A Little DIY in the Nursery (Just a Little)
Our nursery is only an 11' x 11' space, which seems big, until you try to fit two cribs, a rocker, a glider, a side table, a changing table and another small dresser in there. Then you start to scratch your head and wonder when the room became so small. Here's a rough sketch of the nursery's layout.
Joe's mom generously gave us the rocker she used for him when he was a baby. He was born in Germany (his dad is in the Army) and the rocker was made in Yugoslavia, making it a true antique since the country no longer exists! With two babies, we were glad to have two chairs. Although, I think even with one baby, it's nice for mommies and daddies to be able to sit together in a nursery!
On a recent trip to Ikea I spotted the little Rast bedside table. For $29, I decided the risk would be worth the reward and took it home with me. You should have seen short little me with a big ole belly trying to get this thing off of a middle shelf in the "self-serve" area of Ikea. Took me nearly 40 minutes to get it down. Not a single person offered to help! Not sure if that's a Jersey thing or a WTF is wrong with people thing, but I digress...
As it turns out, Mr. Rast was the perfect little table/dresser to put next to Joe's rocker. And we ended up with a lot more storage as a result. Win-win. We had some leftover paint from when we redid our baseboards and trim, and we were super lucky because the paint just so happened to be a dead-on match for our crib. Talk about consistency. So Mr. Rast got a fresh coat of Benjamin Moore's Seashell and a top coat of Minwax's Water-Based Poly (which is pretty much the only poly that won't turn your whites into yellows!)
I must say this little $29 find is looking pretty sharp all dressed up and shiny! I wanted to find some fun knobs and happened upon these from Anthro, which I thought would be a fun play off of the fabric I used on the crib skirt. But at $8 a pop (times six knobs) the hardware would have cost more than the dresser itself.
So I decided to get creative and replicate the knobs on my own. I painted the Rast's original wood knobs in BM Seashell. And today I ordered a sample jar of Serena and Lily's "punch" paint for $6. As soon as it comes in, I'll hand paint punch polka dots on the seashell knobs and then throw a coat of poly over them.
If you know me, you know I absolutely abhor DIY projects, so hopefully this is as easy as it sounds and it comes out cute. I'd much rather spend $6 than $48. But I've been known to throw around the idea of "what's my time worth" when justifying irrational purchases to the husband. Wish me luck! I hope to have all the furniture in and done this week so I can focus on fun things like art and accessories!
