Toddler Friendly Autumn Movie & TV Show Watch List

Happy Halloween weekend!!

Our first family “costume”—a quickly pulled together It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown inspired set.

With Halloween quickly approaching, I thought I’d share my toddler-friendly Autumn watch list!

We’ve been having fun re-connecting with old kiddie-movie classics this Halloween and even wore a Halloween movie-themed family costume.

If you’re interested, here are some fun movies, classic specials, and new TV shows to get you and your little one in a spooky spirit!

Best,

Julia

Building a Baby's Library

Besides getting the nursery ready, one of the other pregnancy activities I enjoyed was starting to build Charlie’s library! I love children’s literature—so much so that I have a degree in writing it! As a result, I’ve taken on this task as seriously as if I’ve been asked to take over the Library of Congress.

I decided to write down my process and priorities, as well as leaving a few book recommendations at the end of the post! Hopefully this will help you build an amazing library for your Little One too, or just inspire you to pick up a picture book or two!

Storage & Display


One of my first library building priorities was actually finding a place for the books. This obviously includes bookshelves, but just as importantly—if not more importantly—a place to display and highlight certain books.

Until babies can no longer be considered babies, books’ primary attractions are their illustrations. But picture books are thin, and when they’re crammed on a bookshelf, there’s little that draws your eye to any of them, especially when you can’t read the title on the spine!

This is why I think picture book shelves are an essential piece of a baby’s library. There are a couple of options for picture book shelves: floating ledges and specific picture book bookcases.

I already had plans for a larger bookcase in my nursery, and didn’t want to take up more valuable floorspace, so I opted for floating shelves. Mine are hung up with command strips, so I didn’t even have to nail into the wall to install them.

Picture book shelves allow space for children to see the illustrations on whatever books you’re choosing to highlight at the moment, which will hopefully help the books grab your baby’s interest and make them easier to pick out for story time.

There are also tons of ideas for displays based around themes, like holidays, seasons, and events (like first days of school)! I plan on decorating and changing out my shelves based on the time of year, as someone who still loves to base my reading list on whatever season (of the year or of life) I’m currently celebrating.

Of course, even with picture book shelves, you’ll still want a place to store the books that aren’t currently being displayed. A popular item in a very small child’s nursery is cube storage, because they tend to be low to the ground and can be used for both toys and books.

Three-shelf bookcases are also a great option for children’s rooms—so long as they’re deep enough for picture books, which can be much wider than adult books!—as they’re a good height for children but also provide a lot of storage space.

Currently, I’m using a 4-cube organizer as well as a tall bookcase that we already owned (because I already have a large collection of children’s books and we’re still trying to figure out how we’re going to reorganize the rest of the books in our house). If you’re using a tall bookcase too, just remember to put books for a child’s current age and interest where they can easily reach them, so they can explore their library without your help—or climbing!

Collecting Books

Now that we’ve figured out where our books are going to go, it’s time to discuss what type of books we’re going to fill those places with. While I firmly believe anyone can enjoy any book, when building a library for a little one, picking a book for “the right age” takes more than just considering their reading comprehension level into account.

An Important Note

While talking about books to collect for little ones, I think one very important thing to note at the beginning, is that the people reading the books to the little ones need to also enjoy the books! If you hate Dr. Seuss—even if his books are cherished classic—don’t add those books to the library!

Adding books that will be a chore to read to you will make reading feel like a chore to a child too, and one of the most important tasks at this age is teaching children that books are fun and enjoyable—which is easiest done when you are having fun and enjoying the book yourself.

Sure, you may not like any book after reading it by request for the hundredth night in a row, but at least make sure you’ll like those first ten nights.

Board Books (Years 0-3)

Board books are books that are made from thick board instead of paper. They also tend to be smaller than picture books and adult books. These features make them small enough for a baby to hold and durable enough to withstand a baby’s less-than-delicate treatment of them.

1. I Like You More Than Ice Cream, 2. Goodnight Moon, 3. Where’s the Polar Bear, 4. Pat the Bunny, 5. Never Touch a Crocodile, and 6. C is for Camping

SENSORY BOOKS

The very first sense you’ll want to consider is an obvious one—sight! You can start reading to a baby as early as you’d like, and when they’re only a month or two old, colorful, high-contrast books will capture their attention.

Once a baby reaches three or four months, however, they’ll start reaching out to touch the pages. This is a great time to introduce a little one to “touch and feel” books. These are books with panels that include different textures, like velvet and rubber, usually related to the image on the page. Touch and feel books enrich the experience by engaging multiple senses at once, which not only makes reading a more fun activity, but helps develop a little one’s vocabulary and understanding of the words on the page. Other interactive sensory books can include scratch and sniff books, fabric books, lift-a-flap books, and finger puppet books; these are all great options for introducing a baby to a love of books and engaging them in reading.

1. The Pout-Pout Fish, 2. Llama Llama Red Pajama, 3. You’re My Little Cuddle Bug, 4. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, 5. Grab Your Pillow Armadillo, 6. The Going to Bed Book

AUDITORY EXPERIENCES

Another category of board books that help engage your baby in reading early on, are books that sound fun to listen to! This is a pretty broad category that includes books that focus on onomatopoeias, rhyming and repetition, and songs. These kinds of books help make the experience of being read to more engaging, and also help take the experience beyond pictures and vocabulary. Before understanding what any word means, a baby can still enjoy how they sound.

1. Z is for Zoo, 2. Anne of Green Gables: A Places Primer, 3. Touch! My Big Touch-And-Feel Word Book, 4. Paris: A Book of Shapes, 5. Duck and Goose: Colors!, 6. A is for Apple

VOCABULARY BUILDERS

Babies are learning machines, and their language development begins long before they can speak themselves. Early on, board books can help them build their vocabulary and word association: ABCs, counting, colors, animals, feelings, nature, food, shapes, etc. There are so many options out there for books like these, but I personally love the BabyLit “Primers” and the Hello, World travel series, because they’re a way to share my interests (literature and travel) with my little one while introducing them to basic words and concepts.

1. The Story of Ferdinand, 2. The Very Hungry Catepillar, 3. The Monster at the End of This Book, 4. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Bedtime Classics), 5. The Gruffalo, 6. Madeline

SIMPLE STORIES

Rounding out a board book collection are some of a little one’s very first “story” books—short picture books mainly in board book format so they can be one of the first stories a little one can hold in their hands, enjoy, and somehow cover in an unknown sticky substance. Juice? Apple sauce? Candy? They’ll never tell. The only priority in collecting these—prior to the little one expressing their own preferences—is picking out personal favorites that you can’t wait to share. Some of the picture books you read as a little one yourself may now come in a board book format.

Picture Books (Ages 3-6)

The problem with picture books is that there are so many and that too many are exceptionally great. Just to clarify, if it’s been awhile for any of you and “children’s book categories” isn’t your Jeopardy specialty. Picture books are thin, large books with illustrations on most pages. They tend to use the illustration and words in combination to tell a story and are often designed to be read aloud to a child who can’t yet read themselves and include language and stories a little more complicated than “early reader” or “I can read!” books. Of course, while picture books are usually targeted to children ages 3-6, they can be enjoyed by children of any age.

1. Green Eggs and Ham, 2. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, 3. Just For You, 4. Where the Wild Things Are, 5. Eloise, 6. The Tale of Peter Rabbit

BELOVED CLASSICS

The easiest place to start with a picture book collection is with beloved picture books from your own childhood, so that’s where I started with mine—books like Where the Wild Things Are, Dr. Seuss, The Berenstain Bears, Madeline, The Stinky Cheese Man... If you can’t quite recall what picture books you read as a little one, there’s list after list online to help jog your memory.

There are so many classic picture books, it’d be difficult to collect them all, so I’d recommend focusing on the ones you remember loving and would like to read again.

If you want to skip on a BIG classic—like if you hate Dr. Seuss—it might make you feel better to remember that you won’t be the only person exposing your little one to picture books, and there are ample opportunities for them to listen to, read, and enjoy those books with grandparents, babysitters, or at school or daycare. Eventually, you may have to add it to your home library as a result, but you don’t have to include it before your little one deems it necessary.

1. What’s Inside a Flower?, 2. A Ticket Around the World, 3. Claude Monet: He Saw the World in Brilliant Light, 4. The Story Orchestra: I Can Play, 5. National Parks of the U.S.A., 6. If You Had Your Birthday Party on the Moon

BOOKS TO SHARE INTERESTS & PASSIONS

My husband has played music his entire life. Our small home has a keyboard, piano, an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, and a ukulele. It’s one of his greatest passions and something he’s interested in sharing with our children.

As a result, while starting to build up our picture book collection, I made it a point to look into books about music. I found picture book biographies of musicians, picture books that introduced different musical genres (that play music!), picture books that illustrated songs, picture book introductions to orchestras, picture book retellings of operas and ballets (that play music!), and picture books about children discovering their love of music.

Obviously, the largest musical picture book collection in the world won’t guarantee that our child will develop a love of music or ever want to touch an instrument, but they are a great tool for my husband to use to share his passion for music with our children, and allow them to explore that interest for themselves. Maybe our child will never play the piano, but they may discover a love of Swan Lake after reading about it in a picture book or decide they want to experiment with makeup like Ziggy Stardust. As a parent, you can’t know or control what a child will be interested in, but you can do your best to expose them to your interests and expand their world.

1. Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, 2. Charlie & Mouse, 3. Watercress, 4. Leaf by Sandra Dieckmann, 5. I Want My Hat Back, 6. The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend

RECENT AWARD WINNERS

Amazing new picture books are being released constantly. A great way to get a pulse on the industry and make sure your home library isn’t missing out on some truly stellar works is to look through lists of award honorees and winners. One of the biggest awards for picture books is the Caldecott Medal, offered to the year’s “most distinguished American picture book for children.” You can browse through honorees and winners here. A few other good ones are the E.B. White Read-Aloud Award, the Kids’ Book Choice Awards, the World Illustration Awards, the Cybils Award, and the Theodor Seuss Geisel awards. Barnes & Noble has a great page for browsing the winners and finalists of a number of different awards. Full disclosure, I bought Knight Owl while writing this post after seeing it on one of the lists. It was too cute!

1. Happy Valentine’s Day Curious George, 2. The Little Rabbit, 3. Back to School Rules, 4. Sweep, 5. Arthur’s Halloween. 6. Pick a Pine Tree

SEASONAL & EVENT STORIES

As adults, I believe we use books more for exploring beyond the limits of our own lived experienced—romances and careers to daydream about, mysteries and murders we hope never to personally witness, time periods we’ve only learned the barest histories of, places we haven’t discovered for ourselves. Books often serve an entirely different purpose for children, however, especially the littlest ones; they’re one of children’s best tools for understanding the world around them, their place in it, and ways to think and feel about the situations they find themselves in. Fantastical as they might be, most picture books are grounded in experiences, themes, and lessons that children can directly connect to their own lives.

In your library, it’s important to highlight some of the big changes and events happening in a child’s life—whether it be a change in season, a big holiday, or something more personal to a child like the arrival of a new sibling, potty training, losing their first tooth, or starting school for the first time. Books can answer all sorts of questions about the seasons of life and the seasons of a child’s life: what are some of the big changes in a child’s world during X? What are things we can appreciate and enjoy about X? What might be some things that may scare, worry or disappoint us about X? What are some of the things we can do to prepare ourselves for X? What are some of the activities and traditions we can participate in during X? What are some lessons we can learn from the events of X?

Having a small collection of books for each of these occasions will help answer these questions for a child, and hopefully help them develop their understanding to the point that they can approach them with confidence and joy.

1. Same, Same But Different, 2. What Makes a Family. 3. Pink is for Boys, 4. Last Stop on Market Street, 5. Julian is a Mermaid, 6. All Are Welcome

DIVERSE STORIES

Books are a key way we gain empathy. By existing in another point of view for a few pages, or a few hundred pages, we’re able to understand a vaster array of life experiences than we’ll ever be able to live for ourselves. I believe it’s important to give a child those opportunities to help them grow into a kinder, more openminded adult—to encounter the stories, experiences, and perspectives of others at an early age. I think it’s also important to make sure my little one knows that there is no one right way to “be,” and let him be comfortable in exploring his own identity. Books about gender, race, culture, orientation are all vital to rounding out a library.

1. Bedtime Stories: A Timeless Collection of Stories and Rhymes to Share, 2. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, 3. A Year Full of Stories: 52 Folktales and Legends from Around the World, 4. A Child’s Book of Poems by Gao Fujikawa, 5. Disney’s 5-Minute Classic Stories

Bedtime Treasuries

No library is complete—for babies or adults—without a couple of treasuries, books featuring collections of short stories, poems, or both. I love collected volumes because they’re like little libraries unto themselves. I’m calling these “bedtime” treasuries, because these types of books usually don’t have as many pictures as picture books, but often aren’t designed for children to read themselves. They’re the perfect bedtime reads. Little ones can focus on the voice of the reader—without needing to see or engage with the images of the page—so they can get cozy in bed and let the story lull them to sleep (okay, maybe not during the first story, but hopefully by the third or fourth!).

Publishers have recently gotten into a “5-Minute-Stories” frenzy, which is great for an instant collection of a certain character or author. You can find a “5-Minute” collection of just about any popular character or series: Spider-Man, Star Wars, Disney Princesses, Winnie the Pooh, Scooby Doo, Biscuit, Fancy Nancy, Berenstain Bears, Mary Engelbreit, Amelia Bedelia, Little Critter, Richard Scarry, Mickey Mouse, Curious George, Bluey, Peanuts, Peter Rabbit, etc.

You can also find collections designed for certain ages, like Cottage Door Press’ collection that includes 2-Minute-Stories-for-2-Year-Olds and 3-minute Stories for 3-year-olds, or A Treasury of Tales for Four Year Olds: 40 Stories Recommended by Literacy Experts.

I believe at least one fairy tale treasury, one mythology treasury, and one poetry treasury is a must, although my library already has an entire shelf-full.

1. Harry Potter Books 1-4, 2. Nancy Drew Mystery Stories: Books 1-4, 3. Magic Treehouse: A Library of Books 1-28, 4. Bunnicula in a Box, 5. Judy Blume, 6. Roald Dahl Collection

Aspirational Books & Family Favorites (Ages 6+)

In July of 2000, I remember looking at Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Not reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Looking at Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The previous month, I’d both finished 1st grade and turned seven. I was firmly in the “early chapter books” stage of reading. My books still had full-page illustrations, large fonts, and ended before page 100. But the Harry Potter craze had truly begun, Goblet of Fire was the summer’s big release, and my mom made sure our house was prepared.

I knew that behemoth was well beyond my reading abilities, but the cover illustrations completely captured me. I would pull it off the bookshelf, sit on the floor, and study every detail, trying my best to imagine the book within.

Within the year, my mom and I were taking turns reading pages of the Sorcerer’s Stone before bed each night, slowly sounding out each word, and taking breaks to explain some of the bigger, unfamiliar ones. Soon after that, I was reading the final chapters of Prisoner of Azkaban during recess and using the school’s front office phone to call my mom at work and beg her to bring me Goblet of Fire so I could start it at lunch. (The amazing mother she was, she did.)

I think it’s important to include some “aspirational” books in a little one’s library—perhaps on a shelf they can’t quite reach, if they’re still at a page-ripping age. These are books that they may not be ready for yet, but that you want in their periphery in the hopes they’ll capture your little one’s attention and spur them on to the next stage in their reading journey.

After picture books are chapter books (generally for ages 6-8, like Roald Dahl novels, the Magic Treehouse series, or Goosebumps), followed by middle grade novels (generally for ages 8-12, like the early Harry Potter books or A Wrinkle in Time), and finally YA novels (generally for ages 13+ like the later Harry Potter books, The Hunger Games, and the Fault in Our Stars).

There’s also the “I Can Read!” selection of books, featuring a number of series and characters, that help bridge the gap between picture books and early chapter books, and are useful for teaching a child to read on their own.

I recommend keeping a couple of options in the “next category up” of books, and including a couple of family favorites from categories even beyond that. My little one’s library currently includes collections of Frog and Toad and Winnie the Pooh, The Series of Unfortunate Events, and illustrated Harry Potter editions.

1. Yoto Player 2. Runny Babbit (Yoto Card/Book), 3. Disney My First Christmas Bedtime Storybook (Yoto Card/Book), 4. Winnie-the-Pooh: The Complete Collection (Yoto Card)/ The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh (Book), 5. The Tales of Peter Rabbit (Yoto Card)/ Peter Rabbit Classic Gift Set (Book), 6. My First Halloween Bedtime Storybook (Yoto Card/ Book), 7. Frog and Toad: Audio Collection (Yoto Card)/ Frog and Toad: Storybook Favorites (Book)

Audiobooks

The final section of my little one’s library is our Yoto Player and audiobook collection. Currently, we listen to audiobooks during tummy time, or meal times in the rocking chair. In the future, audiobooks will be used during playtime and to supplement bedtime stories from mom and dad. We like the Yoto because it’s designed for young children to use on their own, like the Teddy Ruxpins of old with less fur. I’ve also made a point to buy both the audio card and physical book of a number of titles, so our little one can “read along” if he wants. I also recorded myself reading picture books, so that he can listen to me read even when I’m not physically present. Introducing your little one to audiobooks has a ton of benefits, and will help develop their enjoyment of reading, not hinder it.

Outside of the Yoto, there are other child-operable audiobook options like the Toniebox, Lunii, Storypod, good old Teddy Ruxpin, and if you just want to dip your toes in a “Me Reader” set.

Additional Resources

BRIGHTLY

Brightly is a website devoted to helping parents inspire a love of reading in children with tons of recommendations, printables, “storytimes,” crafts, advice, and much more. I highly recommend it!

NYT BOOKS: HOW TO RAISE A READER

This is a great guide from the New York Times with advice to parents for nurturing a child’s love of literature. It has tips for reading to babies to making sure reading is fun for an independent reader. It’s also available as a book, in longer format.

NYPL’s BEST BOOKS FOR KIDS LIST

Each year, the New York Public Library creates a list with some of the best new books for children. It’s a wonderful list and resource for parents who are just dipping their toes back into the world of children’s literature.

LITERATI KIDS / BOOKROO

A book subscription service can be a fun way to discover new books and build your library, if you’re interested in a couple of surprise, expertly curated picks coming your way. Literati Kids has a box for ages 0-4 and Bookroo has a box for ages 0-3.








Nursery Reveal!

Back in April, I posted nursery mood boards and our nursery design process. Now our nursery is complete! (Okay, it has been for the past five months, but we’ve been a little busy)!

Getting the nursery together was a whole-family effort and I’m so happy with how it turned out! It’s a space that’s continuously evolving, but here are some of the pre-baby pictures of the space.

The natural light!!

Our changing table/dresser and bookcase.

Getting the room to this state was a whole process, so if you’re interested in the nitty gritty details of getting a nursery together, here’s everything we did to it or bought for it:


Wall Treatment

About:

For the wall treatment, I wanted something that could inspire playtimes. I imagined a wallpaper or mural that could capture a baby’s attention/interest and inspire a toddler’s imagination, transporting them to a different world. I wanted a gender neutral design and I liked the idea of an enchanted forest. 

I wasn’t sure about using wallpaper and I’m not a fan of “accent” walls (I hate the idea that one wall is beautiful and loved and the rest are just there), so I decided to decorate all four walls with a stencil. I first chose a forest pattern stencil that felt light and pleasant with flowers and bunnies and foxes. Then, I mocked the room up using Pixlr, and tried out a few different paint color options before deciding on a sage. 

Choosing the colors went terribly. I went with Nature’s Gift by Behr for the background and Nice White by Sherwin Williams for the stencil. I would probably choose different colors if I were to do it again, Nature’s Gift is a bit too dark, especially in pictures, and Nice White was a LOT pinker than it looked in person/in the store. Once we started painting the trim, the pink REALLY started to show, and so we kept using it for the stencil, where it was less obvious, but switched to Pure White for the trim. 

Also, once we started stenciling, we realized two things: one, we needed a couple extra stencils to cut to get around corners and, two, the pattern was too busy for the wall. We ordered more stencils, and I had a couple of meetings with my dad. I knew I’d like to solve the busy-ness problem by doing a board and batten treatment to the lower half of the wall, but existing trim and wonky plaster walls made the practicality of b&b questionable. After some research, we decided to do the board and batten above the existing trim, to use slightly more pliable MDF to handle the wonkiness of the walls, and to use only liquid nail to attach it all to avoid nailing into old plaster. 

It took an entire month of hard work and long evenings, with me, my husband, my mom, and my dad all taking on different tasks. My husband applied the stencil with a roller. I went back with a tiny brush and fixed where details were lost in the design, as well as finishing the design around corners and edges where the stencil itself couldn’t reach. My dad, with his carpentry skills, applied the board and batten. My mom, with the steadiest hand, painted all of the white trim work and the bottom half of the wall.

A lot of mistakes were made, a lot of effort was exhausted, and there were a number of mid-project re-designs, but we all loved the end result, and we can only hope our baby does too. 

Room Linens

About:

Chase bought me a Ruggable rug for the nursery for Valentine’s Day. We knew we needed a rug for the nursery, because we have a raised house with wood floors that get ice cold during the winter, and we want our baby to be comfortable playing in their nursery year round. The Ruggable rug was slightly pricier than some other options, but we’ve thrown away a number of rugs over the years due to animal accidents, and felt investing in a rug we could throw in the washing machine when it gets pee, vomit, and or poop on it would be worth it in time. I like the muted, cool colors of this design, which felt calming and neutral without being boring. The pad is also nice and squishy and super comfortable to stand and sit on. 

In the past, the curtains have been hung above the windows in this room with minimal, flimsy hardware, some rods just balanced on nails. Hardware can’t go into the wall because (sigh) plaster, so in the future it has to be placed on the window frames. They were an end-of-nursery-overhaul project, and at that point I was getting both decision and Lowe’s fatigue, on top of just fatigue, so I just bought Command Hooks for the cheap, bent curtain rods that had already been in the room. Before the baby starts crawling, we’ll get actual, sturdy hardware, secured to the window frame, and not-bent rods, but this solution was cheap, easy, and quick AND I got to place the curtains where they’re supposed to go, design-wise--a little taller and wider than the windows.

As for the curtains themselves, we wanted something simple that didn’t either blend into or compete with any elements of the already-very-busy walls, so we got some simple gray curtains, of a room-darkening thickness, for nap times. They’re a little darker than I hoped they’d be, but I like how they draw your eye up and elongate the room. I was a little sad to cover the windows, though, two of the windows get golden afternoon light through the leaves of the Tea Olive trees planted outside of them. 

Closet

About:

The Closet was another BIG nursery project. It really hadn’t been touched since the 60s, which was obvious, because the shelves had that famous 60s star-pattern wallpaper peeling off of them. The walls were all yellow, cobwebbed, and spotted with mysterious stains. Worse, when we leveled our house, the closet got missed in the repairs, and there were big cracks and crumbled plaster all over the place. It also doubles as an access point for our house’s main bathroom, so there was a rough piece of drywall over the access point and giant nail holes in the back from a recent bathroom renovation. 

The Nightmare

My favorite contractor, carpenter, and handyman (my dad) and I had a meeting to discuss how to repair it. Inspired by the board and batten in the rest of the room, we covered the crumbling corner with liquid nail and a 1x6, adding some quarter round to finish it off and match the rest of the room’s floorboard. My dad also used some beadboard scraps and trim left over from the bathroom reno to create a prettier cover for the plumbing access. Instead of trying to clean up the old shelves, my dad cut some new 1x8s, and I stained them with Minwax’s Simply White wood stain. My dad sanded the walls and spackled over the bigger cracks. I spackled the smaller cracks and primed and painted the entire closet. Then, my dad installed the shelves, and the “Repair and Rejuvenate” part of the project was finished, and all that was left was the “Decorate and Organize” part, which was way more fun. 

We have an old house, and small closets, so my organizational plan went like this:

Shelving

There are three levels of shelves above the clothes rack. The top is only visible while standing at the door of the closet and looking up and only accessible by a step-stool. The middle is mostly visible from outside the closet, and can be reached by some tip-toe standing on my part. The third is easily visible and reachable. 

I decided that the top shelf would be for keepsakes, future-baby items, and unused furniture parts--items that would not need to be accessed with any sort of frequency. 

The middle shelf will be devoted to bulk items, storage for boxes of diapers and wipes, so that they’d be accessible but wouldn’t be a visual clutter. 

The bottom shelf will be used for storage for toys, clothing, and frequently-used baby items.

Clothes Rack

On the clothes rack, I’m storing all of the bigger baby clothing items that won’t fold easily, as well as hanging items like blankets and nursing covers. I chose to use wooden hangers for aesthetics, and to organize the clothing by age, with wooden organizers hanging in between the various groups. 

Cube Storage

I knew I wanted some sort of furniture piece beneath the baby clothes, since they don’t take up much vertical space. I considered various options like dressers and bins before settling on this 4-cube organizer from Target. It fits the closet well (it’s about 30” x 30”, and the closet is ~36” wide), and I like that I can use the baskets to hide some clutter, while also using shelves without baskets to display items.

Overall, I’m super happy with how the closet turned out. It was a bit of a horrifying nightmare when we started working on the nursery, and now it’s such a lovely feature of the room, I almost didn’t want to rehang the door (which we took off to get dipped and repainted). I feel like every square inch of the closet has a purpose that can grow and adjust as needed. 

Furniture

About

For the crib, I wanted something that looked a tiny-bit old-fashioned, and would look good going out into the room instead of against the wall, since wall space is limited in the nursery with all of the windows. I fell in love with a crib from Crate & Barrel with great arching ends that felt so beautifully classic and perfect… if it weren’t $1400. So, I found a dupe, the Contours Elston crib, which went out of stock right as I needed to buy it. So I found yet another dupe, with even less of a curve, but available when I needed it, so we got that one. I still think it looks great in the room. 

The recliner was a Christmas present from my mom. We had it in the living room for the first couple of months of the year, and are putting it in the nursery in lieu of a rocker or glider until we figure out which place it’s more useful. 

From the outset, I knew I wanted a 6-drawer horizontal dresser for the nursery, and that I’d use the top for a changing table and just table surface area in general. The dresser I fell in love with for the nursery is this navy beauty from Anthropologie, but again, the price tag relinquished it to “inspo” territory. So I bought the IKEA Tarva dresser for about $1200 less. I was planning on painting it to look like the Anthropologie dresser, but I wasn’t sure how good it would look against the re-designed board and batten wall, so while we were on one of our other hundred Lowe’s runs while redoing the nursery we bought some wood stain instead, and I’ll leave my Anthropologie dupe for another day/whim.

I also bought Ikea drawer organizers, since baby clothes are so small and it was obvious the drawers would get chaotic fast without them!

Decor & Storage

About:

When I began designing the nursery, the original theme I set my sights on was “magical creatures.” Weirdly enough, there weren’t a lot of options for pursuing that theme in the nursery section of stores, unless I wanted to go full on unicorn rainbow explosion. So I decided to go back to the drawing board, brainstorm all of the theme ideas that even slightly interested me, and eventually decided on a “whimsical” theme. I wanted the room to look like something out of an eccentric English manor, with elements recalling an enchanted woodland. Since then, it’s morphed into a more typical “woodland creatures” theme, but I could still imagine the room in the corner of an English cottage, and I think it’s kept some of its magic. 

I pulled in the badger rug I bought while living outside of Bath, added the entire Pottery Barn collection of wicker baskets in woodland animal shapes to my registry, and added a fox head to the wall. 
For an extra bit of personality, I added some artwork with illustrations and quotes from my favorite children’s books and maps of my favorite storybook places. 

Toys & Books

About:

We’ve been slowly stocking up on toys and books. Most are tucked away for now, but here are some of the ones that you might have seen in this post!

Misc.

As for some miscellaneous items, I replaced the old fan pulls with a set that had an illustration of a fan and light bulb, just to make life slightly easier.

I also bought an LED light bulb that can run on a battery if the lights go out, which they do with some frequency here in New Orleans, so that the baby’s room could always feel like a well-lit safe haven. 

And finally, I bought a power strip with child safety slide outlet covers, because outlets in this room are few and far between, and while our baby’s small, I imagine we’ll be in here a lot with our phones, and plugging in various baby items like swings and breast pumps.

And One Final Reveal…

Our baby, Charles, was born June 10th. He is incredibly precious to me and these past four months with him have been some of the most incredible of my life!

Our Nursery Design Process

I recently shared a bunch of mood boards for our nursery! It was so much fun brainstorming all of the possibilities for the room, and it really helped me explore what was out there and discover what my tastes were.

It’s a little weird to think that this room will be someone else’s soon—someone I haven’t even met yet!—and that in a few years, it will totally morph as that little someone starts expressing their own tastes and interests.

But for now, the room is how I’m introducing the baby to their world, and I want to make that introduction as amazing as possible.

In my next post, I’ll show the room reveal, but in this one I just want to talk about my initial ideas for it!

The Blank Slate

Here’s what we started out with, once we emptied out all of the guest room furniture. It’s hard to tell here, but the wall was actually a very light blueish grey. There are technically curtain rods on all of the three windows, but only one had a functional set of curtain hardware—there’s a tension rod in one window and in the last, the curtain is hooked into defunct hardware, and the curtain rod isn’t attached to anything, it’s just hanging in the curtain!

The one nursery item in this picture is the rug (the Sima Abalone from Ruggable in 8x10’ with the cushioned pad), which Chase bought for me for Valentine’s Day. We laid it out for a little over a day before rolling it back up for painting!

I think one thing that’s apparent in this picture, however, is how much natural light this room gets. It’s truly beautiful, especially in the afternoon when golden light dances through the trees outside the windows.

The Walls

One thing I knew I wanted in this room was a wall design—whether it be wallpaper or a mural or a stencil. I keep talking about it, but I really wanted this room to feel like a place for a child to let their imagination run wild. Here are some of the walls that really inspired me:

In the end, I decided to apply a wallpaper-look stencil to the walls. Stamping or stenciling a wall is something I’ve been wanting to try for a few years, and I thought it would probably be more durable, easier to fix, and cheaper than wallpaper, and easier to execute than a mural. I noticed a lot of the wallpapers I was drawn to had both animals and florals, so I tried finding stencils that included those features.

These were the finalists:


In the end, I decided the last stencil “Forest Pattern” by StencilRevolution was the one that best fit the vibe I was going for. I loved the animals featured and the flowers. If I had a ton of time and energy, or if I was only stenciling a small area, I might have stenciled the elements in different colors, to give it a more intricate look, but I decided that with such a big room and a baby on the way, creating the “perfect” faux wallpaper wasn’t going to be a great use of my time, so I decided to paint the stencil itself white and focus on a search for a good background color.

I used Pixlr and some rudimentary photo editing skills to erase the walls, add the wall stencil I had picked out, and try out a few different wall colors. After asking my husband for his opinion, we settled on a sagey color I pulled from the rug.

The Decor

After creating all of those themed nurseries, I realized I was loving the vibe of the whimsical nursery the most—a room with an English country home vibe, with a vintage feel and woodland creatures. I wanted to bring my adventures in England into my home and into my child’s life. I picked out my favorite furniture and decor items that fit that description—as well as incorporating some pieces I already owned, like the chair and the bookcase my dad made me—and used Canva to create a little collage of what the nursery might look like (uploading images of all of the products, removing their backgrounds, and “placing” them together in the room) .

I loved it all. The room felt absolutely perfect. I showed it to Chase, who approved the design, and went out in search of paint that evening, ready to start turning the design into reality!

That process ended up taking over two months, with a lot of twist and turns along the way! So, I’ll save that story for my next post.

Best,

Julia

Prior to the Blank Slate….

Just to embarrass myself, I’ll show you what we actually started with when we “started work” on the nursery back in January! We had some damage to our house from Hurricane Ida in August and had to empty out some rooms to get it fixed last fall. As a result, entire closets were piled into our guest room.

This first picture—where you can see the floor—isn’t even half as bad as it was back in December when we were getting the work done. With the little energy I had in my first trimester, I went through 50% of our possessions, filled bags with donation items and others with trash, and reorganized the rest as I put everything back where it belonged.

In late January, I finally finished getting the room back in order and by February 1st, it was in the “blank slate” state from the start of the blog.

Just looking at pictures of the state it was in stresses me out! It’s completely unrecognizable as the same room now.