Name: Will (4 months)
Location: United States
We decided to wait to find out what we were having, so I had the challenge of creating a gender neutral nursery. Plus it was a room without a usable closet, so I needed to create storage space. Of course I started scouring Pinterest, Apartment Therapy, and any photos of nurseries I could find to get ideas.
Originally the room was yellow, so I thought gray would be a good accent color and keep the room neutral. After pinning lots of nurseries I noticed a trend. They all had the same wall color — Benjamin Moore Robin's Nest. So I kept the accent colors yellow and gray but painted the walls the Robin's Nest blue.
Bedding was the biggest challenge. I couldn't find anything I liked that was modern and gender neutral in my colors. Custom bedding from Etsy was more then I wanted to spend, but inspired me to pull out my sewing machine and make my own. I made all the fabric items in the room!
To address storage I found an armoire on Craigslist that was the perfect size — it just needed a coat of paint. I updated it to include two rods to hang all of the cute baby clothes. We already had a plain IKEA dresser that just needed some dressing up. I found an inspiration photo on Pinterest and after many hours and several coats of paint I had a unique, fun piece for the room.
The frame gallery was my favorite part — as a photographer I knew I wanted to display photos of our family. I started off with plain white frames from IKEA and filled them with different scrapbook papers as placeholders until I had photos to fill them. I love using scrapbook paper for cheap art!
Overall I'm thrilled with the room. It makes me smile whenever I walk in! We had a boy — William Anthony on October 2, 2012, and he seems to like his room too.
Source List:
- Dresser: IKEA Hemnes (painted by me from Pinterest inspiration)
- Rocking chair: Family heirloom
- Storage cubby: IKEA Expedit
- Armoire: Craigslist (painted by me)
- Crib: Walmart
- Frames: IKEA
- Elephant Mobile: Etsy seller aprilderek
- Elephant Lamp: Homegoods
- Bevel Mirror: Target
- Bucket, Hanging bar and shelf: IKEA
- Circus Prints: Etsy sellers: ScarletElla, Dreamy Photo, CarlChristensen
- Bedding and all fabric items: made by me (*the crib has been cleared out of all items including the bumpers since Will started sleeping in it)
Thanks, Melissa! Readers, you can visit Melissa at Melissa Arlena Photography.
(Images: Melissa/Melissa Arlena Photography)
• MY ROOM ARCHIVE
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The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
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The Eight-Step Home Cure 
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Oh I love the idea of using scrapbook paper in frames temporarily! I will be doing that now. And the elephants are adorable.
Cute room. I've experimented with scrapbook pages as art before. Looks great- even if it's temporary. Love the aqua tones. It really sets a tone of peace & tranquility.
Very sweet and serene, I love that armoire!
Beautiful and simple. Where did you find the wall shelf and hanging caddy over the changing table?
HeidiJBoyd the wall shelf and hanging caddy were from IKEA!
i love this all! did you also make the blind or did you buy that (if you made it, what fabric is it made from and if you bought it, where did you buy it from?).