Baby Lythgoe's Nautical Nursery (And How We Afforded It)

 I probably enjoyed putting this nursery together more than I should have. I've ALWAYS looked forward to decorating a nursery someday. It's pretty much the only thing I've kept my Pinterest account open for. Okay that's not true, but I LOVE looking through people's cute ideas for decorations. I decided early on in my pregnancy that I wanted to do a nautical theme. I wish I could say there was some significance to the theme, but there totally isn't. No one in our family has served in the Navy, and neither of us have ever even lived near an ocean. I just thought it was cute. And I did not realize when I decided on this theme how insanely popular nautical stuff would suddenly become. Oh well.

This room used to be painted a really ugly dark blue and it had cast iron baseboard heaters. Last summer we tore out the heaters throughout the whole house, and earlier this spring/summer Jordan put in all of the beautiful shadow boxes and trim. I LOVE how the walls turned out. Every piece of furniture in the room was purchased off of KSL. We just needed to touch up the paint on the crib, scrub down the chair and changing table, and spray paint the lamps. The dresser was a project that we remodeled a long time ago. The crib bedding was also purchased off of KSL. I knew exactly what I was going for and I just couldn't bring myself to spend $300 on new crib bedding that I actually liked. I was so happy when we found the set that we did, for the price that we did. The hanging rope shelf was made entirely by Jordan. He is so talented! The 3 piece wooden nautical wall art was also built by Jordan and then I hand painted the designs on them. All of the other decorations in the room were either purchased off of KSL with our crib bedding, or from Hobby Lobby.

I just wanted to share all of that to tell you that you really can design your dream room without breaking the bank. This room looks sooo much more expensive than it really was. We are firm believers in buying used items or making things yourself. We didn't pay full price for hardly anything in the room. Even the Hobby Lobby decorations were only bought when they had their 50% off sales. Whenever Jordan does home improvement projects, he saves money by buying his materials from places like ReStore, which sells leftover building materials for really cheap. If ReStore doesn't have the trim that he wants, than he will cut down a board to design his own trim. I'm so thankful to be married to a hardworking, frugal man who also supports my desire to have a really cute house, one room at a time. :)

We are sure excited for this little man to move in soon!