The "nesting" period: Preparing the nursery

My mom called me the other day to ask what I was doing on that particular sunny afternoon and I said, “Cleaning out closets,” to which she replied, “Again?!” I think it’s official: I’m in full-on nesting mode. It’s a phenomenon I read about but didn’t really understand until now.

For weeks I’ve been clearing out old clothes, purging my magazine collection, driving donations to Goodwill and basically organizing everything we own. Barry has been daddy nesting, too. He’s trying madly to finish all the construction projects we planned for our house when we bought it a year and a half ago. We’re almost at the end of the big jobs: Re-finished basement, new kitchen, and now, new floors downstairs and up. We just had the new floor installed upstairs last week, including in what will be the nursery. Which means… I finally get to start decorating!

Since I’ve actually been thinking about the look and feel of baby’s room for months (but holding off on purchasing anything due to the state of things in the house) I started a Pinterest board as a way of channeling inspiration and keeping track of all of my ideas.

We wallpapered the room with a birch forest print last year (in the hopes that it would be a nursery some day soon!). I knew that I wanted to make this a focal point of the décor. I’m calling it her “Enchanted Forest” so there will be lots of owls, deer and other woodland stuff. I love the look of vintage bookends and knick knacks (which are actually really inexpensive if you can score them in the country or at garage sales) mixed with distressed furniture and accents of grey and soft pink.

I think I have the look and feel covered, so now I need ideas for the big stuff. I’ve started looking at cribs but many of them are so expensive. If you have a crib or change table that you love, or ideas for other nursery essentials that you think I should consider, please share with me! By the way, does anyone have thoughts on open shelving? Barry and I took out the doors of the closet and were thinking of leaving the space open and maybe even tucking the dresser/change table in there with shelves over top. How much storage do we really need for her clothes in the early years?

Originally posted in August 2012.