Modern Nursery Picks

We are in deep planning and renovating the nursery and office/guest room, with an aggressive schedule to beat our deadline (due date) of mid June. We opted for a themeless nursery with a minimal, fresh vibe and colorful warm environment. The color scheme for the nursery is emerald + aqua and here are a few of our current picks.

FURNITURE

Kalon Studios Caravan Crib - We fell in love with the idea of colored spindles for the crib, as this would allow us to paint the walls white (a minimalist's ideal) and still have a bold splash of color in the room. Kalon Studios sells this crib with raw spindles as well (for $200 less), which we opted for, so we could paint the exact shade of aqua our hearts desire, and save some cash.

Ikea Poang Rocking Chair and Footstool - The rocking chair/glider dilemma was real around here for a few weeks! There are very few modern gliders out there and the one we liked the best, was out of our price range. Thankfully, Ikea saved the day, and our bank account. 

Offi Magazine Table - I've had my eye on this sleek, well-designed side table for a while and am thankful to have a spot for it in the house now. 

Ikea Gulliver Changing Table - Seems that a changing table is not always necessary, as most nurseries have a dresser that a changing pad can be placed on top of. We are having the Closet Factory add built-in drawers and pull out trays to the existing closet space in the room, so a dresser will not be needed. 

DECOR

The room is fairly small, about 12'x12', with windows, a closet and the door taking up more than half of the wall space, so we do not have a lot of room to 'decorate' if you will, which of course is also our ideal. The other burst of color in the room will be in the rug, which we are making from Flor Tiles, using emerald and medium grey to create a zig zag stripe pattern with the colors.  

Ivie Baby on Etsy has the most rad fabrics for a modern nursery and the Charcoal Arrow pattern will add a laid back and hip vibe to the room. We are using it for the crib sheet and changing pad cover. 

To help with the Emerald + Aqua theme, we are using the Gobbi Montessori Baby Mobile in green. We favor its sleek design and it is beautifully hand made by Goosedesigns on Etsy.

We love the Dwell Studio Zebra Sky Paper Mache Head and knew it was a must in the room upon discovering it!

Also on the walls - we plan to hang a floating shelf for books and trinkets and this Inaluxe print we've had our eye on. 

Looking forward to putting it all together!

The Next Big Thing

We have started a new project this winter - a nursery - as we are expecting a baby boy this June! Because this may have been a bit of a surprise (blessing) for us, we don't exactly have our two extra bedrooms renovated yet. Thank goodness for this whole 'months of time to prepare' thing because we definitely need it! We currently have the future nursery and office/guest room gutted and we are in heavy brainstorming mode. We love this time of planning and designing and it feels so good to be working as a team again on an interior project at our house. 

Current state of the nursery:

Current state of the office/guest room:

The colors for the nursery are going to be emerald and aqua, which I am very excited about. I have loved this pairing for a while so I was excited to see the Pantone color of the year for 2013 is emerald. Let the designing begin!

Covered From Every Angle

The time has come. We can officially claim that we are finished with our biggest undertaking yet: residing the house. Of course this also turned into rebuilding part of the foundation, replacing much of the sheathing, replacing windows and doors, and enclosing the front porch for a larger front entry way. Since we have previously posted about much of these grueling details (here, here, here, here and here), this post will mostly contain a photo recap of our journey.

Here is the state of the exterior upon move in.

We started removing siding on the south side of the house, where we quickly realized foundation would need rebuilt and much of the sheathing was rotted and in need of replacement. Thankfully, this was the only side with foundation problems, but the rotten sheathing continued around the house.

We did find a couple cool things hidden under the siding:

And some not-so-cool things (lots of bugs):

After rotten wood was replaced and old windows and doors were removed, it was time for the Tyvek and the installation of new windows and doors.

Then came the realization that this would be the ideal time to enclose our front porch, AKA build an unplanned addition in the middle of a huge unfinished project. The new design also gave us the opportunity to add a first-story corner roof, which adds some dimension and interest to our box shaped house. 

Finally, we were ready to begin siding.

This opportunity to learn and design while restoring life to our home was fun but challenging, and we are excited to move on to other (smaller!) aspects of our renovation. Next spring we plan to continue dressing up the exterior with improved landscaping and by painting the back half of the house where we've chosen to preserve the original siding.

This winter we move inside for a new project, so stay tuned...

Enjoy the holidays!