Featured Friend: Natalie’s Nursery

Remember back in January when I went down to New Orleans to surprise my girl Natalie along with four other of our friends and decorate her nursery and paint stripes on the wall except we wound up on Bourbon Street instead and didn’t get hardly anything finished in the nursery like we had planned so we left her to finish it up because we were all hungover from doing this until about 4 am?

From left to right: Natalie, Allison, Aly, Dusty, Kent, Me

Well, Natalie took everything we didn’t accomplish in that run-on sentence of a sloppy weekend and knocked this nursery outta the park. With style.

Today I’m featuring Nat’s incredibly mod nursery for her little guy who we hope will be electric sliding his way into the world any day now. COME ON BABY JOE!!! YOU CAN DOOOOO EEEETT!!! Boogie woogie, woogie, baby!

First off let me start with this adorable profile of Nat in front of the orange chevron curtains that our friend Kent made. Nat has been tracking her belly progress in silhouette these past few weeks. I love this idea.

I’m so in love with the way this nursery turned out. I have a crush on this whole room. It’s perfection, and 99% of the stuff in this room was DIYed by Natalie, her husband Joe or someone in our group of friends. There’s a whole lotta love in this room, people.

Check out this incredible mid-century modern thrift store dresser that Nat’s husband painted aqua blue for the nursery. This sucker is AWESOME!

Seriously, here is the “before” photo of the dresser. It had (has?) a bullet hole in it. No lie. It was like the 50 Cent of dressers. And it did not make a pretty before picture.

But with a little bit of aqua blue paint anything is possible, my friends!

Hanging on the wall above the dresser is the alphabet, with the “J” framed in the center to accentuate Joseph’s initial. I love this idea.

Our friend Allison made the letters. I’m pretty sure she bought the cardboard type letters at Hobby Lobby, then Mod-Podged cute scrapbook paper in chevron, stripes, plaids, polkadots, geometric patterns onto each one. Isn’t this a great way to make big impact on a big empty wall? And bonus! You can get your newborn hooked on phonics from Day 1.

Nat made this CUTE little bird baby mobile using tiny blue japanese lanterns and stuffed birds that she bought from etsy in coordinating aqua and orange fabrics. She strung them from a grapevine wreath and made the cute orange pom for some extra oomph. Adorable, right?

On the window wall, those orange chevron curtains take center stage.

Let me say that the ceilings in this room are super HIGH. They are somewhere around ten feet tall, so Nat had to order some serious yardage for the curtains. Kent brought her sewing machine down to make the curtains, but when she unrolled the fabric she discovered that the chevron pattern was running vertically instead of horizontally. It wasn’t a huge deal, because we all think they look super cute just like they are. Plus Nat’s husband kept asking why she was using the Whattaburger logo in their son’s bedroom, so turning the pattern vertically helped to cut down on the Whattaburgerness.

Over in the corner she framed some aqua, orange and brown prints of cars and another of the alphabet with some super cute bunting strung from each.

The dresser will also serve as a changing table, so Kent sewed this precious owl changing pad cover that matches perfectly.

Kent also made all of these pillow covers out of coordinating fabrics. (By the way–Natalie spraypainted an old black lamp a beautiful aqua color and it looks awesome on his dresser!)

I could squee with delight over how cute these pillows turned out!

So, so cute.

Our friend Aly who flew in from Orlando to surprise Nat that weekend made this precious orange/ blue /green/ cream and brown receiving blanket. This makes me so happy! It’s exactly like the ones that my mom used to crochet for me. I love this style of blanket.

So, let’s wrap up this delicious little modern nursery with the part that I helped make happen. Dusty, Allison, Aly, Nat and I spent a great many minutes making sure these stripes were just right. These stripes are also what inspired me to paint my own set of stripes in my house. I’m quickly becoming a stripe-aholic. The stripes look perfect and masculine along with the espresso colored wood of the crib and the geometric Dwell studio crib bedding. She got a STEAL of a deal on this bedding set. She lucked out and found the entire bedding set that retails for around $330.00 for just $45 in perfect condition on Craigslist. STEAL. And it looks perfect in his room.

Because the ceilings are so high it is tough to get a picture of the entire stripedy wall, so here is the top corner where Natalie hung paper orbs and japanese lanterns over the crib. I love the way this grouping turned out.

I’m so honored to have been a part of helping make this such a special room for Joseph to come home to. May that baby have many many hours of sleepy peace and quiet in the first year, and then lots of squealing, laughter and joy in the years after that. No crying allowed, ok, Joe?!! This room is WAY too happy to be crying in!

Good luck, Natalie! Thanks so much for letting me share your photos today. Love you girl.