The Nursery!

At long last, and well before Little Sister is scheduled to make her appearance, her newly decorated bedroom is ready for her arrival! We put the finishing touches on the nursery today, and I'm so excited to share them with you!

In many ways, the nursery looks just like I'd imagined it. In others, it is quite different. I suppose this is like any large-scale project, isn't it? My original visions of lavender and pastel green turned into lavender and chartreuse. The plan for elephants everywhere became more of elephant accents. But I couldn't be more pleased with the way the room turned out.

The biggest thing we (and by we, I mean Jonathan) did this week was paint the walls. First went the lovely lavender of my daydreams - which these pictures do not do justice to, and then an ambitious striped pattern of a muted form of chartreuse. The taping for this was a beast.

Here's the room with all the furniture pushed to the middle to allow for painting (and a bonus for a nesting mom: I could vacuum under all the furniture!).

Today, we removed the tape, pushed the furniture back where it belonged, and had the fun of hanging pictures and accessorizing.

The futon (and this is where Grandma sleeps when she comes to visit), ended up in this room, so we tried to incorporate it with the rest of the room as much as possible. My original idea of some sort of elephant pillows turned into these green and white birds and vines. Not elephants, but I love them all the same!

The many elephant accessories are a collection of things from my own childhood, from Hannah's nursery, which was jungle themed, and from some general liking of elephants that Jonathan and share.

This mobile is something Jonathan and bought while traveling in Turkey before we were even married. To prove to you Jonathan's sentimentality, it was he who decided we should get this and put it away until such a time that we should need it. While not fancy, these little velvet elephants have a lot of charm. The hung over Hannah's changing table as well, and made diaper time fun.

Here's Jonathan's elephant mosaic in the foreground, and behind it, some carousel elephants from my past: a single elephant, and a small ceramic music box.

My grandmother was the original crafter, and this is one of the many, many things that she made. I don't know the technical terms for ceramic-making, but she had her own kiln, where she fired this. The animals turn round and round to the theme song from Sesame Street.

This wooden rocking elephant was a second-hand find of my mom's. It looks to be hand made, and is perfect for our elephant nursery.

The empty space above the crib is waiting the hanging of the baby's name banner. We even screwed in the hangers, hung the banner, and admired it for about twenty minutes before taking it back down and hiding in it its secret place. This will be the last detail added after Baby's name is revealed.