We chose not to find out the gender of the baby when I was pregnant, so a neutral paint color was needed for the walls. (That said, even if we had known she was a girl, Simon and I aren't pink wall painting type people! I always hated the color pink - now I'll be surrounded by it forever!) Although most people go for yellow, we decided to go for a light green. After LOTS of tester pots, all of which were discarded, we eventually found the perfect shade from Dulux (Ocean Ripple).
As I mentioned in a previous post, there are lots of items of baby furniture I deem as "non-essential" - wardrobes, cot beds and change tables. These are the main items that baby shops sell in furniture 'packages', so I knew we would have to look elsewhere to get what I wanted. I also knew I wanted white furniture and, luckily, beautiful white furniture for a nursery can be found in our favorite home shop - Ikea!
From Ikea we chose a cot and a chest of drawers that could double as a changing table. In my eyes, the perfect nursery has a rocking chair for nursing and cuddling, so we also chose to get a rocking chair from Ikea too. My in-laws very kindly bought the furniture for us as a baby present.
Then, we needed some 'decoration' to make the nursery even more beautiful. After a year of coveting a wall decal on Etsy, my brother and sister-in-law kindly bought it for us. It might be a bit much, and a bit fussy, for some people, but I adored it as soon as I saw it! As family is the most important thing in the world to us, Simon and I decided we would like a picture of each family to hang on the wall. Luckily, Simon is a photographer and picture framer so that was easily taken care of! Just before Isabelle arrived, Simon surprised me with family poster to hang in the nursery too.
Again, in a previous post I mentioned my hatred of baby cot bedding, so this wasn't an issue, however the nursery curtains caused somewhat of a headache for months! I wanted something very plain that could be used for years in that room, long after it's a nursery, but reasonably priced. We ended up buying some plain cream curtains from Ikea, which Simon hemmed, and his mom made the tie backs with the left over material! Add the finishing touch of a string of owls from auntie Helen, and we were all set.
I loved every second of creating the perfect (in my eyes) nursery for our baby, and love sitting in my rocking chair every morning and evening, admiring the handiwork of Simon's family who put it all together. It will need some rejigging toif we are ever blessed with baby no2, but I hope it will serve us well for many years to come.
Where did you draw the inspiration for your nursery? Was there anything you had to have? Or, like me, anything you knew you definitely didn't want?
