Nursery Tour: Phoebe Rose’s Mom-made Room

updated May 9, 2019

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Name: Phoebe Rose
Age: due any day!
Location: Ann Arbor, MI

Like her friends, we’re amazed that mom-to-be Emily made almost everything in her daughter’s nursery: toys, quilts, cross-stitch, burp cloths, chair slip cover, bird mobile…the list goes on! Although not yet lived in, this nursery speaks volumes of love and attention, originality mixed with vintage pieces, and has “Phoebe” creatively written all over it (both literally and figuratively). We adore the variety of ideas in this room (think soft blocks covered in vintage sheets)…

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

Bird mobile – made from a Martha Stewart tutorial

Inspiration: I’m a sewer and a self-proclaimed “fabric junkie” and for years before my husband and I even talked about having children I would always pick up fabric that I wanted to save for future baby projects. The entire color scheme of the room was pulled from the “Mendicino” fabric collection by Heather Ross in the blush colorway. The quilt hanging on the crib shows off all of those fabrics.

Favorite Element: The mobile above the crib I made myself from a Martha Stewart tutorial. It took a heck of a lot longer than i thought and when my husband came home and saw me threading 1 inch pieces of embroidery floss through about a hundred tiny little paper flowers – he thought i had lost it!

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

Biggest Challenge: Trying to accomplish everything on a pretty tight budget. My husband graduated from medical school in June and just recently started his residency, so with all of those student loans, money is pretty tight. Garage sales are our friends!

What Friends Say: They’re amazed at how many of the elements I actually made myself – and they love all of the handmade toys.

Proudest DIY: This was the first time i’ve ever made slipcovers for furniture or reupholstered anything, so i was pretty thrilled with how the covers for the glider and ottoman turned out. Not bad for a 20$ garage sale find!

Biggest Indulgence: We honestly didn’t really splurge on anything. The only new piece of furniture in the room was the crib, which was a gift from my parents. Although i do have a long list of indulgences that i’d be interested in splurging on!

Best advice: Whenever anyone who hasn’t seen the room asks about the nursery, they always ask “What’s the theme?” I don’t know where everyone got the idea that a nursery has to have a cutesy baby theme with everything being so matchy-matchy. We just went with a general color scheme that allowed us to incorporate pieces that we really love.

Dream source: I seriously need some Etsy therapy. I spend hours browsing all of their goodies, and pretty much everything that I didn’t make came from there.

Resources: my out-of-control fabric stash, garage sales, etsy

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

Images: Emily Schildhouse (mom-to-be)

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Baby Rooms