a nursery for two.
If you've been following the tiny white house for any length of time, you know I have shared before about the nursery. this room is ever-changing and has quite evolved since the need for a nursery arose nearly three years ago. the first, original nursery flooded, along with our house, in the spring of 2016. we set up a second nursery when we moved in with my parents temporarily. you can read about that nursery here. the nursery changed again when we bought our first home, spent months renovating it, and moved in in March 2017. click here to read more about the nursery pt. ii.
some of the changes made were subtle. other changes were more noticeable, such as furniture placement. last summer, a not-so-subtle change took place—not only in our nursery, but also in our family—as we welcomed another baby into the world.
in November 2016, days before Grey turned seven months old, we found out our little family was growing. this certainly came as a surprise, but has turned out to be the best thing, better than anything we could ever have planned. apparently God really does know what He's doing. I wanted the babies to share a room, regardless of the gender [we continued with the element of surprise and didn't find out]. and on July 20th, 2017, we welcomed our second baby, a little boy named Rhett. the sweet nursery for our first child became a nursery for two.
here's a flashback of how the nursery used to look:
and here is how it looks today...
Something we realized about halfway through my second pregnancy is that we would have to purchase another crib. for some reason, it took awhile for this thought to register. you see, when we bought the sweet Jenny Lind crib that our firstborn sleeps in, I assumed that would be the very crib that all of our children would sleep in. turns out when you have babies nearly fifteen months apart, you may need more than one crib. when I sat down to order a second Jenny Lind crib, this message flashed across the top of the screen: "you already purchased this in February 2016." yeah, I know, Amazon. thank you for the reminder.
I loved Grey's original bedding. I chose a simple blue ticking for the fabric and my husband's precious grandmother sewed a darling crib skirt with a box pleat. after we found out we were expecting again and I began to daydream about nurseries, I realized I would have to get another crib skirt made to match. she is the sweetest woman and I know she would happily have done it, but I hated to ask this of her. after thinking on it, I decided to do away with the idea of crib skirt completely. I would just buy matching crib sheets. after all, less is more.
one day, I googled "toile crib sheets" and that's how I happened upon the crib sheets I ended up ordering and using. the brand is Sweet Jojo Designs and I purchased them online from Bed Bath and Beyond. toile has always been a favorite pattern of mine, so the thought of getting to use it in the nursery thrilled me.
Since the very first nursery, a potting bench has served as our changing table. this is one of the first pieces of furniture I bought for our home. I found it at a garage sale for $40 a few months before Drew + I married. in the original tiny white house, it sat in our living room as our entertainment center. it has been in the nursery ever since. the boys absolutely love it. they like to climb onto the lower shelf to sit and play. I think I'm ready to transition it outside to use it as an actual potting bench, but I'm hesitant. I've loved this piece in the boys' room and I know taking it away won't be popular with them.
The window treatment didn't necessarily need updating, but since I was in a sprucing mood... my husband built a cornice board. I actually used the same window panels as before, I just added the cornice board for a little something extra. as most of our projects do, it took much longer than it should to complete; even still, I love how it turned out.
We had to rearrange some furniture to make room for a second crib, obviously. but all things considered, I am just tickled with the finished product. in fact, I love this space so much, which is good since we spend much of our time in it. I originally composed this post in May 2017, few months before our second baby arrived. the closing line read: I can't wait to bring home another precious baby and for all the memories that will be made in this sweet shared nursery. and now, more than a year later, that second baby is a one-year-old and I am finally getting around to publishing it. I will forever cherish the memories being made by the sweet brothers that share this room. it is the joy of my life raising two little boys, watching them grow + become friends, and waking up every morning to their laughter [and let's be real—some days tears]. sometimes I can't believe this is my life.
