Nursery Rhyme Baby Room

by Kristine
(Rhode Island)

I initially wanted something gender neutral as we were not going to find out the sex of the baby, so I decided on nursery rhymes. I then looked through nursery rhyme books to get ideas of my favorite nursery rhymes.

The room was intially a guest room, and I had already painted it in a sherwin williams yellow. Yellow is my favorite color and just happens to be gender neutral--so it was perfect.

Our crib, as pictured, was a Jardine from Babies R Us. It was recalled so we replaced it with a Graco Lauren.

We did not want to get the matching furniture for the crib or any baby furniture from babies r us or similar type baby stores, simply because we didn't want the hassle of putting it together. So we decided to look at children's furniture at various furniture stores. I saw a dresser and chest of drawers advertised at Raymour and Flanigan with the different colored drawers. I loved it, but it was a bit out of our price range, so I checked at a local furniture store--Cardis-- and they had a very similar set for about $700 for both the dresser and chest of drawers. I loved that you can change out the panels to have different colored drawers or keep it all white.

I decided on a dresser vs a changing table as I thought it would be more practical for future use. Plus, the dresser is longer than a changing table, so I would be able to use it even when the baby got older. And, I preferred the drawers for closed storage. Most importantly, it makes it so easy to change and dress the baby when her clothes are right there--no having to step away from the table.

I looked and looked for nursery rhyme bedding, but could not find anything that I liked in my price range. The bedding I chose is from the George line at Walmart. Since I was not ever going to use the quilt in the bed, and was only going to use the bumper for a short time (both due to safety issues), the bedding was not important to me except to have sheets and a dust ruffle that I liked. I thought the blue was very cheery, it was gender neutral, and inexpensive.

I got several of the sheets that matched and then layered at least 3 sheets with mattress pads, so sheet changes in the middle of the night were easy.

I also got the matching blankets and used them for a topping for the bookshelf.

I found my curtains and sheers at target. I wanted the nursery rhyme theme to be inclusive, so I liked the stars for twinkle twinkle little star.



I ordered the wonderful wallpaper mural of the cow jumping over the moon from an online wallpaper store. I just thumbtacked it up and then nailed molding around it as a frame. I didn't actually paste it up as I didn't want the hassle of scraping it off when the baby was older.

Above the changing table, I used foam mat letters that I found at target. The infantino lion mobile over the changing table didn't exactly go with the rest of the nursery, but it got rave reviews, and my baby loves it!!



I love the eclectic humpty dumpty wall canvas, and I found that on ebay.

The rocking cow and all the little knick knack type nursery rhyme items on the chest of drawers were also ebay finds.

We ended up finding out that we were having a girl shortly before delivery, so I added pink accents in the baskets and the rugs. The rugs were purchased from walmart.

We have plenty of storage for clothes, diapering needs, sheets, etc in the dresser and chest of drawers. For toys, we used an old tv stand, that I painted white. Additionally, we have an ottoman that has storage, and multiple baskets.

It took a while to tie everything together, because initially I was trying to be gender neutral. It was so much easier once I found out I was having a girl.

I was very paranoid about having anything above the baby that could possibly be pulled down and/or heavy. That made it difficult to figure out what to do for decorations for above the crib and changing table.

I did the entire nursery on my own. I was about 8 months pregnant when I was hanging the lion mobile above the dresser. I decided to lay on the dresser to figure out how far from the wall to hang the mobile (to ensure that the baby would be able to see in the mirror on the under side of the mobile). I was then stuck lying on top of the dresser as I was too big to pull myself up, and there was no room to roll myself over. I had to lie there for about 20 minutes waiting for my husband to get home. That was the highlight of all the decorating craze!

I love how the nursery all came together with items from so many different places. I really like all the cows--the big stuffed cow, the rocking cow, and the wallpaper mural.

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If you want to create a nursery rhyme baby nursery, check out ababy.com's Nursery Rhymes theme section - you get 10% discount if you buy any three or more items from the same theme!

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