trust me, this has not always been easy! We are looking forward to sharing those deals with you, and hopefully helping out some of you who are planning on designing your own nursery soon :)

The item we wanted to start with first was the crib. The crib not only plays a large functional role in the nursery, but is also one of the major focal pieces in the room.

We had definite ideas of what we wanted the crib to look like, depending on the gender of the baby. Now I know many people would say, "why did the gender affect your crib choice?", but honestly Ian and I could not agree on the same crib for a girl or boy, so our compromise was to pick a specific crib for each gender. We could both agree on a more modern look for a boy and a more traditional look for a girl, so that helped to narrow it down for us. So, since we're having a boy, the modern crib it is! (annnd, if we ever do have a girl, we'll probably swap out this crib for a more traditional style).

Finding the right modern crib (that fit our budget) was a bit of a challenge!

Our first choice was the Moda Crib from Room & Board. Beautiful lines, storage below the crib and we loved the design, but its way out of our budget at $1099.00.

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This crib, the Nurseryworks Loom Crib, also had a very modern look that we liked, but the high price ($699.00) and inability to ship without crazy shipping charges made it unaffordable:

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We also loved the look of the Oeuf  Classic Crib, as well as so many other things about it (eco friendly, etc), but it did not exactly fit our budget at $970.00

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Then we came across the Babyletto Madison crib:

 

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We thought it looked very similar to the Oeuf crib, and for less than half the cost at $329.00. The only thing was, how would we ship it to Canada? This became a reoccurring problem for us, and often when we did find a crib that we liked, the additional cost of the shipping put the crib out of budget. We discovered that they sold this crib at Target.com for $299.00, however they do not carry the crib in store and they do not ship to Canada.

 

Then we came across this beauty at Walmart.com, the Baby Mod Olivia crib, priced at $299.00:

 

 

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We looked into shipping and fortunately Walmart.com ships from store-to-store for free! The reviews online of the crib looked great, and we couldn't beat the price.

 

Some of our concerns were that the crib had to have non-collapsable sides, no VOC's, that it was made of hardwoods, etc. This crib met all of those standards for us.

 

That evening we ordered the crib online and had it shipped to a Walmart store close to the border for us. We planned a weekend trip to the USA and timed the order so that the crib would arrive just before we got to the states. The crib arrived very quickly and Walmart.com did an amazing job at keeping us updated with tracking information. As a backup plan we chose to order 2 cribs, just in case one arrived damaged and we had to return it. The crib arrived in great condition but we have yet to unpack and assemble it (more on that to come in our next update).

 

The more we searched online for this crib, the more information we found along with tons of images of other nursery's using the same crib:

 

We love this feature of the Baby Mod Crib, from Project Nursery:

 

 

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Melissa and Bobby of "The Barrick Times" wrote about their experience with the crib here:

 

 

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Erin over at "Design Crisis" shares her experience with the crib here:

 

 

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And we loved this feature of Dave and Carrie's use of the crib on Young House Love:

 

 

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and lastly, this nursery that I LOVE, designed for baby Aimee from Hellobee:

 

 

 

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HGTV.ca wrote an excellent post on this exact crib as well, which you can read about here.

 

So between the great reviews, the amount of times we came across this crib online, and the great information on the crib itself, it seemed like a no-brainer.

 

Other cribs that ended up on our list (but didn't make the final cut), included:

 

The Babyletto Hudson crib ($399.00):

 

 





The Babyletto Modo crib ($331.50)

 

 

 

So thus comes to an end, the hunt for a crib!  Once we have the crib set up, I'll write another post on our experience with that, but for now, I think we're really going to like it...and we hope baby does too :)

 

Melissa and Ian

 

 

Powder Room Makeover

First of all, we want to thank all of you for the lovely response we received to our last post. We truly, truly appreciate all of your support and can't wait to share so many of these projects we've been working on for the past while, with all of you. So thank you all, xo.

Something else we've been up to (along with all of the other projects going on) is to finally paint and renovate our main floor powder room.

The current state of this bathroom is not the greatest. I mean, it functions fine, but the toilet is old, the sink is starting to slightly rust and Im not even going to address the colours, since once you see it you'll know its not our style:

Plus we sold the toilet paper holder and towel bar on Kijiji over 2 years ago and haven't installed a replacement, so its not that convenient for our lovely guests that come over :)

It's definitely one of those rooms that we've been itching to make over since we moved into this house. Its another project we plan to finish before the baby arrives and since its such a small room, and we already have a few of the things we need, we figured we could fit it into the budget.

Ian challenged me to design the room on a budget of $1000.00 or less, and I'm determined to do it.

My inspiration for the power room is this room I found on Pinterest:

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We love the colours, the feel and it will go nicely with the hallway and the other colours in our home.

Although I'd love to do something with fancy tile and all kids of other things, its not in the budget and I need to find a way to make the room interesting without spending a lot. I think installing a chair rail will definitely help with that!

I created a quick inspiration board to lay out all of our ideas:

As you can see, we're still unsure of lighting options (I've posted 2 options), however most likely we will need to go with the long pendant since there isn't room on either side of the mirror for sconces...boo. We do have that long crystal light installed in our small upstairs bath though, and we love it, so it should do the trick.

There aren't really that many things we need for the space. We already have the new toilet, mirror and paint, so the vanity, lighting, fixtures and accessories are all we need.

For the paint we've chosen "Antique Sterling" by ICI/Duluxe paints (its just a bit darker than what we have in the hallway) so we know it will match well.

So on with another project...aiming to have this one done in the next few months, so we'll be updating you on the progress as we go :)

Melissa and Ian

p.s for those of you wondering about the stairs...they are still a work in progress! Hopefully I'll be able to update you all soon with a pic :)

An update... :)

The cat's out of the bag. We'll at least for those of you who know us personally. For those of you who don't know us outside of blogland...this may come as a surprise (although a few of you noticed a clue to this in our master bedroom reveal post) :)

Ian and I did not really plan on sharing this news on the blog for a few reasons...however after discussing it, we decided to spill the news. We're expecting, and we couldn't be more thrilled or thankful :)

The main reason why we chose to share this on the blog, is because one of the most exciting parts of preparing for the arrival of the baby has been designing the nursery :) We want to be able to share all of the projects that we've been doing over the last while, and that's kind of hard to do without letting you all know that we're expecting.

We will be sharing nursery design plans, idea boards, and projects with all of you, but we're going to keep it limited to that. For personal reasons, we are choosing not to share a lot of the details of the pregnancy and want to keep the blog focused on the design aspects. We hope you're all cool with that :)

So for now, I'll leave you with a few nursery photo's that have inspired us...oh and one more thing.

Its a boy :)

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We're very excited and have a lot of projects on the go...looking forward to sharing them all with you!

Which one is your favorite?!

 

Melissa and Ian

 

Master Bedroom Reveal

You've seen bits and pieces of our master bedroom through our nightstand and headboard posts, and we're finally ready to show you the full reveal!

 

So here it is, our long awaited master bedroom reveal! We chose to keep a light and bright colour palette, similar to the rest of the room's we've made over in our home so far and also keeping in line with our master ensuite.

 

The walls were painted a light grey blue and we stuck with a white, blue, green and grey colour palette. We actually painted the walls after getting some chairs for the bedroom and used the fabric as a jumping off point for colours. We then found the curtains at Ikea on clearance and liked how they grounded the space with a darker teal colour in the same colour family.  Our only mistake, was that this made it very hard to find a fabric for the headboard that incorporated all of these colours. We finally came across this fabric from Tonic Living:

 

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So that fabric, fortunately for us, had all of the colours in our room in it...and matched pretty perfectly, so it was a no brainer. We used it to upholster our headboard and create a few pillows with the left over fabric.  All we have left at this point is to hang the photos sitting on our nightstands, and maybe to put something above the headboard on the wall. I have a few ideas in mind, but we'll see what we end up with.

 

Before we show you the reveal, lets look back as to how this room looked when we first moved into this house:

 

 

Very red, very yellow and very much not our style. So we pretty much started over. The laminate floors were ripped out and replaced with dark bamboo, the walls were painted, window coverings replaced, light fixtures changed, all door hardware replaced...it was a complete overhaul.

 

So here it is, the master bedroom reveal!

  

You might remember our post on when we re-did this dresser, but if not you can refresh your memory here. The dresser is from Ikea and it was not originally white, so we painted it ourselves in Benjamin Moore "Simply White". All of the trim, doors and baseboards in our house have also been done in "Simply White".

 

We added in a rug from Costco, which we had planned to move to our family room, once the new floors are installed. However, Clover loves the rug and so do we, so if we replace it, the new one will need to be just as cozy! The curtains are from Ikea, and although they look quite blue in the photos, they are actually much more of a teal colour.

Our nightstands were made over with a fresh colour and new knobs. We blogged about that transformation here.

 

 

We get a great deal of light in this room (and the light colours certainly help, but I love how the room always feels light, bright and relaxing.

 

Our vanity chair was also made over in the same colour as our nightstands, you can read about that here, and we love how these pieces nicely fill up this corner of the room. Plus it's a great space for me to use when getting ready if the bathroom's occupied.

 

 

We chose 2 slipper chairs for the space by the window (both from HomeSense) and they became a starting point for the colour palette for this room.

 

 

 

Another few shots of the gorgeous natural light this room gets (and how BLUE they make the curtains appear!).

 

 

Overall, we absolutely love this space. The bedroom, ensuite and closet colours all work perfectly together and we definitely gravitate towards light bright colours. We feel relaxed and happy when coming into this room, and that's most important to us.

 

Many of the projects in this room were purchased second hand and we re-did them ourselves, as well as many of the major aspects:

- Painting the entire space

- Designing the space (as well as the master ensuite which you can read about here and closet which you can read about here)

- Installing the floors

- Painting the dresser

- Creating the headboard

- Painting the vanity table

- Painting and upholstering the vanity chair

- Painting the small table between the side chairs

- Hemming the curtains

 

We truly feel our hardwork has paid off and the change is exactly what we were hoping for:

 

We only have a few things left to do: hang the photos beside the bed, finish up with what we want to do to the wall behind the bed and that's about it!

 

 

We've compiled a source list of everything in our master bedroom. If there is an item we have not listed and you would like to know where we got it please post a comment and we will reply!

 

Dresser- Ikea

Headboard- DIY Project

Headboard Fabric- Tonic Living

Nightstands- HomeSense

Vintage style Telephone- Sears

Picture Frames on Nightstands- Wal-Mart

Lights on Nightstands- HomeSense

Slipper Chairs- HomeSense

Side Table- Second Hand

Picture Frame on side table- Gift from Shannon at Burlap and Lace :)

Small Hydrangea Plant on side table and on nightstand- HomeSense

Vanity Table- Second Hand DIY Project

Vanity Chair- Second Hand DIY Project

Mirror above Vanity Table- Second Hand DIY Project

Plant on Vanity- HomeSense

Light on Vanity- HomeSense

Jewelry box- HomeSense

Bench- HomeSense

Tray on bench- HomeSense

Rug- Costco

Fireplace- Canadian Tire

Vase on Fireplace- HomeSense

Judy- HomeSense

Plant Pot- Ikea

Wooden Box- HomeSense

Throw- HomeSense

Pillows- HomeSense

Ceiling Fixture- HomeSense

Mirror above dresser- Sears

Lamp on Dresser- HomeSense

Vase and flower on Dresser- HomeSense

Love sign- gift from our friend Lauren at our wedding :)

Picture Frame on Dresser- Indigo

Curtains- Ikea (clearance)

Curtain Rods- Lowes

Knobs on dresser and nightstands- Home Depot

 

Paint Colours:

Walls: "Reflecting Pool"- ICI/Duluxe Paints

Trim/baseboards: "Simply White"- Benjamin Moore

Dresser and vanity table: "Simply White"- Benjamin Moore

Nightstands/Vanity Chair: "Polar Jade"- Benjamin Moore

 

 

We hope you all enjoy this space as much as we do! Now off to relax :)

 

Melissa and Ian

 

 

Dream Closet- Installation

Our closet system was definitely an excellent investment and fairly easy to install. In my previous closet post, I mentioned that we had chosen the Martha Stewart Closet System for our master bedroom walk in closet. The price was reasonable, but the best part for us was the option of inputting your own measurements into the online design board and allowing the closet to be somewhat custom designed to your liking.

We placed our order for the system and it took about 3 weeks to arrive. When we received the shipment, it came in about 25 boxes- each box contained specific pieces of a certain type, so the pieces were not grouped together, according to how they should be installed.

We chose to assemble the first section (the back wall) in a spare room, and then move the built section into the closet, so we had more space to work with.

The back section was fairly easy to install. The instructions are included and you can also print them from the Martha Stewart website if needed.

We designed the back wall to look like this when finished:

 

After a few hours, the first section had been assembled:

 

 

 

At this point, its just the basic frame, without drawers or shelves, but you get the idea. We then moved the frame into the closet.

 

The closet is designed so that the entire frame hangs from brackets that have been securely screwed into the wall. Once we secured the brackets on the wall, it was just a matter of lifting up the system and placing it onto the brackets. You can see here, how the system basically hangs from those metal brackets.

 

 

 

We then installed the drawers and shelves:

The shelves are adjustable and when designing the closet, we indicated how many shelves we wanted. You can choose more or less, depending on your preferences and can always change around the configuration once its installed.

The drawers can also be modified. We decided on 5 drawers for our system (one additional one that you cannot see in this photo, we added later), however the drawers can also be removed and shelves can be put in their place. The drawers came with metal knobs, but to tie them into the rest of the room (and because I think they're pretty!) I changed them to be the same crystal knobs on our dresser.

The drawers are one of the most costly parts of the system, so if you are trying to keep costs down, I would suggest limiting the amount of drawers you include.

We then put together the left side of the closet in the spare room, which we designed to look like this:

We installed the brackets, moved it into the closet and installed the hanging bars and shelves:

 

The left and right sides of the closet were designed to be mirror images of each other, so after installing the right side, it looked like this:

 

 

So after a few days work, and once our clothes were organized, folded and put back into the closet (my favorite part!) we ended up with the final product:

 

 

Its hard to get a picture of the full view since the closet isn't that large overall, but the system helps to create a perfectly organized closet for us and we are able to fit everything (plus have some extra space) in the closet.

 

To be honest, the closet still looks exactly like this. We don't seem to have any trouble keeping it organized and clean, since there really is space for everything and we think it looks great too.

 

The brackets were the one thing I worried about, but once your clothes are on the shelves, you aren't able to see them at all, so its really not a concern. The drawers slide and open nicely and we are overall very happy with it.

 

We did have a few set-backs and had to rig a few things up ourselves- such as adding a top to the system (which we did by simply buying some melamine pieces, cutting them to size and attaching them to the top of the system), but overall, it was fairly easy to install.

 

So there you have it, dream closet finished! We just designed and ordered the system for another bedroom in our house, so once we have that installed I'll blog about that and let you know if the system went as smoothly the second time around. This time, its not a walk in closet so I'll be able to give you the perspective of designing the system for a standard closet.

 

Have any of you installed this type of closet or something similar? How did it work out for you?

 

Melissa and Ian

 

**The opinions on this system are entirely our own. We were not paid or endorsed to promote the Martha Stewart Closet System.**