our bedroom makeover part 4: benedicts newborn nursery

funny story: i wasnt planning on having a newborn/transitional nursery at all. i had found the most perfect crib that would fit in our little "baby corner" just right AND last until benedict was big enough for a real bed so that there would be an absolute minimum of furniture buying/moving. it was a most expertly crafted plan and well, you know what they say about plans...

this perfect crib? apparently its like, the most popular hardest to get crib in the entire world. once we had the room ready/the money to finally order it (at approximately 36 weeks pregnant because i am really on top of things...), it was out of stock everywhere. it was so out of stock that most of the places that carry it (target, amazon, buy buy baby, the manufacturer, AND a variety of independent furniture stores) wouldnt even let me order one. but bed bath and beyond would. obviously i spent an entire morning crying and panicking about this, because 36 weeks pregnant. 

then miraculously bed bath and beyond let me order one. then a couple days later tragedy struck once again when they emailed me that the crib was, in fact, on backorder and would not be shipping until the end of august. which was about 6 weeks after my due date. so i had to figure out something else fast (actually, faster than fast because benedict decided he was coming quite a bit early). 

thankfully, this was our second baby and we knew all about how babies really dont need very much at the beginning. also, even though the bedding was 100% diy, i already had all the materials on hand and baby bedding is super fast and easy to make. also also, we conveniently still had the vintage bassinet that we used when alice was a baby. so really this whole crib situation was just overblown by my exceedingly pregnant emotions. 

since there wasnt a nursery in our room to begin with, i dont have a "before" picture, but i do have some (for some reason really oddly lit?) photos of benedicts little corner of our home:

 

now while the previous parts of our bedroom makeover have involved some rather large and expensive trips to ikea, benedicts nursery was practically free. and by that i mean, i spent about $16 on some striped fabric (which ive hardly put a dent in since i havent made the actual crib sheets yet) and the rest was pulled together from things we already had. and, i know im biased, but this is the cutest nursery that i have ever seen. 

heres where benedict sleeps: 

the bassinet is vintage, i bought it at an estate sale when i was pregnant with alice for the stupidly low price of $2 (just fyi, prescott, arizona is a VERY popular place for rich people to go to retire so the antiques/estate sales are AMAZING and SO cheap because nobody there wants old stuff). it was blue when i bought it but we had conveniently already painted it black for alices nursery. the blanket was made by chopping the least-raggedy portion from a gorgeous (but well-worn) chenille bedspread that i bought at jet rag dollar day when i was like 19 (that i had been stowing away for YEARS because it was too pretty to throw away but too damaged to use in its entirety) and sewing it into a miniature quilt. the sheets and nursing pillow i made with the aforementioned striped fabric that i got at the local salvage fabric store for $4 a yard (p.s. the nursing pillow pattern is from this book and i will have a tutorial for no-elastic bassinet sheets up here very soon!). 

and here is benedicts little changing area (which you already saw in the post about the dressers but i want to go over the details anyway): 

the pennant bunting was re-purposed from my baby shower decorations (should i post a tutorial for this one too?), and i covered a $2 changing pad from a local resale group on facebook in the same striped fabric i used for the sheets and nursing pillow (tutorial pending for this project as well). all of benedicts clothes and supplies are in the top two drawers of the dresser (except for diapers because for now we still have a mountain of diapers but i know that will soon be a thing of the past), but i put all the little tiny bits (pacifiers, nail clippers, nursing pads, etc) in a vintage card catalog drawer (from the same estate sale as the bassinet, i think it was also $2, maybe $5), and i accessorized with some prints that love but previously didnt have a home for (the two on the left are by leslie sam kim, and the TARDIS print is by nan lawson), and a sonogram of benedict because i found an empty frame and it was just the right size. 
even though decorating is hard for me AND we have to wait for the crib (im really dreading moving everything around AGAIN when it comes...), i really do love how everything came together, and how we were able to re-purpose so many things we already had to make an adorable nursery for benedict.  stay tuned for the final nursery update in a couple months!