NURSERY MAKEOVER 🌿 | Earthy Tones & Vintage-Inspired DIY Woodland Nursery For Baby Boy

Our baby boy will be here before we know it, so today I want to share the process of transforming our spare room into a woodland national park inspired nursery. How else do you begin a home project but with a trip to the hardware store? So we set off to Home Depot to pick up the paint, trim, and other bits we need for the makeover. The room we're working with was very much a blank and so we needed some things to help make it special. We need a roller and then we're going with this paint. It's safe for me to use while pregnant. So we managed to get everything that we needed at Home Depot minus a few pieces of molding for the picture frame molding that we want to do in the nursery. So I'm going to head to Lowe's because I've heard that they often have a better selection of decorative molding pieces. So fingers crossed we can find what we're looking for there. It's like the right area. Way more options. This is pretty. I think this is the one that we want. So fortunately Lowe's came through for us. We were able to find exactly what we needed and when we got home it was time to begin on the nursery in earnest. So we began with measuring and cutting out the molding that we wanted to add to the nursery. Our vision was to create sort of a feature wall that the crib would go up against that was part molding and then part of beautiful wallpaper which I will show you in a bit. Then with everything measured we just removed the tape that we'd used in order to kind of get a sense for what it was going to look like and then began putting up the molding. The design that we went with was a pretty simple one. We just had one single piece of chair rail molding going across the top and then did picture frame molding underneath. Really the only tricky part was just making sure that all three of the boxes were evenly spaced across the wall. Once our frames were firmly secured in place we just went back in with a bit of wood filler filling in kind of the corners and where we'd put the nails just to give the project a overall more finished and completed look and then Christopher also caulked all of the seams. So the next day we let the caulk and wood filler we used dry overnight so now we're ready to sand it down and start painting. A little pro tip if you're ever painting something this green frog tape works so much better than regular painter's tape. Time to start painting we're using a zero valk paint from bear so safe to use during pregnancy and the color we decided to go with let's see if this will lift up is spanish sand it's like a beautiful warm creamy beige color. So I began just with doing the edging and painting the trim itself with a brush kind of going along the grain of the wood before later going in with a roller did two coats as well just to give it that smooth that very finished look but I really love how this spanish sand color just added so much warmth to the room it's kind of a light neutral beige but wait till you see it with the wallpaper I feel like the two colors together just absolutely pop. While we did want to leave the majority of this room white just because I love the brightness that it brings to the space I am really happy that we decided to add some amount of color and this project really did add just a lot of character that I feel like this room and also just this new build house had previously been missing and seeing how this came out I've been super inspired just to add more molding in other areas of the house. Always the most satisfying part oh that works so well look at that line crisp and it ended up taking a couple of weeks for our wallpaper to come in but really all ended up working out well because it just gave our paint extra time to dry and when the wallpaper did finally come in Krista was able to install it really seamlessly on the top half of that feature wall I love the kind of vintage and watercolor like effect of this wallpaper I feel like it really adds just a beautiful focal point to this room I think had we done the entire room in this wallpaper it probably would have been too much but applied on one wall it really is stunning and kind of helps set the tone for that woodland forest vibe that national park kind of aura that we're wanting to create in here so now that we've got the wallpaper done which I'm not sure if I've mentioned yet how much I love how it came out but now that we've got that done we can finally start building the furniture so today it's assembly day I want to make the crib then also if we have time for it the dresser we've got all the crib pieces here dressers over here so let's get to work this doesn't look too challenging for the furniture in the nursery I really wanted to go for a mixture of wood and other neutral tones just to provide some diversity and make everything not feel too matchy matchy but I've always loved mid-century style furniture silhouettes and warm mid-tones and so when I found this crib on Facebook marketplace it's originally from West Elm I knew that I had to have it the previous owners had taken great care of it it just needed a bit of a cleaning and it really is kind of the perfect feature furniture piece for the room then the dresser I did consider thrifting but wasn't able to find exactly what I was looking for secondhand so ended up instead going with this one from the brand Delta Children it's just a pretty clean modern looking dresser that I really liked the silhouette of and I thought that the size of it the six drawers that it have just be a really functional piece for the nursery that could really grow with our family well there we go this is looking good and once we decide on the dressers final position in the room we will secure it to the wall and there's one essential for the nursery apart from a crib it is blackout curtains to ensure that baby can get as much sleep as possible we didn't actually have curtains of any kind in here so I actually had Christopher install a curtain rod first and then found this really stunning deep green velvet curtain which really tied in some of the colors from the wallpaper so I just gave it a good ironing to get out some of the wrinkles and then hung it up and I really do feel like this is one of those perfect form meets function pieces where it is going to be so practical to have blackout curtains but they also look just so luxurious and beautiful at a far more affordable price than some of the others I was looking at then to take these to the next level as well as to add in another practical element I added in these beautiful curtain hold backs that have a floral like medallion to them and they do a great job of holding the curtains in place as well as adding a decorative element I'm a big believer in the power of lighting to absolutely transform a space so after years of putting up with what I like to call the boob light that we had in here decided to finally swap out this light fixture for one that felt far more fitting for a little baby boy's nursery I love the kind of organic shape and texture of this one it feels like it goes just so much better and for some storage as well as we wanted a bit of a display space we decided to add some floating shelves as well I got a pack of four and was trying to decide whether or not I preferred four or three ended up going with three and I like that decision but I thought that these ones are really cool they have kind of a scalloped edge to them which I feel like gives them the feeling of being a cloud in a way really fun and can't wait to style these up so for our next project today I want to get our gallery wall all hung up got some beautiful frames some fun prints a couple cute little art projects that we're working on I think all of this will really help us just to lean into the national parks theme that we're going for in here so what I want to do now is put some of these really beautiful prints of different national parks the vintage style paintings illustrations all of that want to put those into the frames and then we can get it all hung up I don't have the contents for all the frames ready quite yet I've got some ideas for some fun DIYs I want to do with a couple of them but I think it will be good to get their placement set on the wall and then when we're ready to do the DIY we can just take it down do that pop them back up the one thing I do want to do for safety though is to hang all of these without glass because I mean we've never had an issue with frames falling off of the wall in the past but in case something does happen want to make sure that there isn't the possibility for loose glass in the nursery then on top of removing the glass I just wanted to take the safety of this gallery wall one step further so I ended up deciding to double secure everything to the wall so Christopher started with screwing everything in and then I went in afterwards with command strips which just helped to keep everything straight also added an extra layer of security we also added this really sweet print of Yosemite in a thrifted frame to the other side of the wall to kind of go in that area where our rocking chair is going to be I love how this is just such an easy and I think very elevated way to bring in that national parks theme in the space at this point we had kind of the foundation of the room in place so it was time to move on to some of the smaller details that would provide additional functionality to the room as well as just really bring this space to life by adding in texture detail the first thing that I did was build this really beautiful floor lamp that I found even though we changed out the overhead light it still gets pretty dark in here and so wanted to have some side lighting as an option thought that this one was really really stunning and then I also wanted to add a rug in this space yes we have carpet which is comfortable but for me I love just the additional coziness as well as the color the pattern the texture that a rug really can provide and this one in particular just really tied in a lot of the colors the textures that we were using in the rest of the room then I turned my attention to our little bookshelf corner I added in this adorable little fox hamper and then began styling up the shelves of course center stage had to have a national parks book this is a really beautiful one I just paired it with a cute little snail I found a few other really sweet bedtime reads this little moss mushroom and then on the top shelf the babies aunt and uncle actually work in the tree planting industry and so as a little shower present they gave him this really cute little wood logging truck so I thought that that would be really fun to display on just the top shelf as well then continuing to add in textures too we added this moss wreath that I found at Ikea to the door of the room I feel like it's just so interesting looking and unique and kind of sets the tone that I want to create right as you walk through the door next to the dresser we added a diaper pail and then in this corner I really felt like it was missing something so I decided to add an accordion rack that we could use to store all of the carriers that we have for the baby so I just played around with this and tried to pick a position that felt natural on the wall then the next day I went in and added the ring slings all of the wraps and other bits that we'd been storing in the closet and then the one other touch I added to this corner was to put in a little woodland creatures themed mobile to really play up the romance of the space and to really personalize the space and just add a little handmade touch there were a number of DIYs I wanted to do this first one was a really simple one I just used a spare piece of craft fabric and then a butterfly that I found at the craft store and used it to create sort of a faux taxidermy butterfly situation that I added a really great textural element to the gallery wall and really tied in some of the colors that we were using throughout the rest of the gallery wall in the space oh and I also forgot to have Christopher hang up this national parks poster for me the other day so while I worked on some of these DIYs he hung this for me but then probably the DIY that I most wanted to do was to recreate this long live boyhood little banner that I found in several of the Pinterest inspiration images that I was looking at so I went to the fabric store and picked up a really nice green cotton fabric kind of cut it to the size that I wanted and then just used vinyl iron-on letters that I found off of Amazon to kind of create my design I used a level and ruler just to make sure that everything would be aligned properly and then just taped everything in place to hold the shape and then began ironing everything on of course you want to make sure to remove the tape before ironing each section but it helped keep everything else in place while I worked on kind of one batch of letters at a time these vinyl letters were really easy to work with and to use and so satisfying to take off as well I just kind of let that cool and settle overnight and then next morning I kind of refined the shape of the banner just a little bit then also to kind of take it to the next level I added in these brass rivets I just added a nice little textural detail and then also had the added bonus of giving me something to hang the banner by this ended up being a pretty easy project but I love how it came out then the final DIY I worked on really ended up being a labor of love I completed it over the course of several weeks but in collecting inspiration for the nursery I kept coming across this really cool pennant that I love the looks of however it was $72 and just with everything else that we're buying for the baby right now could not justify spending that kind of money on a pennant even though I'm sure the quality of it is incredible but I decided to try seeing if I could create something similar myself just using some felt from the fabric store and embroidery floss so kind of taking that original design as inspiration I hand cut and hand sewed everything modifying the design quite a bit just to make it a little bit easier for me a bit more simple but wait till you see how it came out in the final reveal it's definitely not quite up to with that $72 one however I am really proud of it and I think that it's just so much more meaningful to having something like that for the baby that is handmade by his mom well friends we have done it we've taken the blank canvas that was this space and transformed it into a beautiful nursery for baby boy and just in time too I'll be 39 weeks and full term tomorrow so without any further ado welcome to our completed nursery well welcome to the nursery walking in you're greeted by our beautiful moth wreath as well as this poster of the national parks and then stepping inside just to the right we have our little diaper station pretty simple but love how this came out so sweet love this little bear that we thrifted with the yellow bow that really ties in with the gallery wall right above it we also have a little lamp here love the woven detail on it really ties in with the rest of the space and the only other thing we have on here is a changing pad then above it we've got our gallery wall and I feel like this is just such a fun eclectic and kind of collected mix I love how it has a real mixture of little pieces that we've done ourselves different DIYs also incorporate a lot of different fun animals we have the butterfly the squirrel and I especially love this smoky the bear print and we also have just a couple images as well of the different national parks so right here we have I believe that is Bryce Canyon it's one of Christopher and I's favorites we've got I believe that's Glacier National Park up there and then this is a print from Sequoia National Park so really fun love how we're incorporating kind of some of those national park elements then just over here I've got a bit of an accordion rack that I'm using to store some of our carriers so right here I have our sully baby wrap got a ring sling I'm borrowing from a friend and then this little basket here where we actually used up our remaining two butterflies got some lavender in there smells amazing and let's just take a moment to appreciate this feature wall came out so well I love the wallpaper detailing molding that we did feel like it's just the right balance of really creating a focal point in this room without being overboard I do think that if we had wallpapered all of the walls it just would have felt really busy in here so I feel like this is a good balance got the crib right here little muslin sheet how sweet is this little mobile little fox the deer got the banner that we made and the color of this really does just coordinate and go so well with the wallpaper then over in this corner we've just got the little fox some blankets obviously when our baby goes to sleep in this crib we'll make sure that nothing is accessible to him we'll remove all of that but for now I think it's a sweet decorative detail then over here we just have our little fox hamper I think it's so sweet in that corner and then we have our floating shelves so we've got our little logging truck from his what is it his aunt and uncle I guess who work in the tree planting industry they give that to him I think that's going to be such a sweet gift for the baby then we just have a couple of books here this really fun little moss mushroom then this national parks book which I love this book Christopher and I flipped through it so fun and we also have just a little snail so that is the floating shelves and then of course we've got our beautiful curtains love just the color the texture the dimension that these really add to the space especially love the medallions we added such a sweet detail then over here we have another image of the national parks I believe that one is Yosemite in a very fun thrifted frame got a floor lamp for late night feedings and all of that again I think the woven detail on that is beautiful then we've just got our rocking chair little pillow for some extra support and a side table we've got the little illustrated Winnie the Pooh book here ultrasound picture and then I also added just a little cup with some lavender the final details we've got this beautiful rug which I love just the pattern the texture the dimension that that adds and then also our little ceiling light well I so hope that you enjoyed coming along for this makeover and tour and that if perhaps if you're in the midst of designing or getting inspiration for a nursery makeover of your own that this gives you some fun ideas I love how this space came out and honestly this room has gone from a space that I almost never came into to one that I'll just walk into throughout the day I'll sit on the chair it just is so much fun for me looking around getting excited and just dreaming about the future as always friends don't forget to give this video a like if you enjoyed it and subscribe if you haven't already and I will see you all in the next one bye