Blogging Cherry Pop

I decided to start this blog because my idea of writing an ebook felt almost impossible with my beautiful son needing more attention than writing the ebook allowed. So ebook idea is on the back burner and here I am sharing my ideas, attempts and failures of apartment decorating. I've scoured the internet looking for ideas that will help me find inspiration for my 2 bedroom, 900sq ft apartment.

My biggest dilemma is my son's nursery. When you think of a nursery, you imagine colorful walls and baby-worthy whimsy, not so in my son's room. The lease agreement specifically states that we are not allowed to paint. So here we are with beige walls and carpet that almost matches my morning coffee once I add the sugar and cream. How whimsical does that feel? Well, lucky for my son, I have some tricks up my sleeve. Right now, he's just turned 8 months old and doesn't care if his room has beige walls or is covered in bubblegum, but when he's older I feel that he'll appreciate mom looking out for his creative side and giving him a room full of color and life. So I am happy to share my ideas so if you feel like you're in a rut due to not being able to paint, this may help you out.

I guess I can start with what my son has in his room:

Of course we have his crib (a beautiful hand-me-down) in honey oak and with the exception of some bite/chew marks on the rails from the four babies who used this crib before my son, it looks nearly brand new. Did I go against all safety rules in choosing a 28 year old crib? Yes I did, but seeing how the previous four babies are all perfectly fine (me included) I figured I would keep with tradition. I bought his crib bedding when I was 16 weeks pregnant and before we knew if he was a boy or a girl, but it worked out! His bedding is very gender neutral. Can you believe I picked this Kenneth Brown "Jumping for Joy" 5-piece set up at Marshall's for $29.99?! I've seen it for as much as $120 on ebay! I was so very proud of myself for landing such an amazing deal.

Anyway, since little man (my son) doesn't use his crib to sleep in - he has a baby hammock in our room next to the bed, we use his crib primarily as a changing table with three of the four parts of the bumper pad on the crib. The colors are so great for a little girl or little boy and the embroidered grasshoppers are too precious. My idea with this set was if we have another baby down the road, then I don't have to buy a new crib set, this will work for a boy or a girl. When it comes to decorating, I don't have the same colors in the set anywhere else in the room; I have different shades of the colors, but not the matching colors. His room is still pretty vanilla though.

I know a lot of you parents out there are all excited to get your baby a toy box and start filling it up. I have to tell you, I loathe the toy box. I seriously feel that piece of furniture is where good toys go to die. Think about it! You toss your kid's toys in there, he/she goes in digging around for another one and the toys on top work their way to the bottom. The only time those toys are coming up for air again is when mom or dad fishes them out during a cleaning out period.I feel like I've found a solution to the dreaded toy box; it's the EXPEDIT bookshelf system from Ikea:

This is the type of bookshelf I got for little man's room in black-brown. I seriously considered the high-gloss white. My decision was made just knowing how easily white can get dirty and knowing it was going to be defenseless in a little boy's room, so black-brown won the coin toss. We have little man's standing up like this, but if you have the space, you can lay the bookcase on its side instead. We used the top 4 cubbies as open storage to showcase little man's colorful books and toys and the bottom 4 cubbies hold collapsible boxes for more toys, blankets and crib sheets. The cubbies are 14"x14x so plenty of room for a good size collapsible storage box, these fit perfectly, also from Ikea and only $4.99!:















We have a hand-me-down dresser in the nursery too, but you won't be seeing a picture of that. It's only to get us through until he needs more than 3 drawers for clothes, then he'll be getting a big boy chest of drawers like this:

We opted out of a changing table since I knew little man would be sleeping in our room and we could just use his crib as one - be careful though parents, just like if you watch tv in bed and it's harder to fall asleep, if you use your crib as anything other than a place to sleep, your baby will have a hard time looking at it as a place to sleep.

And that's the furniture in a nutshell. I hope to do an entry on his current decorations and the upgrades I hope to do next time!