Nursery help

As you may remember, I'm on my third baby and putting together my first real nursery. Yay!

Last Monday my super nice sister drove up with her baby so that they could entertain my girls while I painted the room two shades of yellow (Mustard Something on the bottom and Something Pineapple on the top). I thought about prepping the room the night before, but I figured the girls would just tear down the tape, so why bother? Maybe I should have bothered. Despite having the girls out of my hair, and even with said kind sister's help while the girls napped, it took us most of the day to tape off the trim; I finished the day with only the bottom half of one wall painted (and it was the shortest wall, lol).

But who should appear next, a mere half hour after the first sister had left? My other very nice sister, her husband, and their little boy! For all I knew, they had come up to visit us for the 24th of July holiday -- not because we had anything exciting going on, but simply because it's nice to get a change of scenery once in a while. Plus, I'm just super fun to visit, lol. (So fun that we made BIL stay up until past midnight helping DH dismantle a swamp cooler and jerry rig a window a/c unit that was too big for the actual window. Whooo! Good times.)

We all went to bed at around 1:00 in the morning. I got up bright and early the next day to take the girls to their swimming lessons and planned to start on the rest of the painting when we got home, hoping our visitors would play with the girls while I worked. As it turned out, there was no need: My sister and BIL had painted the entire rest of the room -- including the ceiling! -- while we were gone! Those sneaky kids work quickly and well. What a wonderful surprise. :-)

The room looks BEAUTIFUL (so much nicer than the old baby poop green color!). I keep standing in the doorway for long periods of time simply to ogle the lovely new paint, lol. I'm so grateful for all the help I received from my two fabulous sisters and their families! It's so pretty. I couldn't have done it without them.

Now that the painting is finished, I suppose it's time to figure out the rest of the decor. Here's a look around the 11'x9.5' room:









I've identified three main challenges so far: (1) The twin bed, which I would like to keep in there to make middle of the night nursing sessions easier (so I won't bother DH, an insanely light sleeper, by bringing the baby to our bed); (2) the only heating vent, which is on the floor beneath the window (covered by the changing table in the room's current configuration -- don't know how well that will work come winter); and (3) the closet that eats up nearly the entire left wall.

The size of the room and the placement of the vent and closet make for limited furniture arrangement options, unfortunately. I've decided I don't want to put the crib in front of the window, although there's more room beneath it to accommodate air flow from the vent, because I don't want Ponybelle to pull on the (as yet unchosen) curtains or strangle herself in the blinds cord. I guess I could put the twin bed there instead, and move the crib to the bed's current spot with the changing table between them on the right side wall. I don't know. Maybe I ought to just disassemble the twin and put it in the storage room for now. I can nurse on the couch at night. :-P It would certainly help the room look and feel less cramped.

The other question I have concerns shelving: Right now there are no horizontal surfaces in the room on which I can put stuff, either knick-knacky decorative things or practical items I'll want ready at hand like diaper rash cream. I first thought wall shelves would be a reasonable solution ... but would that look wrong, since the room is already cut in half horizontally by color and the, um, wood trim thing? (That may be a stupid question, but I'm a total novice at this so humor me.) Our local fancy-dancy furniture store has open (as opposed to encased with glass) shadow box-type frames that could double as shelving without looking overly horizontal. Kind of like this one, from Target:



Do you think those would work? At least for curios, I guess; Boudreaux's Butt Paste might look sort of funny framed in a fancy box. :-P

I may be in over my head here, so this is the point at which I invite all you decorating divas to contribute your ideas. My design plan, sparse as it is, began with the crib sheets from KidsLine's Tiger Lily bedding set, though while I'm considering buying the crib skirt (if I can find it as a stand-alone) as well, I'm not going to vomit that set all over the room with the matching bumper and valance and curtains and hamper and mobile and lamp shade and bla bla bla. But I do like those colors, the pinks and yellows, and of course the white trim that's already in the room (baseboards, window, closet and door). I need a place to put stuff. I may or may not need a place to nurse at night.

Where would you go from here?


~RCH~