Nursery Reveal

This post has been a longggg time coming. We waited until after our son was born (quite a few months later) to actually start working on his nursery, and now, with two weeks to spare until his first birthday, I can officially call his room done. A few years ago we turned our third bedroom into my office, and we were enamored with the space, but then, knowing we had to make space for a new baby, we again transformed the room, turning it into the nursery it is today.

Before jumping into the reveal, I want to quickly thank the brands who partnered with me on this project: Annie Selke, Nestig, and Buster + Punch. Thank you for supporting the brands that allow me to create spaces that I can share with you. All opinions are my own.

One of the biggest challenges with this room is that it is very small, so I knew that our largest point of impact would be the walls and ceiling. Painting all the trim and ceiling Farrow & Ball Oval Room Blue immediately changed the feeling of the space, and then adding in the Annie Selke Samoa Grasscloth in Robin’s Egg Blue added a texture and sheen to the space that makes it feel absolutely magical in person. The grasscloth has an incredible organic texture that makes every panel feel completely unique and special. I chose the grasscloth to coordinate with the ocean painting that has lived in many of our spaces at this point. The blue ceiling makes you forget about the barely 8-foot ceiling height.

One of the goals for this space was for it to feel as calming as possible, having my son made me crave a quiet little space that would also act as a retreat for a very active little boy. So, knowing that we wanted a tranquil vibe, we swapped the rug for this fantastic Annie Selke custom rug in the Ivory / Denim colourway. While we absolutely loved the vintage rug that lived in my office previously, the space is an odd shape, so when we put the crib on it, the crib was barely on the rug and we couldn’t turn the orientation of the rug within the confines of the room. Ultimately, we wanted a softer rug (this one came with a stitched in rug pad too!), that would take up more floor space, be easy to clean (100% wool, always), and would soften the room. We love that this Annie Selke rug does all of the above and adds a subtle continuation of the dominant colour in the space.

The crib is the Wave Crib from a new fave startup, Nestig, and we love the warm modern vibe, that it converts from a mini crib, into a crib and then into a toddler bed (so much more sustainable!), and surprisingly that it’s on wheels. We are very frequently rolling the crib around the room to fetch pacifiers from under the crib. The crib was easy to build, arrived quickly and with everything very clearly labeled, and has been a breeze to adjust the height of the mattress. The crib sheets are one of our favourite patterns from Lewis Is Home in a soft green cloud pattern, and the muslin fabric makes them soft and breathable. Also, the throw blanket is a nice, substantial navy and white one from Annie Selke that brings some great texture and pattern to the space. Outside of photos, it lives on the back of the chair.

The custom roman shade came from Loom Decor during my office reno, so we ended up removing it in order to add black out fabric from Amazon to the back, and then to add this thick Schumacher Chesterton tape trim in a yellow shade. This is my first time every using yellow in a space, and Cory was very skeptical, but I love that it throws some contrast against the all blue walls and rug. The yellow ties in nicely with the Pehr celestial mobile too.

After a lot of searching for a very petite glider, I came to realize that my son was going to be beyond the glider phase by the time we found one (why are all gliders so deep?!), so why not just bring back the Louis XVI chair I previously had in the space that we had reupholstered in my favourite Schumacher Deconstructed Stripe fabric? If I find something with a very small footprint, I’ll swap it out, but in the meantime, we’re happy with it.

On the opposite wall, we have a vintage campaign dresser that Cory and I purchased from Craigslist and refinished in our little one bedroom apartment seven years ago. It’s a piece we always imagined going in our future child’s nursery, so it holds a lot of sentimental value and was the first piece we absolutely knew would live in the nursery. Leo has also very much enjoyed pulling up and down the handles, so it also provides some entertainment for him too. We had previously had the glass top cut to sit on the piece, so it’s also easy to wipe down and very functional for us.

Over the dresser hangs an ocean painting we found on Craigslist many years ago. This piece is enormous and one of our favourites. It too has lived in many places in our home, and we knew this was the perfect spot for it. We hung it using these child-friendly picture hangers, so we feel secure with it hanging over here.

We swapped out the vintage light fixture from the office (a $10 Facebook Marketplace find we spray painted black) for a softer three globe Cristol flushmount from Circa Lighting. This light was a bit of a splurge, but one I’ve been very pleased with, as the globes are semi opaque and feel hand painted and special, and the fixture is much softer in the space than the previous light. In addition to the flushmount, we also upgraded our dimmer to our obsession, Buster + Punch, which look so special against the beautiful grasscloth.

Finally, the wavy mirror is a few years old from Anthropologie and also previously lived in the same spot. This mirror is an absolute fave because it’s substantial in material, a good size and such an interesting shape that provides a contrast to the straight lines of the grasscloth. This finish is no longer sold, but it does still come in a bronze finish in two sizes.

That’s it! Leo’s toys all live downstairs in his playroom space, and we generally are only in his room for sleeping and changing him, so we keep stuff in here pretty minimal.

I’m proud of how completely this space has transformed, despite using a lot of existing pieces in the space and other special pieces we’ve amassed over time. Never underestimate the power of paint, wallpaper, and lighting to completely shift the feeling of a space.