nursery series | inspiration

I didn't want to really start planning the nursery until after my first trimester. And considering how tired I was it wasn't all that hard to resist the urge to decorate. But I did know from the start a few key things:

1. The room shouldn't necessarily look like a "nursery". Knowing how much it can cost to redecorate a room from scratch, I wanted a room that would grow with our baby into childhood. This meant investing in furniture that would last and picking colors that were not all of the pastel variety. It also meant nothing very cutesy. 
2. The base pieces and colors should be gender neutral. At the beginning of my pregnancy, we were unsure if we were going to find out the sex of the baby so not too boy and not too girl was important. Also because we are planning on having more than one child, I wanted the flexibility to switch rooms or even have them share.
3. There should be a designated spot for Mom and Dad. I wanted the baby's room to be a place where the whole family would be able to hang out i.e. a comfortable spot for both Jeff and I. In our case, the baby's room is quite large so we were able to keep a full size bed, get a comfortable chair and have a crib and dresser. We also wanted to keep the option of the baby's room transitioning to a second guest bedroom.
4. Maximizing storage is key. When we were first planning the nursery, we didn't know we would be creating a playroom on the first floor (more on this later). So I figured the bedroom would be where we would need to keep the majority of all the baby's stuff. And it seems even if you try to do it as simply as possible, babies come with a lot of things. I also didn't want our whole house to become over run with baby/kid things so having "put away spaces" was important to me. 

In addition to forming my general design criteria, I also just looked for images of nurseries/kids rooms I really liked. Favorites included...

via Lonny | THE PLACE HOME

home of Molly Sims via Pop Sugar | THE PLACE HOME

home of Lulu DK via Lonny | THE PLACE HOME

by Animal Print Shop via Lonny | THE PLACE HOME

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