Nursery Design- The Chair

After we decided on a crib, the next major purchase for the nursery was the chair. I had definite ideas in mind of what I wanted for a chair and Ian was pretty much open to anything...since he figures I'll be the one using it the most...which he's probably right about.

In any space we design, there is always going to be one splurge item and this time it was the chair. We decided that we were willing to save money on all of the other items in this space, but weren't willing to compromise on the chair. We wanted it to be comfortable, stylish, work for a boy or a girl (since down the road, who knows what the future holds) and also be the right size for the space.

Regardless of all of our criteria, I had a chair in mind that I've loved for a very long time:

Nurseryworks Empire Rocker

 

This rocker is EXACTLY what I was looking for and after some convincing Ian, he agreed to it. There were a few hesitations about this chair though. First of all, the price tag isn't exactly favourable at $900.00. The other issue we had with this chair, was that we weren't sure where we could test it out before buying it. We found a place locally that sells them, however they don't have any in-store and we'd have to purchase it, and then send it back if we didn't like it.

 

So we figured we might as well continue our search. If we came across something else comparable that we liked, we'd look into it, otherwise this was going to be our rocker.

While searching for the perfect chair, we came across a few others that we considered:

This glider from Room & Board was a dream, yet we knew the colour was very limiting and that we needed to go neutral if we wanted to be able to redecorate the nursery for another baby one day (if that ends up being a possibility).

Shay Swivel Chair Glider



This glider had a nice look and was a little less expensive than the Nurseryworks glider at $799.00, however we weren't sure about the design of the back and neither of the colours were exactly what we were looking for.

 

 Babyletto Nara glider

 

 

The next glider we were fortunate enough to test out in store, and it was high on the list as well. The Dutailier Moderno Collection had a good selection of incredibly comfortable chairs and this one had a nice modern look that we both liked. However, I was almost worried it was a bit too modern for me (although Ian didn't mind that), but again the price wasn't exactly favourable at $897.00.

Dutailier Moderno Collection

 

 

I honestly wasn't a fan of that many other chairs we came across. We had an experience at one baby store, that literally made me feel like Goldilocks. They had 3 chairs out on the floor, and I literally went from chair to chair stating "too soft", "too hard", etc etc. None of them seemed to be right except for one and even still the price was just a bit too much.

Throughout our search, we also came across some chairs that didn't work for us, but that we thought would fit wonderfully in other nursery's and are also easy on the budget.

Ian has owned an Ikea Poang chair forever...like since he first moved out on his own over 12 years ago and it still lives with us to this day. Although I personally am not crazy about the look for our nursery, it is pretty darn comfortable. I actually thought these options from Ikea were pretty cute and would be super comfy...plus they are easy on the budget at $169.00:

I thought the lighter wood was nice too and there are tons of fabric colour choices and 3 frame colour choices:

Ikea Poang chair

 

 

I also liked this chair from Walmart.com. The Enchanted Coronado Glider for a more streamlined look and again easier on the wallet. It also comes in 4 different colour options. In the end, none of the colour options were exactly what we wanted, but this glider rings in at a great price of $399.00:

 

 

The Enchanted Coronado Glider

 

 

For those wanting a more traditional wooden rocker, I thought this one from The Land of Nod was beautiful and nicely designed. I personally need a softer chair, however I know many mom's who have been perfectly comfortable in a wooden rocker. Although gorgeous and sure to become a family heirloom, this one is not exactly cheap, priced at $499.00:

 

 

Classic Wooden Rocker

 

We had both given up on the chair search for a while, until one evening I came across this little chair on a blog post showcasing Capri's nursery from Sweet Little Peanut:

 

 

Source

 

I absolutely adore this nursery and this chair fit all of our criteria- looks comfortable, a great size, not too modern or traditional, nice colour and could be incorporated into a boy or girl nursery. Ian was a bit concerend at first about the tufting, but with a bit of my persuasion, he got over it. I like the detail it adds to the chair and as someone who tends to gravitate towards more traditional pieces, thats what I loved about it.

 

The only problem was that the above blog post did not state the source or name of the chair, so I had to search around the internet to see if I could find it.  I then came across this image at Project Nursery:

 

 

 

Project Nursery

 

From this, I was able to get a name for this chair- The Grand Glider, and started to search for the best price I could find. Most companies that carried the chair were charging around $700.00-$799.00, which was still more than we could afford. Many sites had different variations of the name for this chair, so when I typed in "Grand Glider" into a search, I ended up with results from everywhere. One of the sites that appeared to have it was Target, so I went onto the Target site, and there it was:

 

 

 

 

Target

 

The best part was that the Target site had it listed cheapest at $579.00. Now that was a price we could work with. Again, the only issue: Target doesn't carry this chair in store, and they do not ship store-to-store or to Canada. So thankfully my new favorite baby store Walmart.com also had the chair ($10.00 less) at $569.00.

 

Walmart was willing to ship this item store-to-store and it arrived in about 10 days (7 days earlier than the expected delivery date). We chose to order the chair in the white/beige colour (shown above).

 

I did have a few concerns with ordering this chair online. The first was that if it arrived damaged, we would have no way to order another one as we were making a special trip to the USA to pick it up. Fingers crossed it didn't come damaged (and it didn't!). The second concern was that if it wasn't comfortable, I'd have to leave it and start my search all over again. However, Walmart has an amazing return policy, so we figured if it wasn't comfortable, we'd just return it right there.

 

My third concern was the colour. On all of the different sites we found the chair, each of them had different colours listed and different photos for what they called "white/beige/buckwheat". We wanted the colour to be slightly off white, but not tan/khaki coloured and not bright white.

 

Walmart.com listed this photo of the chair calling it white/beige:

 

 

 

 

 And Target.com listed this photo of the chair calling it white/buckwheat:

 

 

We hoped that the actual chair looked more like the Target.com picture, and based on the images we found online of those who had actually bought the chair, the Target image seemed more accurate. But again, this was a gamble.

 

So upon getting to the states and seeing our chair, we ended up with this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty much exactly what we were hoping for! The chair came in perfect condition. The fabric colour looks great (similar to the Target picture above) and its going to be super easy to clean as the water just beeds up on it. The tufting was done well and the chair itself glides nicely and swivels as well (which is a nice bonus). The other thing I like about the chair is that the back is high enough for me. Im somewhat tall and I wanted to be able to rest my head on the back of the chair...no problems with that at all.

 

The only thing I would suggest, is that you get some sort of ottoman to go with the chair. I have one in mind Im going to purchase- I don't think I would enjoy the gliding motion in the chair as much without an ottoman. There is one that matches this chair- Newco International Grand Bella Velvet Ottoman, but we opted for something else.

 

We're overall very happy with it and think its going to work great :) We'll post an update of how we are enjoying the chair once we really get to use it, but for now I'm loving it!

 

 

Melissa and Ian

 

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.

Source

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:

Source

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

Source

 

 

Then we came across the Babyletto Madison crib:

 

Source

 

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:

 

 

Source

 

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:

 

 

Source

 

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

 

 

Source

 

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

 

 

Source

 

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

 

 

Source

 

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

 

 

 

Source

 

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

 

 

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 :)

Via

 

via

 

via

 

via

 

via

 

via

 

via

 

 via

 

 

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 Ensuite- Sourcing Tile

When planning out the Master Bath, one of the most difficult parts was sourcing out items for the room that fit in our budget, looked nice and worked with the style of the space.

Tile was probably one of the most difficult aspects of the room, as it is an element that adds major impact and really can't be easily changed once its installed (so you really have to make sure you choose correctly).

We had decided that marble was an element we really wanted to incporate. Most of the bathrooms we found that we had liked and added to our scrapbook of ideas, were light, bright, white and contained marble! So that made it easy for us.

source

Source

source

Some things to consider when choosing tile/stone.

1. Make sure you read about stone before buying it. Marble, is a very porous stone and honestly, its not a great element to have on counters or kitchens. It absorbs liquid and this can change the actual colour of the stone permanently. You need to seal it every couple of years and requires specific cleaning as well- really just soap and water should be used to clean it.  So even with that in mind, we decidede to go ahead and use it in our bathroom on the counter and floors (yes we're risky-lol). We just knew we wouldn't use it in a kitchen, but figured if it was in our bathroom we would take the time to care for it.

2. Tile can break the bank. Seriously its one of the most expensive elements to a room, but can add the most impact. You want to make sure you can find AFFORADABLE tile that will:

a.) Stand the test of time (unless you have a money tree in your backyard and can afford to re-do your bathroom in a few years...) p.s if you do have a money tree, call me.

b.) Tile that will be good for re-sale (if you ever sell your home). You all know those shows on TV where the people go into a bathroom and say "ewwww! pink tub, blue and purple tiles? what were they thinking?" Its best if you pick tile that you love AND that will generally appeal to future buyers.

c.) Mix and match a few nicer tiles with some less expensive tiles which will essentially give your bathroom a custom look as well.

To create our design on the shower walls we chose to use:

- Glass marble mosaic tile in the shower

- White tile chair rail

- 8x10 square white tile

*Note, you want to make sure that your white wall tile and white chair rail are very similar 'whites' otherwise one will tend to look dirty when placed next to the other if they aren't the same whites.

The glass marble mosaic came in at $12 a sheet, however we only needed 6 sheets and the chair rail was $3.95/tile. Those 2 accent pieces weren't cheap, but since we didn't need many of them, and they added a lot of interest we splurged I guess you could say. Where we saved was on the white square tiles, which were only $.69 each. Those we needed the most of, but cost the least.

On the shower floor we used a combination of:

- 2x2 white non-slip tile

- 1x1 square marble tiles as a border to add interest

Again, the white 2x2 tiles were not very expensive and we felt it was important to have a tile on the floor that had a non-slip surface. The marble square tiles around the border were a bit more expensive, but again, we only needed 8 sheets.

We also chose to use marble jambs all around the entire shower, rather than just on the floor on the shower. We felt it outlined the shower nicely, and overall liked the look of how it tied in with the floor jambs.

The marble floor tile deserves a post all on its own....

Let me tell you, we drove pretty far to get this tile. We saw a sale, and managed to get the tile on sale for $5 a sq/ft (1/2 price). We ordered the tile right away, and when it came in, we were a bit disappointed to say the least. We were very aware of the fact that there is a lot of variation in natural stone, but to us, it appeared that the boxes of tiles we got were from completely different dilots- some were even a dark, dark grey, while others were stark white. I was pretty horrified, and we couldn't return the tile.

So I spent days...yes days, laying out each piece of tile in a pattern that seemed to work. I actually measured our bathroom, taped off an area in our basement to the exact measurements and layed down each piece of tile in the exact spot I wanted it layed in the bathroom. I spent hours re-arranging until I finally felt OK with the tile. I wasn't completely convinced yet, but I was starting to adjust.

The day our contractor decided to start on the floors, I happily showed him my tile display in the basement with everything easily layed out in the exact shape of the bathroom. I ALMOST numbered each tile for them, but figured they could do that if they needed to. Big mistake...should have numbered them. Sigh.

I got home that day from work, and Ian met me at the front door. "How'd the tile go?!" I asked. "Ummmmm, ok" Ian says. Oh god...my heart sank. Seriously, how could my plan not have worked?! It was fool-proof. Days spent in our musty basement laying dusty tile with random spiders crawling around me....grrrrrr....not impressed this didn't work out.

I raced up to the bathroom to see all the tiles layed in a random pattern. The contractor claimed he followed my plan. Um NO. I literally knew each of those tiles so well, I could have named them. I knew right away it wasn't right. There were about 20-30 tiles layed in spots that didn't work. Now normally, this wouldn't be that big of a deal, but with the variation in the tile, it looked odd to have 2 stark white tiles beside each other and 2 dark tiles right next to them. We had no choice. We had to chip out some tiles in order to be happy with it. We finally decided we could live with most of it, but 5 tiles needed to be replaced. I MIGHT have had a minor breakdown that day. MIGHT.

Anyways, it turned out great in the end, and we are super happy with it now. The moral of the story? Never buy tile you can't return, and make sure you watch your contractors like a HAWK. Especially when something like tile is being layed that you cannot easily fix. Keep in mind that variation in natural stone is going to happen, so be prepared for that as well.

We love the look of the marble and even with all the challenges we faced, we think it turned out great and love the look.

Source list for tile:

Mosaic Glass Tile- Tile Master

Chair Rail Tile- Dante's Tile

White Square Tile on Shower Walls- Dante's Tile

2x2 White Tile- Dante's Tile

1x1 Marble Mosaic on Shower Floor- TileMaster

Marble Floor Tile- TileMaster

Our marble countertop was actually part of our vanity, and I'll be posting about the major elements to the room next :)

Happy Tiling!