Greyson’s Room
April 23rd, 2012
Greyson’s nursery has been so much fun to decorate. This room was previously our guest room, and we had painted the walls light gray. I loved the color, so even before we found out we were having a boy, I decided to go with gray, white and orange for the nursery. Casey painted white stripes on one wall for me. I put the room together piece by piece over the last few months and I’m really happy with how it all came together and how much money I was able to save in the process. 
Here are some of my projects…
RUG
I love our hard wood floors, but I really wanted a comfy rug that I could sit or lay on to play with Greyson. I looked online and in local stores at so many rugs, but for the size and styles I liked the prices were just way more than I wanted to spend. I couldn’t find anything under $100 and most were several hundred. I started looking at faux fur rugs, but they were still more than I wanted to spend. After no success in finding something in my price range, I got the idea of making my own. I didn’t know if I could, but how hard could it be? I went to the fabric store, found this light grey fabric for less than $30, cut it to size and voila! I found the brand new carpet padding underneath on Craigslist.com for less than $10. The rug is so soft and comfy, easy to vacuum, will be easy to wash and doesn’t slide around…just what I wanted. =)
BEDDING
Crib bedding is very expensive! I think it’s because you can charge an arm and a leg for anything that you add the word “baby” to. I couldn’t justify paying hundreds of dollars for a bedding set, not to mention I couldn’t find one I even remotely liked. When I had no luck in my searching, I finally decided to order a custom bumper and find the other pieces separately. The custom bumper alone was more than I wanted to spend (close to $100), but since I planned on saving on everything else I decided to splurge a little. Before I ordered the bumper, I found gray fabric at Goodwill for $4. I had been leaning towards a solid colored crib skirt, and it didn’t make sense for me to pay a lot of money to someone else to make something that is was so simple without even trying it myself first. I’m a very novice seamstress, but I bought the fabric and decided to make the crib skirt myself. I figured if worse came to worst I would just throw it away and be down $4. I found a crib skirt tutorial online and for my skill level, I think it came out great (I realize it very wrinkled, but I’m not one to iron bedding). So now that I knew the crib skirt was gray, I had a better idea of what I wanted for bumper. I searched FOREVER and finally found a fabric I liked. I was going for an eclectic kind of feel in Greyson’s room – some vintage, some modern – and this fabric is perfect. It reminds me of the old and new – it kind of has a vintage, lace doily look but at the same time it looks like something you’d see in a kaleidoscope. I matched that with white piping, gray interior and orange ties. I had Mellissa’s Boutique on etsy.com make the bumper. She did a great job!
FURNITURE
Side Table
I found this side table at Restore – a store full of used furniture, building materials, etc. which are donated and sold to raise money for Habitat for Humanity. It’s one of those fun hit-or-miss stores. I had been searching for a side table that was just the right height, with a drawer or shelf. I finally found this one – we had to buy a twin bed and dresser to get it…but it will be great to have when Greyson is older and I can paint the whole bedroom set, so it was worth it. We got the whole set for around $60. I painted one coat of paint and realized I liked how you could see through it a bit and decided not to do a second coat. My mom bought me those adorable book ends. The gray placemat on top is from Goodwill…it was a whopping 99 cents. =)
Toy Chest
This is a vintage chest from my Great Aunt Bunny. I LOVE it. I’ve had it for the last 4 years or so, but I’ve had it in my bedroom to store photo albums. It worked great for that, but as Grey’s room came together I started adding some neutral colors – tans and taupes – and I realized how perfect it would go in his room! It’s not huge, but he doesn’t really have many toys right now so it’s perfect for a baby. It’s also nice to have another place to sit if someone else is hanging out in his room with me. It needed a little TLC. It was lined with wood grain paper which had some stains, and there was no way to really clean it, and I knew it would get torn up with toys being thrown into it. I decided to line it with shelf liner and couldn’t believe when I actually found a woodgrain shelf liner that matched PERFECTLY! So this should work great for baby Greyson, and when he gets older and acquires a few more toys, we’ll have to get Uncle Mike to make one of his famous toyboxes. =)
Wooden Organizers
These wooden organizer’s were given to me by a friend, except they started out purple and pink. I painted them to match and lined them with the same shelf liner that I used in the toy box.
Dresser, Bookshelf and Knobs
The crib was the only furniture I got new – it was under $300. It wasn’t inexpensive, but I ordered it because the nursery is small and it was very convenient to have the changing table attached to the crib and it saved a lot of room. I will get lots of use out of it as I plan to have more babies and it will also later become a toddler bed and then a twin bed so I should get years of use out of it. The dresser/bookshelf I got at a yardsale and I gave it a fresh coat of paint. The knobs on the dresser I got at Restore for next to nothing and painted them gray and orange. The knobs on the changing table I bought on clearance at Anthropology and painted the middle orange to match.
Rocking Chair, Foot Stool and Shades
The rocking chair was $2 at a yard sale, and I painted it white. The footstool was a few dollars from Goodwill (don’t mind the cats wrestling – they wouldn’t get out of the way). I still need to make a little cushion to go on on the foot rest, but I’ll get to that eventually. The shades were the LAST TWO of the correct size at the Christmas Tree Shop! I couldn’t believe it when I saw them – I had to take down the display, but they look perfect in his room and I’ve never seen anything like them anywhere else. And they were only $15!
DECORATIONS
Hooks, Owls and Nightlight
I painted an old chair back and added some old hooks my dad gave to me. The vintage owl wall art is from Goodwill. The nightlight was mine in high school. It was gold, but I painted it orange to match Greyson’s room.
Framed Initials
I got the smaller frames at Goodwill for a couple dollars and the large black frame at a yard sale for $1. I painted the frames to match the room. I got the G at Anthropologie and put together the M and C on my computer and printed them as 5×7 photos. I thought it was a unique way to display Greyson’s initials.
Rhino
I got this cardboard rhino from Cardboard Safari. It wasn’t cheap for something made out of cardboard, but I had seen this really awesome paper mache goat head at Anthropologie, but I couldn’t justify paying almost $70 for it so I had to rethink things. I’m actually happier with this than I would have been with the paper mache goat. You can order different wall trophies in different sizes in either white or brown cardboard – most people put them together and hang them as is, but I covered each piece with paper to match Greyson’s room. Tedious, but fun. =)
CLOSET
And last but not least – here is Greyson’s closet. A lot of clothes…I know. =) Casey built me some shelves since there weren’t any in this closet…what a good daddy. I’ve actually organized more since I took this photo, but it probably won’t stay that way anyway. =)
And now we just wait for our precious little boy to arrive. He is due in less than a month, so it could be any day now! We can’t wait to meet him. God is good and we are so blessed!
