Confessions of a Serial Cheapskate: Cole's Room

OK people- let's be honest. Who doesn't love peeking inside other people's homes? Right?!

Because the correct answer is "EVERYONE likes to peek in other people's homes", I decided to share today. Except, it's not our home as we live currently. As I've mentioned before, we recently moved to CT from Syracuse, NY, so this is Cole's nursery from back in our Syracuse days (plus Cole doesn't have a "nursery" anymore-- he's now got a "big boy" room).

I thought I'd do a post about the nursery that we set up for Cole when he was born (3.5 years ago) because we DIYed a few things in his room that we really liked. First though-- a quick tour of the room is in order. The good, the bad and the ugly (and some of it's kinda ugly). We actually spent very little money putting together his room (as any good cheapskate would do), and we're pretty pleased with how it came out. Now--- on with the show!

The house that we bought in Syracuse was built in 1920-- it was an old house and we inherited some "interesting" old house-isms. Neither of us are all that home improvement handy so some of these things were "worked around" instead of fixed. Case in point, the cords behind the crib. There was an old phone jack, a cable cord, and some other cord extruding from the wall-- we're still unsure of what it was. Instead of tearing them out and patching things up (especially since the next owners might WANT a cable hook-up in this room), we set-up the room so that they were not reachable by a small child. Oh, and the "boom box" was there for function, not style-- I should have moved it before snapping pictures, but.... I didn't.

The rug was left over from my old apartment. It was really girly in that apartment, but somehow it still seemed to work in this space too.

It was a fairly small room. We liked to call it "cozy". It also had to have multiple functions as we had "visitors" often enough that we needed to have extra sleeping spaces for the other 3 kids whenever they were at our house.

We still wanted it to feel like "Cole's Room" though too. please ignore the wrinkled bedskirt. sing it with me-- emmmbaaaarraaassiiiing.

Paper mache letters that I covered with fabric.

The crib was purchased new. It was one of the few things we purchased new for this room. (Allow me to address the pillow in his crib -- I didn't take photos of the room until just before we transformed it into his "big boy" room so he was old enough to safely sleep with a pillow at this point.)

We wanted Cole to get to know his brother and sisters even though they didn't live with us full time, so we took photos of the 3 kids and hung them just above the changing table/dresser so that with each diaper change we could say "hi" to the kids.

The dresser (which I didn't take a before photo of) we purchased for $15 at a thrift store. It was kind of a "honey" color. We painted it 'Crisp Linen' and LOVE how it turned out! We debated changing out the hardware too, but when we put it back together, we decided we actually really liked the old (cleaned up) hardware.

The bed is an antique hand-me-down. It was my grandmother's bed when she was a young girl which means it's somewhere in the vicinity of 90 years old (depending on exactly when she got it). She gave it to me when I got my first apartment back in my college days. It means so much to me. (she also gave Cole that white bear hugging the pink bear-- ummm...such a great-grandma gift). My mother made the cute knit lion.

We re-used additional pillows from the set we registered for when we were married, but added the fun Dwell Studio dinosaur pillow from Target. I think I paid $4.98 for it. It takes the bed from being kinda "stuffy" to being fun for a little boy too.

Years earlier I purchased the "hassock" at an estate sale. I think it was $25. It is very vintage and very cool. Made a great seat when putting on little kid shoes. The toy basket was a shower gift filled with all kinds of baby goodies..

The rocking chair was my mother's. She used to rock us kids in it when we were wee ones so it holds a special place for me too. I debated the plush rockers/nursing chairs that everyone else was getting, but decided to go the sentimental route instead. I'm really glad I did. (there are those stupid cords again-- argh) Elmo came from my mom too. Of course-- the biggest toys always come from other people. But he sticks around-- did you spot him in this post?

This piece is also an antique that I scavenged from my parent's basement when I first moved into an apartment of my own. I always meant to re-finish it, but never got around to it. Usually I had a plant over that one big water spot. Eventually, I came to kinda like it like this though-- it has history and character right? If we use it in our next home however, I will definitely find a way to transform it and get rid of those water stains on the top. It actually has some cool details in the top that get lost because you get distracted by the water spots.

One of my personal favorite things in his room (also a gift). It's a Meyda Tiffany turtle light. We used it as Cole's nighlight in his room. It's got a really pretty glow when it's turned on. (please excuse the poor photo quality too.)

Both my husband and I worked for our local PBS station at some point in our careers (it's actually where we met), so we amassed a collection of Sesame Street stuffed animals when Cole was born and it only made sense to give them a place in his room-- kind of an om age to his mom and dad. (The three scruffy ones were actually mine when I was little-- my mom dug them up for me.)

This basket was a shower gift as well. The safety pins were from a shower game. We didn't ever use them, but I thought they were a nice symbol of all the love we received from our wonderful family and friends.

What's in our basket?- the usual baby stuff. Diapers, wipes, lotions, creams, and two glass jars-- one with cotton balls, the other with cotton swabs. We kept other baby essentials (ie. bulb syringe, baby hair brush, nail clippers etc.) in one of the top drawers of the dresser.