I say this every time I finish a room in our house, but this nursery really might be my favorite room in the house. This former hot tub/sauna room from when we moved in, which transformed into the girls’ playroom, has now been given the ultimate face lift and has become what it was always meant to be: a stunningly simple baby girl’s nursery.
If you’ve followed along from the beginning, you know I was aiming for a clean and simple Scandinavian design for this space. I know those Europeans are skilled at utilizing small spaces, and this is definitely a tiny room. I wanted to keep things clean and understated so as not to overwhelm this already tight floor plan. Check out the original nursery design plan to see my inspiration and mood board before we started getting to work. Below are the before pictures- from jacuzzi room, to nothing, to playroom.
And now it’s this beauty!
We painted over the knotty pine walls with a shelac primer to cover up the knots, and then two coats of Magnolia Home paint in Shiplap. Painting this room white did wonders for making it feel larger than it really is. I decided to contrast all the white with a darker trim color so we used Sherwin Williams Intellectual Gray and I love it!
After painting, we took out all that cold ceramic tile and laid a beautiful laminate from Lowe’s that I’m basically obsessed with. I can’t believe what it does for the space in warming it up and making it feel as though it belongs in the house. I’ve already decided we are taking up our nasty carpet and carrying it through to the conjoining rooms later this year.
After the paint and the flooring were done, the hard part was over. Now we needed to address the crazy amounts of light that get into this room, from a large window that takes up the whole back wall, a skylight, french door to the living room, and a skinny side light, this little room is flooded with light. Good for pictures, but not for a sleeping baby. I purchased the white linen blackout roman shade along with a blackout skylight shade, and they made a world of difference. We still need to address the skinny side window and the french door, but since the baby is still sleeping in our room at night, and only napping in her crib in the afternoons, the extra light really hasn’t been an issue.
As far as furniture was considered, we only really needed a crib and a dresser. The crib doesn’t really have the modern, Scandinavian design I was originally going for, but it was given to us by my mother-in-law and I seriously love it. It fits perfectly in the space and gives it so much charm and character.
The dresser however, gave me a bit of a headache. I originally found it at Walmart for $169.00- awesome right?? After I ordered it, they canceled my order as it went out-of-stock- so weird. They didn’t put it on backorder, they just canceled it. Okay. So then I found it on Amazon from a private dealer. The one going for $189 got snatched up right away and the next cheapest one was $300! What?! I finally found this same dresser from Wayfair for $229 and I went with it. I really liked the dimensions and the style and even at $60 more expensive than the Walmart one, you still can’t really beat the price.
We got our beautiful area rug from Pottery Barn Kids at a steal and it is so soft and perfectly gender neutral. If you read the original nursery plan post, you know I am over all the pink. Three girls means lots and lots of pink. I wanted this room to be almost completely free of pink for my own sanity.
I absolutely love the way this space turned out, and every time I walk into this room, I feel like I’m on vacation. I hope it serves as a cool and calm place for our sweet Norah to rest and (hopefully) sleep through the night! My favorite part of this room though, is that it is right next to our bedroom, making middle-of-the-night blowouts much simpler to change. We put Riley’s old glider right next to our bed so I can nurse here and rock her to sleep.
Man, this is such a sweet time that flies by so quickly! This babe is already changing every single day! I’m so happy we made her a special space all her own that we love to spend time in as well.
