A few year’s back I saw this blog post on a baby girl’s room and I loved it. The room is cheerful and bright for a child, but also fits in with the rest of their home. It was a room I would love to spend time in, not just tolerate for the kid. When I first started thinking about the martian’s room I knew I wanted it to have a similar look and feel. I’ve said it before and I totally own it – I’m an executioner, not a strategist.
In late summer Greg and I went to a Neil deGrasse Tyson lecture here in Seattle. It was hands down the best lecture I’ve ever heard – I would go sit through the exact same one right now just to hear it again. During the Q&A, a woman asked him something along the lines of how he defines success and his reply stuck with me. He said he measures his days as successful if he’s learned something new and if he has done something to make someone else’s day better.
In my head that translated to be kind and be curious. And that is exactly what I hope for for our kids. First and foremost, be nice people. I’ve been the nice girl tormented by the mean girls and, sad to say, for a brief period in junior high, I was on the flip side of that coin. Being kind is way, way better. And curiosity. I don’t care what he (or she) is into and I look forward to watching it change over the years, but I hope he looks at the world like it’s full of possibilities waiting to be found.
All that to say, those were my two influences on decorating this little room in our house. I should also add that I had the goal of buying as few baby only pieces of furniture as possible with the hope that most things can be repurposed once we no longer need a nursery. 
Here’s the room from the hallway. We don’t have yellow hall walls, I’m just an amateur photographer trying to deal with a basement room on a half sunny winter Seattle day. Believe it or not, the walls in the hallway are the exact same color as the baby’s room. Time for a photography lighting class, perhaps?
I am so excited to bring the black and white Crate and Barrel rug back into our home! I loved it in our office, but it wasn’t realistic with how often shoes and muddy doodle feet walked on it. Down in the baby’s room, though? Totally will work. I even went with the 5×8 instead of the 4×6. More stripes is always a good thing.
The right side of the room. I used the throw pillow (formerly of our couch, but displaced when we got a new rug in the office) to pick colors for the room. I figured I like the pillow, so as long as everything I put in the room matched it, I would like it too. The side table will be perfect for collecting stuff as I nurse and then can easily move into other areas of our home in a few years. I loved the whimsical look of the lamp. We’re still trying to find the best positioning for it to be accessible but not shine directly in our face. The striped basket is full of swaddle blankets and burp cloths, two things I’m told we can’t have enough of.
This pillow makes me happier than a throw pillow should. But it just screams cheerful.
I love these digital prints I found on Etsy and printed on our home printer. The “Adventure Awaits” was a no brainer given my OLW this year. The shop was having a two for one deal on digital prints and I had two large frames. I picked up the bear to add a little California love to the room. Lauren pointed out it also adds a little UCLA love, too. We’ll start early with proper loyalties.
I was going to try to paint “be kind” and “be curious” script art myself, but then I found that Kal Barteski had this print that wouldn’t involve any doomed-from-the-start DIY. Sold. Combined with the two other sentiments, this wall is my favorite. I think it speaks just as much to me as to the baby.
And there’s the crib. I wanted a non-toxic crib and there are two options, really. Spend $800+ on something fancy or go to IKEA and get the wood one (no paint, no varnish, no glue) for $70. Sold. I love that it’s so plain and simple it doesn’t become the focal point of the room. Greg did his fatherly duty and put it together, documenting the process here. The baby will be sleeping in a pack n’ play we borrowed from friends in our room for some amount of time post-birth and will eventually move into the crib. That could be on the second night s/he’s here or in 18 months. I’m trying not to control things that I have no experience with yet.
Then we get to the fun stuff. The bookshelf had been in our garage for a few years but wasn’t a necessity (more like a place to collect junk) so we cleaned it off and brought it back in the house. The top bin holds all the stuffed animals that we’ve been gifted. After finding a stuffed bear a little damp and laying in the hallway one day, I realized we’re going to have to do some training with Alfred. All the toys in the house are no longer his. So for now they are tucked away out of view. Thanks to friends and family, we have a great little library collection going. The building blocks have the elements from the periodic table on them, a Christmas gift to baby from Greg. He sadly couldn’t find the flow chart baby blocks that we came across online in stock anywhere. #nerdbaby
One of my first purchases for the baby was the globe. I get that the kid is not going to understand it for years, but I still like the idea of him (or her) loving Seattle but realizing there is a whole big world out there. The little giraffe is made by women who work for the Kenyan organization that one of my good friends is the US director for. I became obsessed with finding old school wooden toys for the baby. I love how they look and that they are simple. (The bottom right basket in the shelf is full of hand-me-down regular newborn and baby toys, which I’m sure the baby will love way more than my Esty finds.) The penguin is a gift from my good friend in San Francisco; it’s so adorable it finally got me excited about buying baby stuff when I received it.
And lastly we have the dresser / changing table area. We are cloth diapering so the top drawer is full of diapers; I have newborn clothes in the second drawer and 0-3 month in the third. Future sizes are all stored away in the closet (door on right) to be pulled out when needed. I don’t love the decor above the dresser but I’m feeling done so for now it’s staying. The map is of the US and its meant to be cross-stitched as you visit different states. We’ll see if that happens someday. We already have plans for at least three but probably four states this year (if the first trip isn’t an epic disaster), so maybe I will be motivated to update it every few months. Once the baby is named I might do something with it’s name above here as well.
We will be using disposable diapers for the first few weeks and they are stored in the little turqouise IKEA cart. (I’m obsessed with these carts and own one in each of the three colors they currently produce.) We also have disposable and reusable wipes with the diapers, and once I get around to making them, the other baby cleaning products will be stored on top as well. Nursing supplies are on the second shelf and baby health care items on the bottom. We have a second cart in cream upstairs that has diapers, wipes, nursing supplies, burp clothes, and blankets. I’ve heard from several people that we will be very thankful to have a baby station on both floors.
So that’s it. Room three of six in our home is decorated and I love it. The countdown is now to three weeks at the very longest before we can bring the little one home and put the room to use. Also, that means my countdown to sushi is three weeks. It’s the one pregnancy ‘rule’ I followed and I feel like I should see it through now that I’m so close.
The Goods
As usual, I waited for everything to go on sale (minus IKEA and Amazon) and use eBates whenever I can for the automatic rebate.
rug // crib // sheet // striped blanket // paper poufs // rocker // foot stool pouf // lamp // side table // ‘adventure awaits’ print // bear print // large frames // ‘be’ print // ‘you are so loved’ print (no longer available) // ‘see the world’ print // white frames // striped basket // curtains // bookshelf (similar) // large baskets (container store) // globe // california toy // rainbow wooden stacker // wooden toys // periodic table blocks // cart // dresser // changing pad // US stitch map (Happy Mail by A Beautiful Mess – no longer available)
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The last few weeks have been pretty quiet. We didn’t plan a whole lot starting in late January, unsure of when the baby would arrive. We did host our third annual Super Bowl party for people who don’t really care about the Super Bowl. It’s quite fun. We have a ton of food, lots of conversation, and a little football. The last two years have been a little more football focused since the Seahawks have been contenders. This year Greg and I even got in the spirit (only because I happened to win two hats at a work event the week before). Clearly we are not good luck charms.
I’m only half joking when I say that my biggest accomplishment was painting my own toenails last week. At 40+2 it was not exactly an easy task.
You can find us on the couch most nights, watching Top Chef. We’ve watched seasons one, two, and three in the last month. I don’t have a ton of energy by the time Greg gets home from work, so our typical evening includes dinner (that I don’t cook because I’m over cooking right now) and two episodes of Top Chef. One night we watched four episodes and felt like awful people, so now we limit ourselves to two, then I read and Greg works on his Lego project or work. I have to say my husband is a saint when it comes to eating dinner. He ate a burger four out of five nights last week because that was the only thing that sounded good to me. I tend to stick to one thing for several nights in a row then move on. We’ve had a lot of Pho this pregnancy (we’re talking two or three nights a week sometimes); I’m curious to see if I ever want to eat it again once the baby is born.
The nursery is done, the bags are packed, we have a pack ‘n play set up in our room, and a changing station upstairs is ready. There’s really nothing left to prepare. Our house is more picked up then it’s ever been, laundry is constantly done and put away, and I’m even reading about how to re-season my cast iron cookware. I’m stretching for ways to keep busy.
Second Shelf: Sauces. And the dog’s wet food.
Sixth Shelf. Baking goods.
West Coast Martins 