When my husband and I found out that we were expecting our first baby, we were ecstatic. I have wanted to be a mom as long as I can remember and I was sooo excited to see my amazing husband become a dad. At first we thought FOR SURE it was a girl. Then we changed our minds and looked at all of our siblings (5 of them) who already have kids…all had girls first…so we thought to ourselves, “it HAS to be a boy! There’s no way we’d have a girl first!”
We were wrong. Turns out we were expecting a girl! I think my husband’s wallet started to hurt instantaneously, haha! Girl baby stuff is just so, so cute. Needless to say, we were both excited about having a daughter and I started pinning and saving inspiration photos for our little girl’s nursery right away.
In addition to pinning and saving photos, I had a family heirloom that I wanted to use in the baby’s nursery. Almost two years ago my sweet grandmother made the decision to move out of her home and downsize. She had a home full of furnishings which she so graciously gave to her family. One thing that caught my eye was the amazing neutral rug she had in her basement. She was so kind to offer it to us and we stored it prior to my pregnancy with my plan to use it for a nursery eventually 😉 The room was mostly inspired by this beautiful rug. I love how it has a Boho-Chic feel to it. I’ve found a similar rug that I will attach a link to below!
To be honest, I am not the biggest fan of pink or frilly things. I wanted to make her room as gender neutral as possible with just a few accents of girly in it. This was actually kind of hard to accomplish as so much of the baby market is full of lacy, pink, frilly decor for girl nurseries. Ryan and I both enjoy more modern styles and so we planned on doing something more modern and gender neutral for the baby’s nursery.
With this rug in hand and a preference for a more modern look, we finally decided to paint a dark navy accent wall with white on the other three walls. We chose a color palette full of neutrals but also some pops of hot pink/magenta. I simply couldn’t resist this pillow while perusing the aisles at Target! I loved how it added a fun boho feel to the room. I found a few more pillows that I liked at Last Chance (the Nordstrom Rack of Nordstrom Rack!) and Hobby Lobby. Since these pillows are no longer available, here are some alternatives:
My parents offered to purchase a rocker chair as a baby gift, which was very generous of them. We stopped by Pottery Barn kids and while trying out some rocking chairs we were also made aware that they were selling sales floor items for a discount. We fell in love instantly with the Babyletto Lolly 3-in-1 crib. It had the modern look we were wanting as well as neutral wood tones that would go so well with our design. Oh, and we also picked out THE most comfortable rocker/recliner at Pottery Barn too. You can click here to find it. Getting the discount by purchasing the sales floor items gave us a little more wiggle room in our budget.
As far as storage goes we wanted to find a mid century modern dresser that would add to the room. We scoured Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist until we came upon this dresser. We fell in love with the legs, hardware, as well as the overall design of the dresser drawers! We got it for a great deal, cleaned it up a bit and voila! we had the perfect dresser.
While designing Ava’s nursery one thing that was a must-do was to have her name centered over her crib. I realize this is a trend right now but I LOVE it. Plus, Ava’s name is so short I figured we could end up doing something really creative with it. My mom came into town a few weeks before Ava was born and we wandered around Hobby Lobby brainstorming out loud…we probably looked crazy, ha!
We finally settled on buying some 18 inch paper mache letters. I painted them white with acrylic paint and then used this AMAZING spray paint to give the letters a marbleized look. Her name turned out even better than I thought! I wanted to play into the Boho look a little more so we bought a garland as well as some fillers and flowers that matched the room’s palette. With floral wiring we filled in the garland with the fillers and flowers.
One thing I really liked about the paper mache letters (as opposed to some heavy wood sign or letters) is that they were super light and I wasn’t worried about them being knocked off the wall and landing on our sweet baby. We attached the letters using command strips (if you don’t know what these are you’re living under a rock! They are amazing!) and used some small nails with a gap between the head and the wall to hang the completed garland on. I LOVE how it turned out!
To finish out the decor in her room, we hung a mirror I had bought at Target years ago as well as some art work. We found some curtains with some pompoms that really added to the Boho feel of the room at Home Goods (that store is TROUBLE!) I also asked my husband to build some book shelves for her room and I made a DIY bow holder. I’ll work on some posts on those later!
Perhaps my favorite accent in Ava’s room is the stuffed llama head on the wall. While walking around Hobby Lobby my mom encouraged me to purchase it. I was kind of hesitant to do so since llamas are so trendy right now (who knows how long that will last?) but after considering we decided that Ava’s room needed a little bit of whimsical. Now I am so glad we got it! Ava LOVES looking at it. We talk each day about the llama’s eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. So fun. Here are some similar finds to what we used:
I really love how this room turned out. I posted some photos of it on my personal Instagram and tagged Pottery Barn Kids in the photos. I was so shocked and honored when they reached out to me and asked if they could use my photos for their own purposes. I’m not sure if they have or ever will use the photos but it felt great to be recognized for the design because I truly did put so much time and effort into it.
I hope you enjoyed the room tour of our little Ava’s nursery. It was so fun to bring her home to such a beautiful nursery and I love how all of the elements came together.
xoxo
Nicole
