Since this post is long, I thought a gratuitous princess shot might be in order to lure you in.
Now… I was thrilled that this week’s “Show Us Where You Live” was a children’s room edition. Ella’s room is still my favorite room in the house and I’d spend time in there over any other room, hands down. Little has changed in this room since Ella was a tiny baby. We’ve replaced the iron crib with a big girl bed, we ditched the changing table in favor of a kitchen, and we’ve added drapes to keep this little one from daydreaming instead of napping.
My love affair with decorating started early and the fact that my mom should take over for Martha Stewart only helps those efforts tremendously. She and I worked hard the last half of my pregnancy to make the nursery of my dreams. My regular visitors have caught glimpses along the way, but this is the first full reveal. Sad right?When I first found out I was pregnant and began to entertain thoughts of nurseries, I knew that I wanted it to be modern. For a girl, I had no intention of using pink. At all. Then I found out we were having an Ella. I went all pink and toile and about as far from modern as you can get. Those hormones really do a number on you!
This is Ella’s princess bed. I loved the upholstered beds in PBK, especially the linen striped one, but since I spent so much on the crib, I wanted a beautiful bed for a bargain. Enter Gran & Poppy. Poppy is a master carpenter {you’ll see more on that in a minute} and he whipped this little platform bed up in a weekend and my crafty mom covered it with pink and white ticking fabric and my lovely friend Ellen monogrammed it for me. It turned out exactly as I had imagined. Just before I ordered a pink and white striped quilt from PBK, I ran in Homegoods and found this one for $29. Score! I could live without the netting, but Ella fell in love with it and it does make her bed more “princessy”. Anything I can do to keep from having Cinderella sheets is fine with me!
This is Ella’s favorite part of the room, her kitchen. The kitchen itself was from Santa, the table was an antique store find, the dark highchair was mine as a child and the green one was a gift from my aunt. We recently added the chandelier to make it look more like a “room.”
These are a feat of masterful carpentry. Like I mentioned last Friday, my house has no storage. The only closet in this room is a mere 18 inches deep and we both know babies and toddlers come with lots of gear. Poppy added these built-ins and made them the same depth as the existing closet for a wall of storage.
The left half contains clothes, shoes and linens and you’ll notice the missing doors from the entertainment center I mentioned in my living room post. We hinged them, added toile fabric to the glass and voila, a working wardrobe!
The right half is a bookcase holding girly trinkets, dolls, baby books and blankets. The framed pieces are antique paper dolls my mom gave me long before I had a baby girl. The chair has been here since this was a nursery. We used to spend our nights rocking and singing here, now we read stories and put on our clothes from this perch. The table is from Walmart and the lamp is from Target with added ball fringe around the shade. My mom made the valances before Ella was born and I had white sheers behind them. I made the drapes before Christmas and added them for privacy and warmth in the winter, now we like them so much we haven’t made the switch back to sheers.
This is a bookcase I saw online, but I didn’t like the finishes. Instead, I had that crafty carpenter whip it up for her second Christmas. My mom made the pockets and I bought the baskets at Homegoods. The shelf above displays my first shoes, my ballet slippers, her announcement photograph and the bonnet she wore home from the hospital.
This is a dollhouse bookcase that Poppy made for my little sister when we were young. I’m sure I’ll have to give it back once she starts making babies, but for now it holds the remainder of our toys and books. Below are three canvases I painted for her room and hung above her bed.
I hope you enjoyed the look around and that you’ll come back again soon!
