Time to Start Planning the Nursery

baby Crane's goodies in his or her closet

the future nursery

"white mint" for a mint nursery

"mountain air" or one of these bad boys for a blue grey nursery

random beiges for a neutral nursery

Oh hey, a blog with pictures! I hate putting pictures on blogger. Royal pain in the ass. But anytime I put pictures in you know it's something I care about.

Now, if you read yesterday's blog you thought, "why are nursery decisions a dilemma?"

Two background points to answer your very relevant question:

1. I am that girl who takes an hour to pick out her pedicure color; I act like I'm making the world's most life altering decision. I do the same thing with menus when I go to restaurants I don't frequent. Brian thinks it's hilarious... and annoying.

2. There was a time when Brian and I thought we might have zero kids. So I always decided if I could just have the one, it would likely be the only one, and I'd go all out on making everything as perfect as humanly possible. And Brian got a taste for that when we took months to find the perfect chalkboard for bump updates.

Now, the first picture you see is some goodies the baby already has. There's something in that picture you've seen before if you read my blog: the bunny. When I was busting my hump to get the bump, I fell in love with a beige-walled, very whimsical bunny nursery. I have since tossed out the idea of a theme. The more I look at themed nurseries, the more I notice a cheesy quality that seems really though to avoid. So, no matter the color, the more-or-less theme will be soft animals. The kind that make you think sleep: bunnies, puppies, bears, sheep, etc. And no matter the colors of the walls, I'm adding a few pops of color to define gender: pink for girl, blue for boy. If we do blueish walls, however, the boy's accents will likely be green.

The next picture is the lovely "before" nursery. Now, it's nothing fancy BUT this room is very special to us. I asked Brian if we should swap the guest room with the nursery, and he said, "no way, no how." When we moved in to our home, I left this room purposely empty. A client of mine told me a proverb: you make room in your life for the things you desire, and they will come true. Kind of Field Of Dreams
now that I stop to think about it. But I decided to take it literally and leave it empty. And on days where we didn't have much hope, we'd sit and talk in that room about all the grand nursery plans we had. We ended up converting it to a makeshift "medication station" when I started my IVF injections because we literally needed a room dedicated to the vast plethora of medications, literature and paperwork.

The room is 10 feet by 10 feet. There's one nice sized window with a view of the beautiful woods behind our house. And it feels bigger than it is because it has a nice vaulted ceiling.

Now, the dilemma: what color to paint it?!

1. MINT - ah, sweet mint. I, hands down, think it is the most beautiful nursery color out there. Fresh, clean, inviting - and just shreeks, "a beautiful, sweet baby resides here". The tough part is, I'm not a huge "color" fan for walls. I only like colors that are practically neutrals. So the mint will be a challenge with finding decor that matches and doesn't creep into cheeseball territory.

2. A BLUE THAT'S PRACTICALLY GREY - this is just my favorite color for a room. There is nothing cleaner and nothing more calming than a tranquil almost-grey-blue. This is sort of what I mean by a color that's almost a neutral. Not to mention, it will be a nice backdrop for soft, sweet beige-colored animals. And it would be so fun to do pops of light pink for a girl, and minty green for a boy. The only detractor from this color is inevitably people will say it's weird if I have a girl and paint her nursery blue. The reason that doesn't bother me much is because for the rest of her tutu wearing life she'll want pink, so a couple years without it won't be the biggest crime.

3. BEIGE - I love beige for so many reasons. First, every holiday I can change out toys and books to fit the holiday and teach this kid early the joys of holidays. You really can't go wrong with beige, and I could really make statements through the decor in the room. It's warm and comforting. AND when Brian and I decided we were cool with the fact we might just have the one kiddo, I wanted neither of us to feel left out. So if he never got a blue boy nursery, I would never get a pink girl nursery and vice versa.

I know whatever choice we make, I'll rock it. It's not like baby Crane will bitch and moan about it so I guess we really can't lose! Looks like I have a lot of nursery day dreaming to do now...