Girl Baby's Bird Nursery

Secretly, one of the reasons that I really wanted Girl Baby (as Henry calls her) to be a girl is that I had a vision for a girl nursery. Such a superficial thing, but I'm a planner, what can I say? The room that will be her nursery is currently painted something similar to this color. Maybe a teensy bit lighter or brighter.
Although is it blue I had the hardest time finding any bedding I liked for the nursery if we had another boy. But I could just see it set up for a girl: white furniture, pink curtains, etc. Maybe it's cause boy stuff in general is just not as fun. I feel bad because I put very little effort into Henry's nursery but I am so psyched to decorate the room for Girl Baby. Since I am a muggle and Husband is watching Harry Potter part 173 tonight, in anticipation to go see part 174 later, I thought I would take the time to post some ideas for the nursery that I have been collecting.

Furniture
I think white would look so pretty in that room. So far I am liking this Graco crib (which converts to a toddler bed, a must for me) and a girly looking armoire from Ikea. I am kind of cheap when it comes to nursery furniture because it's only used so briefly. If we were in our forever house I might be more inclined to invest in a nicer armoire but I have no idea if we will have a place for it when we move in a couple of years. I'm doing the armoire so I will have somewhere to hang all the pretty dresses, and the closet is out since we have nowhere else to put all the Christmas decorations, winter coats, my wedding dress, etc. that are currently stored in there. No dresser or changing table cause the room has a window seat that's just the right height for changing a diaper. I should post a picture, but I'd have to walk all the way to the other room and then download it onto my computer and I am just that lazy.

In my opinion, the one piece of nursery furniture that's worth the investment is a good glider. I'm reusing this one from Henry's room. Also, I think my dad is going to build a display bookshelf with some storage baskets at the bottom.

Fabric
I found an awesome place called Carousel Designs (website is babybedding.com) that has tons of great bedding and accessories - both modern and cutesy. You can just order the items as they appear or you can create custom bedding using any of their fabrics. They have the neatest design tool that allows you to visualize what you create, including choosing the room color, crib color, flooring, etc. Check out the Love Birds collection. They sent me some fabric swatches and it looks awesome in the nursery. Their prices are not cheap but not absurd, especially since you can pick and choose which items to order. For example, this time around I am not bothering with a crib bumper that is really only decorative and apparently unsafe for the wee one.

This is the love birds fabric, though I am conscious not to overuse it. I don't want her to feel like she's in a Hitchcock movie. I think this will be an accent pillow for the glider, an extra sheet, and maybe the changing pad.

This is the coordinating damask fabric. It will be the crib skirt.

This is called pink circles. I might use it for the trim on the crib skirt and the sheet. Not sure yet. I'm thinking pink circles for the curtains, maybe? I haven't decided yet if I will just buy this fabric and ask my mom to hem it into curtains or buy the premade curtains that look like this.

That's pink circles with damask at the bottom and blue ties. Are they too busy? Or is it good to repeat the damask elsewhere in the room? Maybe the curtains should just be the damask fabric instead. Oy.

Accessories
I have found an overwhelming number of wall decals in the tree/branch/vine family that would look cute by/over the crib. I'm hopeful that they will work on our textured walls. Whatever we choose will be white, maybe with some pink birds or flowers. Here's one of my favorites:

I would like to find a few bird cages to hang from the ceiling. My mom already has a neat one she'd like to give Girl Baby, so I've just got to keep my eye out for a couple more. It should look something like the cages in this sweet nursery, which I found on this blog.


Maybe I'll get this vintage lamp from Etsy, minus the extraneous twigs. I just can't get excited about a standard lamp.

I have found tons of cute birdhouses online but I wonder if both birdhouses and bird cages are a bit much. I also like the idea of Chinese lanterns hanging... somewhere... but good golly that's lots of decorative crap in a small room and all for one tiny person. I keep reassuring Husband that (a) most of these things are rather cheap, and (b) I will edit all my ideas down so you don't walk in the room and think BIRDS! look at all the BIRDS! I promise there will be no creepy stuffed birds in the birdcages, though Etsy would clearly like to sell me some.

Wow, that's a lot longer than I anticipated. I can't wait to get started but we are probably going to wait until January or so to move her into the room, and once we set up the nursery we will lose our guest bed so that's a reason to wait till after the holidays to put it all together. What do you think? What would you do for the curtains? Should I go ahead and grab that lamp? Decisions, decisions.