The Penny Family: Luke's Nursery

For Luke's nursery I wanted to do something modern and up to date, which is totally out of my league, but with the help of my designer sister, Mary, and the encouragement I received I decided to go forth with it. I searched Pinterest before I found out what I was having and pinned a few things. I fell in love with more girl nurseries than boy nurseries, imagine that! I did find one boy nursery I could work with and kinda started leaning towards it if I was to have a boy. Well guess what, it turned out to be a boy and everything I kept finding on Pinterest that I liked kept falling into place. I looked to see if there was anything else I liked and nothing hit my hot spot. So we ended up going with what I found originally.

On Pinterest, I found a girl who had blogged about the nursery she did on www.projectnursery.com called Graham's Bright and Modern Nursery. She had used all kinds of things that I just loved and even modeled it after the book "Oh the Places You'll Go" by Dr Suess. Well Dr Suess books are a big thing in our house because Will absolutely LOVES to read them. Then I found Baby "T" nursery another project done on www.projectnursery.com that had very similar colors and design to it. So I put the two together and formed Luke's Nursery.

First of all we had to repaint the room because it was a bright yellow and I need a modern calm color. My talented sister, Mary, helped me pick out a good light, warm, and inviting gray color to use. We also painted Will's big boy room this color too. I found all the fabric at Premier Prints in Tupelo and put my momma to work on the bedding, pillows, and window seat. I used the same lady to do the pinch pleat curtains that did the curtains in Will's room. I decided to go out on a whim and get the crib Annie Chalk painted a white color because it was a dark wood and in order to make everything look right I need a white crib and I didn't want to buy one when I already had a crib. I ended up selling the changing table we used for Will's nursery to a local church to use in their nursery and replaced it with a dresser I found at The Mustard Seed in Oxford, MS to use as a dresser/changing table. I found a few items on The Mustard Seed's facebook page that I liked but ended up buying something totally different than what I went in for. When I saw this dresser, I literally fell in LOVE with it and Doug said he knew it was the "one" because of the way I lit up when I saw it. It's an off gray distressed dresser and absolutely beautiful and fits perfectly. I also picked up a few more items to use as accessories in the nursery such as a frame, an orange pillow, and a small side table to go by the rocker we had already.

It was going together perfectly. I was going to try and Annie Chalk paint the crib and rocker by myself but with a wild and crazy 3 year old it was impossible to do. So I called up The Farmhouse in Tupelo and found out that a good friend of mine, Lauren Barber, works there and does the Annie Chalk paint. Lauren was so good to work with me and my crazy undecisive self and recreate the perfect crib and rocker that turned out better than I could have imagined.

I found all the prints I was going to use off of Etsy. I purchased a window bench to store toys in from www.hayneedle.com. I got floating shelves to go above the dresser from Ikea and got the bookshelves from Wayfair. I spent hours searching for these items and I found exactly what I was looking for.

I was trying to decide what to do above the crib. So Doug and I brainstormed after seeing an idea on Pinterest from the two nurseries I was working from. One of the girls had bought a canvas print from Hobby Lobby to match perfectly with her bedding. So Doug and I got to thinking we could just make this and do something similar and personal for Luke. So we sent Will off to the grandparents for the weekend and we went to Hobby Lobby and stayed for about 2 hours trying to figure out what to do. Plus I wanted to make a custom door hanger for Luke too and we were working on that project too. Our idea came together perfectly and we created the perfect piece above Luke's crib with leftover fabric pieces, 8x10 canvas boards, a nail gun, and some wood. My friend Kim Leathers at Swirlz did the monogramming of his name. I am so proud to display this in his room because it is something personal and custom made by his mom and dad that no one else will have but him.

I found an idea on Etsy to do the door hanger followed by some of the words from the book "Oh the Places You'll Go" but never could find anyone to do the door hanger for me. So I brainstormed again and spent more time in Hobby Lobby trying to get the exact length and size as Will's door hanger. We covered it with fabric we had, found ribbon to go with it, found and painted the letters to spell Luke, placed a few animals on the board, and painted the canvas board at the bottom for my good friend Christy Whitley to write on when he's born. It is perfect and again handmade just for him from us!

The nursery turned out more than I could imagine it being. Doug's quote was "wow" and "I think I might need sunglasses on to come in here." Yes it is bright but so cheerful when you walk in. It literally brings a smile to my face every time I step in his room. Yes we spent way more money, time, effort, and planning on creating the perfect nursery than we ever did on Will's nursery. I guess things have changed but I was going to go ALL OUT on this one because yes it is the last one I will be doing for a child of mine. Unfortunately this shop is closing after Luke gets here.

So let's show this nursery off and add some pictures. Here you go! Enjoy!