Now that I am getting back into a routine after my long healing journey, I can start filling you guys in on our lives and what has been happening for the past 2 months. First off, let’s start with something fun….ALAYO’S ROOM!
My son’s nursery was a very personal experience for me because I believe it is important to surround yourself with positivity, goals and dreams. This played a big role in choosing a theme for his room and influenced the effort I was willing to put into a room for a baby who won’t really notice the little things but still remained important to me.
My husband and I took some time to think about the most important aspects of our lives and through this we came up with the theme for Alayo’s nursery: Faith, Education and Travel. We live by faith, we are both strong believers in education and we love to travel.
And so it begins…
The first thing we did after painting his room was choosing to paint his dresser. To do this, we used white wood paint and used the blue left over from painting his room. This specific blue was purchased from Home Depot’s Behr collection and it was the “Yucatan Blue”. The dresser is an IKEA original Hemnes Dresser. Here is the before and during picture:
How did we achieve this look? We started by sanding the dresser with sandpaper to give the paint a better hold against the silky smooth IKEA finish. Then we proceeded to paint the dresser with 3 coats of white wood paint, taking extra caution to make sure it was dry between coats. After the third and final coat of white paint had dried, we put some painter’s tape on the front of the dresser to outline the blue trim….and VOILA! We have a D.I.Y dresser for our son’s room.
On top of his dresser, we have the changing pad. This changing pad is a Keekaroo Peanut Changer in black. I absolutely love this changer and I’m so happy that I spent the extra dollars on this, definitely worth the money you save on laundry with a regular changer that has changing covers. This special changer makes clean up really easy by only requiring a wipe to get it clean for baby.
These quotes are my favourite part of our son’s room, not simply because I created most of them myself and spent weeks on it, but also because each one holds true to our dreams and thoughts for him. I created most of these through photoshop and others I found online through Pinterest. The ones that I created myself will be available for you to download for free here.
In accordance with the faith, education and travel theme, we also included a giant learning size map on his wall. This map was purchased through Etsy and we absolutely loved our decision. The grey and white chevron curtains pictured were purchased from Wayfair after a long and crazy search.
The educational posters which are reminiscent of a Kindergarten classroom were purchased from Scholar’s Choice and Amazon (Colours, Numbers, Alphabets). We look forward to using these to teach him as he gets older.
I love having his name on the wall, this serves three purposes. One, to know how to spell his full name; two, to see the beauty in his name all the time; three, when you have a unique name, it is hard to find things with your name on it so we don’t want him to feel left out of this hence why we personalized things with his name on them. The letters were purchased from Michaels (ArtMinds® White Wood Letter, 9″).
This is my favourite corner in his room. His learning book shelves. These shelves were purchased from IKEA as the Bekvam Spice Rack in natural wood. My husband and I then used some leftover paint and painted them grey and white. The grey used here is “Pencil Sketch” grey, also a Behr colour.
Here we have my son’s crib which is the Dream on Me Milano Crib purchased from Amazon. Inside the crib we have the Lifenest Topper with a fitted sheet also purchased through Amazon. This topper is recommended to help prevent flathead in babies but I find it to be a great way to add some extra height to his crib which helped me during my postpartum C-section recovery. The pillow in his crib was something I put together on Shutterfly, the back of the pillow says his name. The teddy bear is also a personal gift for him, I have had this teddy bear since I was a student, it was a gift to myself and I want to pass it down to him. I made it at Build-a-Bear and bought the outfit from there as well.
It is not recommended to put full bumpers on a baby’s crib so we opted for the mesh breathable bumper from Babies-R-Us. The bedding is from Babies R Us: American Baby Crib Skirt and Kushies Fitted Crib Sheet. His rug was purchased online as well.
I absolutely LOVE this light fixture! We searched high and low for a perfect light fixture for his room and we chose this from Home Depot.
When people told me to get a glider that I love, I didn’t want to believe them but I eventually listened and boy am I glad I did. My husband and I sit in this all the time and we have never had a single complaint about it. This is the Dutailier Ultramotion Glider, we opted to spend a bit more and get the one with the nursing ottoman and I think having that footrest option (which is the black lip you see in the picture, don’t worry it also tucks in) makes such a difference.
Does every nursery need a diaper pail? No. BUT if you are going to get one, I can’t say enough good things about the UBBI Diaper Pail. It’s great at containing smells, doesn’t require special bags and easy to open and close with one hand.
These bins are superb, mainly because they fit great in our bookcase and they are quite useful. What do we use them for? Laundry, blankets, toys, you get the point. I’m so glad I purchased these and they can be found at Babies R Us: Koala Baby Canvas Folding Bin.
Who needs closet baby organizers when you can buy hangars in different colours? I had planned on getting those closet tabs that indicate clothing sizes but I decided to go for colours instead, it’s way more fun! Blue for his NB sized clothes, Yellow for 0-3 months, White for 3-6 months etc… Try this and save some money.
We all know that babies have a lot of stuff and it’s important to keep things organized mainly because of how small these items can be. I decided to organize our drawers by using the IKEA Skubb Organizers. Some suggestions on what to put in these compartments are diapers, onesies, sleepers, socks, bibs, washcloths, pants,etc…
Well that about wraps up the detailed nursery tour. We put a lot of work into this room because we want the best for our son and we also want to enjoy this room as much as him.
If you have any questions or comments, let me know. I hope you guys like his room!! Thanks for reading.
