My process and approach to designing our baby's room.
Its sustainable, eco friendly, budget friendly, renter friendly and super cute ... so all goodness rolled in one.
As I have mention in my earlier post/s, I was super excited to design + DIY for spaces needed before and after the baby arrived. You can see the list linked to the other DIY during my pregnancy in my other post. Two such DIY projects were 'baby-shower decorations' and 'baby room'. I do not call it a nursery as it was going to be more than that. It was a space for both sleep and play that I wanted to design.
I was thinking about both the projects simultaneously. Broadly speaking I wanted the baby room to be gender neutral so its scalable with any more additions of kids in future. As far as the baby shower was concerned I wanted that gender neutral too. Why! coz ... I started brainstorming on these projects when I got a conformation at 6 or 8 weeks that we were pregnant, so I didn't know the gender. Also, as it was my first pregnancy I just wanted to do things when I have the energy as I did not know what to expect later. And I do not like gender division or classification of any kind even in baby shower themes or decor.
So I toyed with several themes/ideas by roughly sketching my vision with each theme. If I generalize I was getting attracted more to a very dreamy, magical, enchanted look-and-feel. As I started thinking more on the theme it struck me if I am going to make everything by hand why not concentrate on what I really want for the room and incorporate the items/props into the baby-shower theme. That way it will be more sustainable and eco-friendly DIY which is not adding to the landfill as most party decorations get trashed. Also the fact that 80% of materials used for the DIY will be made of biodegradable materials. It will be a very good use of time. As well as added opportunity to showcase all my DIY, why not when everything is handmade. Lastly, very budget friendly as I will accomplish two spaces on one budget. And it will keep me creative as obviously I did not want the same theme in the room and at the bay shower, so needed to come up with themes that were unique even though they will share the same props. So, why not! Challenge accepted.
Currently we are renting a two bed two bath and of course we were going to have parents over to help with the baby. Well I did push my partner to consider buying a home just so I have one room for the baby :P Let's say, I can be passionate like that, hehe. After a few weekends of looking at Bay Area homes it was looking like a ambiguous plan.
So now I had to come up with a plan which is renter friendly as well as can be moved to a new location if we buy a home.
I decided on 'enchanted forest' for the baby room and dream or 'Once upon a dream' to be more precise for the baby-shower. The color scheme I picked was also gender neutral Mint & Coral. The first thing I did was finalize by refining the rough sketch to clearly demonstrate my vision I had for both projects. Which I accomplished by a hand-drawn sketch for the baby room and a software sketch for the baby shower main focus backdrop/area.
We are currently still in the same rental apartment. So I ended up converting a corner in the master-bedroom into a baby sleep area, and after our parents left when Bubu was six months old converted the guest bedroom into playroom. Here's the blog post on playroom design. Anyways we don't have guests staying over except for our parents. So the sketch you see here is split in two rooms right now.
Stuff I made
#1 DIY flower garlands + welcome wreath
Of course I did not have the time to make each flower. I brought a bunch and mixed and matched it with some butterflies to make these adorable garlands and a welcome wreath. Garlands were used as the main backdrop for the Baby Shower. It's now being used at the door entrance of the room. Welcome wreath was used as a welcome sign during baby-shower. It now resides with the garlands on my bedroom door. It took me 8 hours to complete this project.
#2 DIY clouds
These clouds are 3D and I just loved how they turned out. All you need is poly fil and some foam. There are tons of tutorials on Pinterest. However, mine has the ability to safely put in a bulb and turn it into a functional lamp. Now the corner I chose has 20 feet tall ceiling so I could not hang it from a u-hook; it leans against the wall but you have to compromise on design sometimes.
These clouds were also used in the baby shower along with the flower garlands, so I made these 2 projects in the 4th month of pregnancy. It took me 12 hours to complete one cloud.
#3 DIY trees painting
This was hand painted on a regular untreated and non-stretched canvas cloth. Canvas cloth was purchased at JoAnns. It's a 9 feet x 5 feet acrylic painting. As it was so long and wide my best option was to lay it flat on the ground, sit on it and paint. I watered the paint down to give it a watercolor look and feel. The only take away I will give is if you are thinking of painting try doing it in your first and second trimester. Third trimester your tummy is big and your energy, speed is low. Also its difficult to sit down for to long. I would take a break to getup and move/drink water/pee every 30 to 45 minutes. It took me 40 hours to complete this project.
To hang it up I made holes in the canvas and strengthened it with the addition of the tiniest rivet set from JoAnns. That way the holes you make in the cloth get reinforced and the cloth does not rip due to its weight or by getting pulled. I put in small tiny pin nails on the walls and hung the painting.
#4 DIY fabric birds
I bought five different printed fabrics from JoAnn's Fabrics in the color palette of the room mint and coral. The birds were hand stitched and then stuffed with Poly Fil. To complete it I brought a wooden stick/small-branch fallen from a eucalyptus tree in the park close to our home. I will have to admit that the birds were very difficult to attach to the branch. I had added a ribbon to the bottom of each bird to tie it on the branch instead of sticking. That way if in future if I wanted to change the branch I would have a chance without damaging the bird.
However, after tying all the birds, the wooden branch kept rotating when I tried to hang it, making the birds up-side down. It was the most frustrating part of this project. At last my mom just did her magic and a hack-of-sorts she just tied the bird along with its tail, which made the branch stay in position. Well it looks ugly from the back but at the angle it currently is in 'back' isn't visible! So be it! At least better than nothing.
#5 DIY crib mobile
I had made these animals few years back. They were just lying in my closet all these years. I was checking the store ready-made ones they are super cute but are so pricy, totally something I can DIY. That's when I remembered these animals. I just added pom-pom balls to a fishnet thread. Made a ring out of pipe cleaner. Attached the animals to the ring by simply tying the fishnet thread and ta-da the crib-mobile was ready.
#6 Crib
Well now I love my crib. Its by a company called Stokke. It's the best product design ever. One it's got this adorable oval shape and two its converts from bassinet > crib > toddler bed > daybed > chairs. OMG!!! Can there be a piece of furniture more thought through than this. Well it comes at a steep price of $2000 but the product design and the number of years it can stay with you the designer in me just had to consider it.
It does come in some cool neutral colors white, light wood, dark wood, grey. I wanted to take it a step further so we painted it mint blue. Oh man again wrong planning. Please do not do this project in your last trimester. My husband was very sweet to help me with this project, even though he dislikes DIY-ing anything.
The painting process is pretty intense. It had to be sanded down of the finish it already had which was scary as it was our first time and then the price tag just made us cross our fingers that we do not screw this up. My partner did the sanding all by himself. We rented the sander from Home Depot. Then it was followed by 1 coat of primer and 2-3 coats of paint. This process me, my partner and my mom, all contributed. It took us a 40 hrs to complete this project.
#7 DIY fitted sheets (by mom)
My mom is super talented and creative. She joined me in the 9th month of pregnancy and I had set aside a project for her, of stitching fitted sheets for the crib. The Stokke ones are $50 a pop. Again we bought the fabric at JoAnns and she hand stitched it as I don't own a sewing machine here. With a sewing machine this would have finished in minutes. It took her one hours per fitted sheet. She made four different prints. These I can't even thank my mom enough. They all are perfect that matched my vision.
I had tons of DIY and I loved how they all turned out individually as well as, how they work together. There were hiccups too, of design compromises from the original plan but that's part of DIY and the creative process as a whole. It's in no way complete. I would love to have the sleep and play areas in one room someday, like my sketch originally was. And as Bubu grows I have additions planned out to make this room more enchanted and magical. Design process teaches you to create, have patience, let go, iterate and make compromises a perfect learning for a new mom to be. So with this project I feel, I gained much more than just a pretty room.
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