Good morning and happy Friday! After finishing a few projects this week, the nursery is officially ready to welcome the baby, whenever he deigns to appear. I should note that I'm only 39 weeks today - I'm just very impatient for this one's debut. But let's not talk about labor, let's talk about the labor of love that was this little room. First, lemme throw a bunch of pictures at ya.

A small pegboard at the changing station holds diapers, burp cloths, bibs, pacifiers, and cute stuff, like a wee pair of kicks and his big sister's first super hero cape.

Leaning bookshelves store a LOT of stuff without being too visually heavy. The green-framed art at the top right is Lou's drawing of the baby.

The sweet sleeping Wild Thing is one of my favorite images from a favorite book, so I cut out and framed it from the book jacket.

If you're just joining us, the nursery used to be our office, which you can check out here. Now, it's primarily a guest room and storage area and place to change diapers, as the baby will be in our room for the first phase of things. But, if I do say so myself, it sure is a cute storage area. My goals for this room were to:

1. Find a place for everything. And there was a lot of everything. We had so much stuff left from Lou that this boy has no shortage of toys and clothes and stuuuuuuffff for the next year.

2. Have a calming space that was nonetheless fun and playful.

3. Without going too theme-y, incorporate all the animalia I've gathered for this space.

4. Keep the layout so that it functioned as a guest room. This did mean that the crib and dresser could really only go in one place each, but we made our peace with that early on.

So, I love this room. I think it's such a nice place to hang out. It doesn't feel overly decked out or crazy, and it does feel organized. It also feels real, like a place where actual poop will be cleaned up, which in my world is a good thing. Of course, there was lots of reusing and repurposing and DIYing to make this all come together.

The furniture was all ours - the dresser used to be our kitchen island, the crib was Lou's, the pullout couch dates back to our DC apartment 5 years ago, and the white shelves held all our craft supplies and work files before we shoved them in a closet. The rug and pouf (which used to be yellow chevron) used to live in our family room, while the pegboard served our entryway; even the crib skirt is enjoying a second life from its previous iteration as Lou's valance.

DIY-wise, I created faux wallpaper, painted the toy shelf (that's actually a component of Lou's expandable bed), made the crib skirt, rigged up the swinging zebra and framed some art, including the book jacket from Where the Wild Things Are. In the sort of DIY-esque vein, I also have plans to recover the pouf - right now it's just draped with the rag rugs I plan to use - and I am using striped dish towels as changing pad covers. The black and white striped star, which I totally love, is a cheap silver star (maybe tin?) that I picked up at the Christmas Tree Shoppe years ago and glued some black and white wrapping paper to it. (Though I've never been to a Hobby Lobby, I imagine the Christmas Tree Shoppe is the North's answer to it: tchotchke heaven plus random crap for cheap. I don't know about their politics). Not pictured, I also made a couple storage boxes with pretty paper and some drawer pulls, and created drawer liner and dividers for all the tiny clothes. I'll do a DIY post of all the wee projects, but that's the summary.

Then there were some new acquisitions. A bunch of things come from our trip to Colombia, including the pillow in the crib and the arrow-themed one on the couch, the two animal masks above the pegboard and the "Yay, You're Here!" art, which was actually the sweet note the bride and groom included in our welcome bags when we got to Colombia.

I mean, how sweet is that sentiment for a nursery? It, and the other Colombia goodies, ended up being the driving force behind the direction of this room. I found the star lamp at Goodwill and topped it with a Target shade, and picked up new crib sheets at Burlington Coat Factory and on Amazon. I also sourced a couple storage bins from Burlington, and a couple little things from Ikea. If you're ever curious about where something came from, just shoot me a note and I'll let you know.

I took a look at my nursery inspiration board and updates/to do list, and, well, I think I nailed it. I changed my mind about making new pillows and installing hanging clothes storage, but everything else got done and I really just love the result. I hope my sister does too - she's currently the focus of all the staring animals in here.

That's the story, morning glories! Hope you enjoyed the photos, and we'll see you Monday (barring some big arrivals, of course).