For the Nursery: It's (mostly) Finished!

I've only been talking about our projects for the nursery since April...but here is the final product! This isn't going to be super picture heavy because it's really difficult to get pictures of a small room with poor lighting. I'm showing you the main elements though, for sure!

We picked the cribs very carefully. I had very specific requirements: the crib had to be level all the way around (do you know how hard it is to find one that doesn't have a weird bump on the back or something) because I knew this is how we would need to put the cribs in order to get two in the room. The cribs had to be standard size but have a smaller overall footprint than some of the other cribs on the market. The color needed to be a dark color. They needed to be sturdy enough to make it through more than one baby and needed to be gender neutral for the same reason. Lastly, they had to be somewhat modern looking but be under 400 dollars. It was actually kind of difficult to come up with these cribs! They're the Childcraft London Euro crib. So far I really like them. They are not as tall as many cribs, so I do have to bend a bit to put a baby in and out, but I thought I would rather deal with that than some of the other complaints I would have with another crib. They seem to be sturdy and they don't take up as much space as many other cribs. Overall, I'm happy with them so far.

As for mattresses, I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to go. There are so many opinions and advice out there for getting a crib mattress. We went with Simmons Kids Slumber Time Naturally mattresses. It's made out of soy and does not contain many of the gross chemicals that are in other crib mattresses. It isn't organic, but it was at a good price point and I was less wary of what it is made out of.  I also liked the feature that one side is for baby and you can flip it over for a toddler bed (the difference is in the firmness).

The bedding was kept simple on purpose: just a sheet and crib skirt. This is due to safety reasons. And lets be honest-- while a crib set is cute it's ridiculously over priced! The current recommendations for safe sleeping pretty much say don't bother with bumpers or blankets in the cribs. I have three sets of sheets. The grey and white chevrons in the pictures, some grey and white polka dots, and just some plain pink ones. I like them all. I will say the patterned ones are from Target and we did have a bit of an issue with one set fitting the mattress and the other set not fitting at all. The pink ones are from Babies R Us and they are much softer than the other two. The blankets you see in the pictures were hand made by my great-Aunt Sandy (though I just call her Aunt Sandy). They're so wonderful and have matching cardigans, booties, and hats. They're on the cribs for decoration right now, but we won't be covering the babies to sleep until they're much older.

Brad worked really hard painting the room. I love how it turned out. The stripes are only on this wall. The base color is a grey and the stripes are different shades of pink. The bold stripe is the same color as the dresser to kind of tie everything together. I went with this color scheme because I wanted something modern, girly but not all bubble gum pink, and something fun. Thanks to pinterest this is what I decided on. Trust me though...there was much debate and discussion. ;) According to Brad the most difficult part of painting the stripes was measuring and taping, but even that wasn't too bad. He used the Frog tape and it was superior to regular blue painter's tape. Don't be intimidated by painting stripes!

This is the wall opposite of the cribs. Since we have two babies and not a HUGE room, we decided to forgo a dedicated changing table. Instead, we made the dresser dual purpose and put the changing pad on top of it with a diaper basket. The little owl you see on the far right is an LED nightlight and the baby monitor is behind it. In the corner by the window (which I don't have a picture of because I forgot...oops!) is the swing. It will eventually make its way downstairs and a glider will take up residence there. We don't have the glider yet, but we will after my parents come down to see the babies.  The curtains (yes! we have curtains! It's embarrassing but we've lived in this place for a year and just now got curtains for the living areas down stairs) are a simple dark brown. They do darken the room up a bit, but that's what I wanted to encourage good nappers and good night time sleepers.

So there you have it! More words than pictures but I hope you enjoyed the Grand Tour of the nursery!