Start with color! You want you walls so have some sort of color to them. Paint on the wall can change the whole room. I've seen some really cute rooms that would be so much better if they had some sort of color to them. Don't think that not painting the wall is saving your home's value; you can always paint over the color!
We learned a valuable lesson--don't try to save money by buying a smaller amount because if you end up needing more, it will cost you more! AND don't cut corners with cheap brushes! We spent about 100 bucks on paint and supplies. FYI: Dollar store rolling brushes can cause some lint/fuzz to get on the wall which will cause more work for you if you end up sanding it and repainting like my perfectionist husband!
We chose two colors: a green color for an accent wall and a kaki color for the remaining three.
Next comes furniture. I know that it can be fun looking at all the cribs, bassinets, changing tables, dressers, and rockers, but seriously, get what you NEED! I've seen some beautiful cribs that my friends have bought for their newborns, and I love them, but when you are on a budget, this is the best way to save some moola! We found our crib and changing table on sell at Target; buy the crib and get the changing table FREE. Yeah boy, I jumped on that! Both were 190 total! That includes the shipping charges that I had to pay since both stores were sold out of this set. I'm so glad that I invested in a changing table because when John Warren was smaller, it made changing his diapers so much easier. Since we use cloth, it also has helped me stay organized. JW's crib is as cute as anything in Pottery Barn for a quarter of the cost. Since we co-sleep, is crib has been just a place to play but since it turns into a toddler bed, I'm sure we will get some use of it. Why spend a lot of money for something that you will only use a few years? Invest in the bed that your child will use from 4 years to 18 years!
Now, onto the fun part! I spent hours browsing bedding online, and it was downright depressing looking at some of the prices: 500+ for some bedding. Hold up, my own bedding doesn't cost that much, so there is no way I'm paying that for some bedding that will last about three years for my child who could CARE LESS!!!! Here is were the craftiness comes in handy! My Aunt Johnnie Sue and I made a trip to a fabric store and bought all of our fabric for 5 bucks a yard. Yep, you heard right FIVE DOLLARS a yard! Crazy steal! It would have cost less, but I bought enough for curtains and extra for anything else that I wanted to make. I ended up spending about 150 bucks on all the fabric. Now, it is important to keep this in mind. If you make your own bedding, find the fabric first and then match the paint to the bedding.
We found a simple pattern, bought a cheap 20 dollar bumper from BRU for the insides, had my friend monogram the minky dot, and sewed everything ourselves!
Wall art is a fun part of decorating a nursery and can be a very EXPENSIVE part! I browsed Etsy and HGTV's website for my inspiration. Now you can find a ton of ideas on Pinterest. I bought some scrapbook paper from Hobby Lobby along with some cheap picture frames and cut out some Mr. Owls for my little man's room. Easy Peasy and cost about 60 bucks total--the majority of it in the frames which can be reused as JW's room changes. That is only 15 dollars per picture for something unique and so cute!
In the picture you can see how I store John Warren's cloth diapers. I had some old storage bins that I had bought from Wal-mart when Warren and I were first married. My wonderfully talented aunt took the old bins and made some matching ones out of the fabric that we had bought, so those cost me nothing! My favorite price! (She did have to by velcro, but I don't know how much she spent.
THE GLIDER--this is a great purchase if you will use it. Since John Warren co-sleeps, we have used it mostly for reading, cuddling, or rocking to sleep. I'm glad we bought it, but looking back now, I would probably have bought something smaller because this takes a huge amount of space. It was about 400-500 dollars for both the glider and ottoman. This is where you could probably save some money by buying something used and redoing it, or buying a less expensive chair. This will take some investigating on your part.
The hanging letters on the wall came from Anthropology and were bought with a gift card--FREE! The cute owl lamp was about 40 bucks from Target, and the curtain rod cost about the same on sale at Lowe's. We already owned the side table; it was a gift from the MIL--FREE.
We personalized the wall about the crib with a decal. This I found on Etsy for 20 dollars! Great steal!!
The bookshelf was one that we had. I took some fabric that we had left over and covered the back, painted the wood, and we have a new shelf for FREE!!
And for the final touch--my old rocking horse:
I had to buy some yarn to redo the hair witch was basically rotting away, but other than new hair and tightening up some screws, this bad boy was ready to roll! It adds a special touch to the room and was basically FREE!!
The key to a good room on a budget is finding some things that you already own that you can update/re-do for your new room. Cutting corners on expensive purchases like bedding and furniture can make a huge difference. The money that you save on your nursery can be used for other important purchases...in our case, an electric pump. Haha :)
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