File this under classic third child situation: baby girl will not have a dedicated nursery. BUT – we still have some special plans up our sleeves, and since where our newest addition will sleep has been one of our most commonly asked questions, I thought we could chat about our plans today! In our home, the master bedroom is downstairs, and we are grateful to have three bedrooms upstairs. June is in one, Shep is in another, and the third is our guest room. The guest room was the very first room we painted in this house (Benjamin Moore Healing Aloe – the prettiest soft green, which I still love!), and after we hung a pair of magnolia art prints on the wall, we dubbed it the Magnolia Room. It’s perfect for welcoming our mostly northern guests to our Southern home! Here is what it looks like today: Since we live far from loved ones and my sister and her family visit for weekend trips often, it’s important to us to keep a queen bed upstairs. Because of this, this room will largely stay intact, but we will be making a few adjustments to accommodate baby girl! (On that note, I am very glad that baby is, indeed, a girl and not a boy, because the existing decor definitely skews feminine! We could have made it work if we were welcoming a boy, but it’s a much lighter lift this way, ha!) Here’s a look at the plan, and then a few more details: Yellow painting, floral fabric, yellow quilt, crib, bee knob pull, magnolia crib sheet, dresser, stuffed bunny (we will buy from our favorite local store that carries Jellycats!), gray lamp. The artwork is from Etsy but super old and sadly I can’t find the seller anymore! First,

Friends, I’m so excited to share today’s post with you!! I had a clear vision for Shep’s nursery from the beginning, and it has been gratifying to see it come to fruition. Let’s take a tour! But first, let’s look back. Here’s the before of the former “blue room,” our smallest bedroom: Yikes! My inspiration for turning this dumping ground into a happy spot for our baby boy was one of my favorite childhood books – Time of Wonder by Robert McCloskey, a treasured New England author. We’d use the bold but nature-inspired colors and whimsical illustrations from the book to set the scene, framing three spreads to star in the space. This was my original inspiration board: All of the credits are in this post! And here’s how the board came to life! Whee!! Such a good before and after :) To free up floor space, we moved the queen bed into our guest room and set up the full in here. We hired out the painting – prepping the walls to cover up those stripes was a feat! – and he did a beautiful job. When I first saw the finished colors, though, I was convinced we had made a mistake – they looked a little cartoonish to me. But, once we layered in finishes and especially the artwork – what was meant to tie everything together from the start – they totally transformed. Speaking of which… The art!! The illustrations that started it all have turned out to be the crown jewel in this room, just as I had hoped. We had Framebridge frame three spreads from the book (I bought a new copy and cut the pages out verrrrrry carefully!). The gold Richmond frames have a heritage feel even though the illustrations themselves are youthful.

I am not one of those people who had the nursery tied up with a bow by the time their second trimester rolled around – in fact, we were still adding the finishing touches several months after our girl arrived! On time or not, I’m happy with how my vision came together, and on a budget of less than $500, too. Let’s take a little tour, shall we? Not to start off on a negative note, but I used Jenny’s pelmet tutorial for the blue buffalo check curtains and MAN it was a beast. I don’t know if I was doing something wrong, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I will begrudgingly admit the pelmet is still on the wall and looks good a year and a half later, though, so I guess it worked out in the end…? The dresser was a vintage find at the Raleigh Flea Market (I LOVE the color of the wood!), and the painting was a very special gift from one of my best friends – she made it herself after the wallpaper I was considering was discontinued! So talented!! One of the main differences between my nursery inspiration and June’s finished room is the crib skirt. I originally planned to do blue toile like Jessie, and even ordered a blue toile skirt off of Etsy, but when it arrived it just didn’t seem right. A few months later I bit the bullet on a favorite Liberty of London fabric, and my aunt graciously sewed it into a skirt. The fabric itself was not exactly cheap, but it’s my favorite thing in the room and added the feminine note the space was missing! That little cat is the first stuffed animal we bought for June, when we were in Paris and I was pregnant! My