Our first baby's room!
Ideas for decorating and organizing for the newest member in your family.
If you just want to look at pretty pictures, scroll to the bottom!
OUR THOUGHT PROCESS
After taking in the excitement of knowing that our family was going to gain another member that WASN'T a furbaby, it was time to start thinking about the changes that need to take place before her arrival.
Ben and I may sometimes let the dishes pile up, let the hamper overflow, or vacuum less often than we should, but if you know us, we DO NOT like clutter.
He's a clean freak and I'm kind of an organizing freak, --"kind of" *wink*.
We're going to have a baby, and she's going to need STUFF.
A baby is a big change, but we knew there were things that we could do to not completely compromise our sanity or our bank accounts.
In our household (which will obviously be different than yours) we had top things to consider:
We need to keep the full-sized beds in each guest room to accommodate family and friends when they're over. This means talking about what furniture we really need and really don't need for the baby. For example, we didn't buy a diaper changing table or accept any that were offered because 1, there's no room, and 2, we can use a changing pad on any surface to change our baby.
DO NOT GO SHOPPING until after the baby shower (in our case 3). This way, we are only spending our money when getting the left over things that we ACTUALLY need for the baby (plus, you can use completion discounts on registries and make returns/exchanges for the items you need).
What do we ALREADY have that can be used for our baby. For example, we didn't buy new dressers. We had two 8 cube storage shelves (hefty ones from Costco). What can a brand new 3 drawer dresser hold that our 16 giant cubes can't? lol
Cribs are expensive, diaper changing tables are expensive, dressers are expensive, bassinets are expensive, high chairs are expensive, car seats and strollers are expensive. What are the big ticket items that people already claimed to get us, and what do we not even want people, or us, to even worry about getting? For example:
Crib - our awesome neighbors just GAVE us a convertible crib (that matches the cube shelves)
Diaper changing table - we'll survive without one
Dressers - using the cube shelves we already have (that match the crib)
Bassinet - registered for a pack n play that has a bassinet and diaper changing attachment (Thank you to my godfather for getting that)
High Chair - registered for a 7-in-1 (Thank you to my other godfather for getting that)
Car Seat & Stroller - we got a travel system for the deal, plus we don't have to buy attachments if they were different brands than each other (Thank you to our parents for getting that)
From there, we registered, rearranged, organized, and everything started falling into place!
DECORATING
Ben and I discussed before even doing anything with the room that we don't need a "theme". When she is old enough, she's going to have something she loves and we're probably going to deck out her room that way, which will change over the years as well.
It worked out nice because our walls are this nice tan color, the guest bed is a cream color with some mocha-whatever-you-want-to-call-it color. The cube shelves were that dark coffee brown and then the crib we were given matched it!
Because we wouldn't know the gender until Christmas which was the END of my 2nd trimester, we planned the showers to have a gender neutral theme (1st shower was gold with greenery, 2nd was Where the Wild Things Are, then we ended up having a 3rd shower after finding out the gender so it was all pink!).
Our plan was to use whatever decor at the showers, for the room! (Saving $$$ and utilizing what our generous family and friends already spent their hard earned money on).
FINALLY! PICTURES!
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When you first walk in, this is what you'd see. My massaging seat is on the slipper chair lol. Ben got it for my birthday from BB&B. You can get 10% cashback on it!
You'll see super cute ivy vines all over the room.
Ben's aunt had this fluffy pink rug inside the tee-pee at her WTWTA themed shower so we placed it at the foot of the bed. The blackout curtains and lamp are from Walmart (get up to 10% cashback + $10 for signing up! FREE $$$).
Treating the bed like a sofa when we don't have guests. Our friend got us the Eucalyptus Wall Vinyls off our Amazon registry.
I stored the bags of diapers we have under the mattress frame, and the BOXES of diapers are in the garage. The WTWTA frames are not canvas; it's paint on a solid block of wood!
On the left side of the crib, we have one of the cube shelves from Costco (get $3-6 off a membership) with decor, a humidifier/essential oil diffuser, and a video monitor up high.
Hanging on the left side of the crib is a diaper caddy for easy access.
On the right side of the crib we are currently storing the skeleton of our stroller (we removed the seat for now since the infant car seat clips in fine without it), a bouncer, the hamper, and the diaper genie (which we didn't register for, but were given, so we will see how we like it).
In the closet, we put the other cube shelf horizontally and are using it for clothes by size (one box is all shoes). On either side of the shelf (in the pits of the closet) we are storing the tee-pee, travel high chair, and other extras (toddler rail, pillows for the tee-pee, etc).
Up top, I placed things we won't use as often. I had these cube bins from the Dollar Tree and use them to hold things like extra parts or things we won't need unless we're on the road. The cardboard boxes at the end are filled with diapers (by size) that we already opened (diaper cakes, advice, etc. from the showers) so we plan to use those first.
On the hanging rack, we are only putting up the "fancy" clothes and the coats (I can't imagine hanging up every onesie or pair of pants). We got hanging dividers you can write on. It also is holding the diaper backpack and one of the boppy's. We also got these AWESOME hanging shelves from Target (WITH DRAWERS) for MORE storage. We have blankets scattered around the house, but have some in this closet. The shorter drawers are holding socks, mittens, pacifiers, accessories (headbands, hats, sunglasses), and sample sized things (near the diaper backpack for easy access when we travel).
Can't forget the bathroom! My bro/sis-in-law gave us this back-of-the-door rack 2 years ago, and we finally put it up (finally have a reason to).
Our guest bathroom is pretty empty so adding some baby stuff to it wasn't overwhelming (baby stuff in our master bath would be another story). Got this awesome elbow pad for bath time and a rinser!
We plan on doing EC with our baby and are storing her little potty under the sink!
Not pictured, we have a diaper caddy out in the living room, the swing, and the pack n play is in our bedroom. I plan to do a video tour that will include details about items we've chosen for our baby.
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