When the hubby and I moved in together, our furniture was a mishmash hybrid of what I brought with me from my apartment and what came with him from his parent’s house. We bought a few things new, like appliances and eventually a new couch and dining room set, but I definitely can’t say that our home follows any Pinterest-worthy aesthetics!
When I found out I was pregnant with Frankie, one of the things I was most excited for was decorating his nursery. This was my chance at a room with a clean slate! As we didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl, we went for a super neutral theme. I figure that this room will be the nursery for all of my future babies as well, so Frankie can help decorate his own room once he needs to move out to another one.
We didn’t want to spend crazy money on anything too fancy but we definitely wanted it to be cute and versatile. So we headed over to Ikea! 90% of the stuff in Frankie’s room is from Ikea and I’m absolutely loving it so far. We contemplated buying a more expensive convertible crib (that could turn into a big boy bed afterwards), but we already have a single bed and a couple of queen sized beds at home that we could eventually transition him to, so we went with something simple that didn’t convert. Ikea has some really adorable options, but we went with the SUNDVIK crib for $189. We knew we wanted a mainly ‘white’ room, so this matched perfectly for what we were going for and the hubby said it wasn’t difficult to assemble at all.
Next, we wanted a dresser. We didn’t want anything childish and we didn’t want anything with a built-in changing table because we knew that we wanted him to use this dresser later on as well. So, we decided on the HEMNES 8-drawer dresser in white. We actually already own this dresser for another bedroom in black, so we knew it was good quality and would get some good use out of it. For $299, we figured it was a good investment. This dresser is also the perfect hight to use as a changing table so we simply added a changing pad on top of it and voila! The only downside to this piece is that the hubby said that this one was definitely the trickiest piece to assemble!
The last piece of Ikea furniture we wanted to purchase was a bookshelf. To continue with the same style as the dresser, we chose the HEMNES bookshelf. Although this came in white as well, we loved the white and light brow stain version to make it a little different. This one seemed to be fairly easy to assemble and was only $190. We already had so many books for Little Frankie, so we couldn’t wait to get this set up and filled!
One of the most precious pieces in the room is the rocking chair. My dad bought this rocking chair for my mom when she was pregnant with me, so I asked her if I could have it for our nursery. She was so happy to be able to pass it on! It did have a pretty dated 90s jean-type material on it, so as part of my baby shower gift, she got it reupholstered for me in a beautiful cream colour. It’s a little creeky, but I love having a little part of my dad with me in Frankie’s room.
In terms of lighting, once again we got everything from IKEA. For the main light, we purchased the IKEA PS 2014 pendent lamp for $49.99. Above his crib, the hubby installed adorable star/moon/cloud lights which were about $19.99 each (we splurged on this a little since they all came out to about $120). I can’t seem to find the link for the moon and star but here’s the link for the UPPLYST led cloud wall lamp. They were all in boxes right next to each other in-store, so hopefully they are still available. Last but not least, we got the SOLBO owl table lamp for $19.99 which we put on top of his bookshelf.
Finally to pull everything together, we added a zebra-looking carpet to the room. Once again, this was an IKEA find called URSKOG low pile zebra stripped for $34.99. At first when we unwrapped it, we thought it was way too small but once the furniture was in, it was the perfect size!
All-in-all, the furniture for the room cost us just under $900 which isn’t bad considering we got such adorable pieces and most convertible cribs alone cost $400-600.
The finishing touch for the nursery? The hand-drawn animal pictures above the HEMNES dresser, drawn for Frankie from my best friend Kathy. I had seen similar prints online but having her hand-draw them was just so incredibly special.
If you have any other nursery-related questions, don’t be shy, simply add a comment/question below!