Eloise's Room

It's been a while since I mentioned the Nook or even thought about it, but my friend Jen came across an article on Babble about "Making it Work With No Nursery" and our little Nook was not only featured, it was the feature photo! I can't help but feel proud that the Nook is an inspiration to others faced with small spaces and a baby on the way. Our successful closet conversion just goes to show that a little hard work and some outside-the-box thinking can make any space usable.

The Nook on Babble.

I posted photos of Eloise's room a while back, but since then I have added much more pink so I thought it fitting to do an update. Her bedroom is certainly larger than the Nook (which was literally 10 square feet!), but at 9 x 11' it definitely isn't a big space.

Eloise's room has pale, robin's egg blue walls and lots of airy touches that make it feminine and pretty. This Spring I made the bunting to give the room more colour and dressed up the mosquito net above her crib with lace. The 'Eloise' tutu wreath was a pinterest project from her birthday party and the artwork around the room is all made by me; a silhouette of Eloise at one year, a shadow box of one of her preemie sleepers, a watercolour from my university days and a french alphabet print created by framing a piece of wrapping paper from The Cross.

The only piece of new furniture in Eloise's room is her Alma Mini crib by Bloom. Everything else has been reused, repurposed or purchased second hand, proving that a beautiful nursery on a budget is not only possible but very pretty.

Eloise and the Amazing Technicolour Diaper Stash

Eloise has come a long way since her Nook. Our once four-and-a-half-pound peanut is growing bigger everyday, with four teeth, her daddy's curls and a spunky little personality to boot. She is not yet mobile but with all the gear, goodies and clothing that come with a growing baby, I am thankful that she has her own room in the new house. Actually, I don't know how well we would have managed in the condo now that we are clearly a family of two clothes horses!

Eloise's room is full of handmade projects and special items saved from my childhood. I made the butterfly mobile above her crib, the magenta paper pom poms in her reading corner and added battenburg lace and pom pom trim to gussy up a simple roller shade. The rocking horse and chair belonged to me and even the valance about the window is a holdover from my 'princess room' days.

On top of an extensive closetful of clothing and shoes, Eloise has the best, most colourful collection of diapers. Her 'Amazing Technicolor' diaper stash would put Joseph and his Dreamcoat to shame! We have a perfect dresser-turned-changetable to store her stash - a Craigslist find I lovingly refinished myself - which is also a place to keep sleepers, tops and bottoms close at hand. Eloise's bedroom closet has been usurped by my clothing (oops!), but one of the armoires we used in the condo is perfect for hanging Eloise's cute little dresses and storing her socks, shoes, hats, bibs and blankets.

It may be small, but Eloise's pretty room is my favourite in the house. It's been so fun to decorate and although it's currently 'done', I must say I've got a hankering for more pink...

Final Three!

There we are, lower left hand corner!

This morning I got an email from Ohdeedoh with the great news that Eloise's Nook has been selected as a top three finalist in the international division of their Smaller Cooler contest. This is so very exciting and I must say, I am feeling quite pleased with myself too!

If you have a moment, please, VOTE!

Presenting the Nook!

Before this whole flood nonsense, our intention was to live in our one bedroom apartment with Eloise for at least a year. We dreamt up the Nook as a way to give our baby her own space and spent countless hours getting every detail just right before she arrived.

The first step was converting our closet. We removed the closet doors, organizer and hanging rod and painted the trim Benjamin Moore's 'Designer's White' (my fav!). We primed the rear wall with sizing for wallpaper and painted the rest of the walls in the same colour as our bedroom - a crisp, ice blue called 'Seafoam' from Benjamin Moore. The wallpaper was installed by Chris and my mom in an evening and totally transformed the space.

A very different BEFORE and AFTER!

Eloise's crib, the Alma Urban Crib by Bloom, was a gift from Grandma and Grandpa and fits in the Nook perfectly. For storage we used an Ikea Lack shelving unit (which is now discontinued) filled with baskets made from recycled magazines and mini-compression rods that fit between the wall and the shelf for hanging clothing. The lamp in the Nook is something I'm pleased to say I made mostly myself. I purchased (on sale, thank you very much) a pack of Martha Stewart Crafts' white eyelet paper lanterns and outfitted the largest lantern with an Ikea cord set to create a pendant light. Chris hung the light from the ceiling and a few days later, mere hours before Eloise was born actually, I finished affixing the cord to the wall with cable clips. Phew! The Nook was finished just in time.

We are so pleased that our creative efforts paid off and can't wait to get back into our apartment so Eloise can enjoy her nook for at least a few more weeks before the big move. Then it's onto the new house and this time, baby girl gets an entire room!

Wall Decor

I love the whimsy that vintage wall art gives childrens' spaces but I cannot imagine putting holes in the freshly wallpapered walls of our Nook. We do have a teeny bit of space for art on the painted wall though, so Chris and I picked up three cheap and cheerful 4x6 frames from Ikea last week. But what should we fill them with?

I've been visiting Apartment Therapy's Ohdeedoh for inspiration as usual and their blog awards, "The Homies" (word), pointed me in the direction of multiple drool-worthy Kid Design blogs. One of my favourites from the pack is Modern Kiddo and their posts on vintage books got me thinking that framing the pages of a book may be the perfect solution to art for the Nook.

Richard Scarry books were a favoutite of mine and my brother's as a child, and how cute would this lively image look in a frame?

Or Madeline, the lovely book by Ludwig Bemelmans:

It may be a bit overdone, but I still love the look of Dick and Jane books: 

I think I've just inspired myself to take a wonder into the cavernous used bookstore across the street and maybe even surprise Chris with a finished project when he gets home from work!

Nook Progress

A very poor photo of our beautiful wallpaper!

Yesterday we put up the wallpaper in the Baby's Nook and it looks SO great! With my Mom's precise eye and Chris' steady hands they did a perfect job of installing the wallpaper in no more than an hour and our little Nook is really starting to take shape. I did my part by making snacks.

The next step is to select a pendant lamp to provide diffused light in the space (perhaps a collection of round, rice paper lanterns in white?) and figure out how to add shelf dividers to our Ikea Lack bookshelf without having the thing fall apart on us. We've used two mini compression rods for hanging the baby's clothing and I found the coolest baskets a few weeks ago at Urban Barn that are made from recycled magazines for storing everything else.

A classic Ikea Lack will provide ample vertical storage.

How great are these baskets from Urban Barn?

I can't wait to show you the finished product!