The Princess Sleeps Here

As I was playing with my daughter in her nursery this evening, I began thinking about our past nurseries. When we had our first two sons, we were living in a house that had the master and another bedroom downstairs with three more up. That downstairs bedroom was the ideal nursery. It had its own full bath and was close to everything. When I was pregnant, my husband dutifully painted the walls, built custom shelves over the windows, and even helped me pick out the furniture and bedding. We knew we would keep this particular room as the official nursery and move the oldest child upstairs once we had our second (and, according to my husband, final) baby. Since we had decided never to find out the gender of our babies during the ultrasounds and had wanted to decorate one nursery, we knew it had to be gender neutral and classic. We selected antique teddy bears with the colors of sage green, country blue, pale yellow, and rose. The bedding looked like a patchwork quilt, and it was perfect!

We used it for our first two children before having to relocate to another city. With our second child only six months old, we tried to duplicate the nursery in our new house, which had all the children's bedrooms upstairs. We selected the smallest bedroom that was just at the top of the stairs for the nursery and began painting the walls and rebuilding the shelves. We avoided painting stripes because the walls sloped up on two sides, and we didn't want to draw attention to that architectural detail. This nursery served babies #2 and #3. When our third (and, according to my husband, final) baby was almost three, we were relocated once again. This current house also had all three children's bedrooms upstairs, but we didn't need a nursery. With the youngest two happily sharing a bedroom, we decorated a guest bedroom instead. 

Then, we got an exciting surprise... we needed a nursery again! This time, I simply couldn't wait until delivery to find out if we were having another boy, so I convinced hubby to find out. When we learned we were having a girl, I was tempted to start fresh with the nursery instead of pulling out that quilt and all those teddy bears from the attic. My husband insisted we keep the "family nursery" decor even after a friend offered me her daughter's adorably pink bedding. I finally agreed but decided it needing a little "girling up." 

We found some coordinating fabric at JoAnn's, and my mom and my aunt agreed to sew a new crib skirt and window treatments for the nursery. Meanwhile, we hung the shelf I had made for nursery #2 and gathered the rest of the supplies. Thankfully, even though we had decided not to have any more children, we had never parted with the glider, crib, or decor.

I couldn't convince my hubby to paint this nursery. I guess since he had only planned on one nursery for two babies, I was pushing my limits on nursery #3 for baby #4, but it wasn't my fault we kept moving, and I'm only half to blame for the babies, right? 

To spruce up the neutral walls, I decided to create some artwork with my boys. We bought acrylic paint in those same four shades from their nurseries and four 9x9 pieces of canvas. I set out some paintbrushes and sponges along with the required newspaper, cups of water, and roll of paper towels that are necessary when young boys are going to paint. I asked each boy to paint a picture for their baby sister's nursery. With some guidance, each of my boys decorated a cute picture and signed it. I finished out the set before hanging them over her chest of drawers as a reminder of how loved she's been since even before she was born. 

Of course, we also bought some decor, such as cute paintings and wooden letters that spell out her name, but my favorites are the homemade ones because they will always remind her of just how special she is.    

You can find me at these parties!