Baby Girl Nursery

If only I'd taken some "before" photos. This room, formerly the home office/guest room, was a masculine mossy green. Aside from a light and crisp guest bed, it was otherwise filled with man-ish black office furniture including a big L-shaped desk, file cabinets (which now live here), and a big hand-me-down bookcase from my husband's childhood room. There were lots of fun family photos in black frames, and some random decorative odds and ends that hadn't found a home in any of our main rooms.

I loved putting together my first baby's gender-neutral nursery, with it's pretty green and muted turquoise hues, and have since loved gradually turning it into a big-boy room with crisp striped sheeting and toddler-made canvas paintings on the walls. But the creative process of piecing together a baby girl nursery has been a completely different kind of fun since we know the baby's gender this time around. This time, I knew I wanted something with a neutral backdrop (since the room has to occasionally double as a guest room) and pops of bright color, and I wanted an unexpected color combination. After lots of inspiration-gathering on design blogs and here on Pinterest, I settled on a gray and white palette (walls: Benjamin Moore's Wickham Gray) with accents of warm coral-y pink, yellow, and orange.

With some budget-saving strategies like reusing our beautiful espresso, modern-lined crib from the first time around (lovingly repainted a crisp white by my husband who insisted I not be exposed to the aerosol fumes while pregnant!), not buying a girlie bedding "set" when I don't typically use the bumper pad or quilt (and instead buying only crib sheets and using color and pattern elsewhere in the room), re-using existing guest bed linens (proof that you can never go wrong investing in versatile white or ivory sheets and quilts!), buying budget-friendly furniture from Ikea and Target, getting decorative items like lamps and picture frames on clearance, DIY art projects for the walls (inspired by this), one-of-kind but affordable art from Etsy (here and here) and maximizing space in the small closet with do-it-yourself shelving, we filled an empty room and efficiently organized a small space.

All that remains are some new photos to hang on the walls after the little one arrives, and at some point an area rug and some small toy storage at the foot of the crib. With everything washed, hung, and organized, now we wait! Two weeks to go.