Saturday, January 4, 2014

Our "Fantastic Mr. Fox" Themed Nursery

Choosing a nursery theme came pretty naturally to me as one of my favorite movies ever is "Fantastic Mr. Fox." Being an elementary ed student, I recently read the Roald Dahl classic and I enjoyed it, but the movie is absolutely amazing.


And what's not to love? Foxes, their forest buddies - badger, a possum, rabbits, and outlandish pranks. Orange is my favorite color and it just seemed to fit. We plan on encorporating lots of forest animals, grays, oranges, and nature-y type stuff into this baby's room. And it will be mostly gender-neutral. We find out the sex of the baby very soon, but don't plan to change our plans too much. If we end up having a second child while still living in this house, it will be nice to have things decorated for girls and boys since we could have one of each sharing this room for a while. 

The natural first stop for us was Ikea. I would have loved to go a little vintage, picking up pieces from the thrift store, but the pickings are pretty slim where we live. And Ikea has everything at low prices. We love having an excuse to go and we decided back in October that we would pick out nursery items at Ikea during our winter break. Both of us were lucky to have a substantial amount of time off this year. We spent a couple of days in Chicago, and on our way back, stopped at Ikea for some 99 cent breakfast and to oogle the adorable baby stuff. Here is what we looked at/picked out:

The Gulliver crib comes pretty highly recommended and I was really satisfied with this pick. It was only $99 and was super easy to assemble. No particle board, all solid wood. I was happy. We are on a serious budget (aka this baby is costing us an arm and a leg in medical bills - more on that later), so we also picked up a mattress while there. It is the Vyssa Vackert and in my opinion, too cushy. Oh well. Mike picked this one and we didn't really think too much into it. I'm sure the baby will survive. 


I originally planned on skipping the changing table and going with a big dresser with a changing pad on top. Then I realized we didn't have room for the 8-drawer Hemnes that everyone uses these days. I also liked the idea of open storage for diapers and accessories. We can also hang the wet bag easily from the bars on the top of the table. 


And since I went with a changing table, we still needed some drawers for storing all those adorable onesies and pajamas. I originally was going for all white furniture but when we saw this one in the showroom, Mike said we should get it. It's a little more red in person and it seems perfect for a woodsy nursery. And it is $50 cheaper than the white version. 


I was going to look at our local Goodwill for a nightstand but I saw this as we were filling up our cart with the dresser and decided to go for it. 


This is my favorite chair at Ikea. It's new this year and the perfect shade of orange. Mike was with me on getting it until he found out that it was $279. 


We ended up going for practical and not breaking the bank. A $69 Poang chair bounces and rocks and I think will work well for nursing and bedtime stories. We also got the footstool so I can prop my feet up. Since we already have a twin bed in the nursery, I will have a variety of options for nursing and I am happy about this. Once the baby is older, we plan to move the chair into the living room.


And we couldn't resist all of the forest stuffed animals. We got the foxes, a bear, an owl, a badger, some mice, and a rabbit. It was also nice that Ikea donates $1 from each stuffed animal to children's education programs.


It was really hard not to buy the entire baby section of Ikea! 

So that's what we bought! Coming soon, nursery progress.



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