DC Birth Photographer | Documentary Lifestyle Photography in DC, Maryland, and Northern Virginia

I never thought I’d be one to “nest.” Let’s face it, I usually don’t mind a little dust here and there, and I sometimes let things get a bit disorganized (like my dresser!). So imagine my surprise last week when I got up at 6am to do laundry. Yes, laundry. At six in the morning. And now I’ve become paranoid about keeping things cleaned. All this to say, I haven’t been giving much attention to my poor blog these past couple of weeks. Because really, those dirty towels and sheets are much more pressing right now than a blog post.

But, I did promise I’d show photos of the baby nursery, and I finally feel finished with it. So, today I thought I’d share what’s been an on-going project for Jay and me these last couple of months. Before we started it, I knew I didn’t want a “pink, girly” nursery–even though we are expecting a girl. In fact, I agonized over the color choices for several weeks–literally crying and having a breakdown at one moment. I’m blaming that on the hormones. The one thing I did know was that I wanted to incorporate a favorite horse painting into the room. It ended up becoming the inspiration behind the purple color, and with a little help from pinterest and blogs, the rest fell into place.

So here it is, a not-too-girly purple and green nursery with a horses and books theme.

The cute, gray rocking chair is my absolute favorite chair in the whole house. After realizing a lot of standard rockers simply would not fit in the room (or up the stairs!), I found this perfect modern piece from Monte design.

The green dresser/changing table is a DIY project that I’m very proud of Jay for doing. We literally found this old, brown dresser on the side of the road in Pittsburgh a year or so ago and carried it down to our apartment. It sat around in our entryway until we moved here, and then I got the idea to use it as a changing table. With a little elbow grease from Jay–read: sanding, priming, and painting–it matches perfectly with the green accent and is just the right size for the room.

I wanted something to break up the purple in the room, and the wall stenciling idea was a blog find. It actually didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would to paint–just about four hours total. If you’re wondering where I got the stencil, I found it here.

The bookshelves were another blog inspiration. They’re actually IKEA spice racks that I painstakingly spray-painted white. The spray-paint gave a smooth finish, but for time’s sake, I think I would just use paint and a paintbrush if I was doing it again.

Finally, another IKEA find were these hanging soft baskets. I wanted everything to be within hand’s reach for changing the baby, and these fit the bill.