Nursery inspiration

Planning the baby's room is so fun! It's my little mind vacation, where it can go to be happy. I'm taking Lily Mae's death pretty hard, maybe in part due to all the extra hormones raging through me now, so I try to focus on the amazing little life that is growing inside of my belly. I get butterflies when I think about seeing her and holding her, and it's all I can do in the meantime to keep that excitement at bay.

So picking out paint colors and furniture and fabrics has been an awesomely fun escape. My ideas for the nursery have changed a bit since I first started thinking of it, but the feeling is the same. Warm and modern, simple but fun. Practical but still whimsical. Here's what I've got going on so far:

The crib was (is) a hard decision. I love the Caravan crib by Kalon Studios SO MUCH, but it would be such a huge chunk of our nursery budget. The crib is a gift from my parents and they're happy to buy us the Caravan, but if we decide to go with something less expensive, we get more gift money to buy other things for the nursery. Pretty tempting. So I've been looking high and low for a happy inexpensive alternative and found it with the Sniglar crib from IKEA. It's crazy cheap ($70!!) but made from solid sustainably harvested wood and has the clean lines I'm after with the round spindles I like so much. Jeff and I went to IKEA and shook the shit out of the floor model and it seemed sturdy. Plus I've seen it on several stylish mom blogs who endorse it highly so I think I'm convinced.

Also from IKEA are the spice racks used as book display shelves, and the 2 drawer Edland dresser which we would use as the changing table. I love the dark gray color, the little pull knobs, and the elegant legs. It's the perfect size too.

The storage bench in such a pretty mint tweed fabric is from Urban Outfitters, the womb chair and ottoman (replica!) is being made right now in a light gray wool boucle fabric, the rug is made from recycled plastic bottles and is from Viva Terra (although now that we don't have to worry about cat puke anymore- sad face- this may change to something fluffy and soft), and the paint colors for the walls, ceiling, and accent pieces are ripped off from little Viv's nursery on Lay Baby Lay.

The elephant fabric I'm dying over. I just ordered some from Cedar House Fabrics and plan to make another crib sheet, plus some bibs and burpies from it. It's an organic cotton from Cloud 9 fabrics and is the perfect color palette for the room. Plus it's got cute little elephants and pennant garlands on it!

And just to prove how kookoo bananas I am about all this, here is the room layout (to scale, pretty much).

The womb chair and ottoman will be nestled into the corner with our midcentury modern globe pendant that we got with our bedroom set hanging over it (shown in the first picture of this post), Jeff's old dresser (with a shiny new coat of black high gloss paint) will be next to the window to store bedding and clothing, the bench filled with toys will go under the window, and the crib and changing table will be on the opposite wall. I *think* everything would fit perfectly.

And then of course, art everywhere on the walls! Of course, this is all subject to change depending on my pregnant hormonal whims...