Pepper Design Blog

Project Nursery: Bookshelves for the Reading Nook

Liv’s nursery has this very cool tree painted on the wall by her Grandma and Great Aunt:

So neat! They created it from a magazine clipping that I had pulled long long ago, and I have to admit that it’s probably one of my favorite wall designs that they painted for the nursery. I love the patterns in the leaves – and I love that owl! He’s peeking down over the shoulder of whomever is reading a book to Liv in the rocking chair.

More recently, the glider was moved to the crib side of the room to make space for a new play/reading nook complete with table and chairs.

I’ve been thinking about ways to create a fun little art and reading station in this corner as well, and how I can creatively add some above-table storage for books, crayons, play dough containers and the like. My first thought was to paint a few spice racks from Ikea the same burnt red as the changing table and install them below the owl and above the table.

Then Sheila left this idea in the comments section of the Reading Nook post from a few weeks ago and I fell in love with the idea of incorporating a bookshelf right into the tree!

My goal is to make it less complicated (maybe three total shelves?) and a little more on the focus of the actual tree design rather than books (so that all of that beautiful artwork is not hidden). But I think with a little moderation and modification it can be a very cool idea!

And that’s my new weekend project!

Project Nursery: A Newly Updated Mobile

Sharing a quick update in our nursery today. I finally had some time to restring the butterflies from Liv’s felt mobile and to invest in a proper wooden hanger! My previous version worked for a while… and then decided it didn’t want to support the weight of the little floating felt butterflies any longer.

If you’re ever interested in creating your own unique mobile, I highly recommend purchasing a basic wooden frame/hanger from Seven Acre Toys as your base. I searched for quite a while to find something that would fit the look and design that I had in mind and was so happy I eventually came across their site on Etsy. They didn’t sell just the hangers at the time but after reaching out to them with my project they set up a custom listing and built the hanger to my 14″ specs with rounded edges, a wax finish and with drilling holes for hanging, all for just $10 + shipping.

I love the way it looks! And how the butterflies sway and spin casually as breezes enter the room.

I used a small wooden ball bead from a craft store to hide the knot of the four adjoining embroidery thread supports that connect from each arm together. One of these supports continues on up to the ceiling where the entire mobile is supported by a threaded eye screw. Here’s that visual again so you can see what I mean:

This underside image shows that each arm has three drill holes – one at the farthest end for a butterfly, two halfway between the center of the X and the end for the embroidery thread support that reaches up to that wooden bead and for a second butterfly. There’s also two holes in the very center for the butterfly that hangs down the middle, though one would have been fine. Here’s my exact listing if that’s helpful!

And from Olivia’s angle:

The butterflies are two pieces of felt from the Etsy company Three Sheep Studio (they don’t sell quite the color range I was looking for at Joann’s or Michael’s, and this felted wool is just beautiful) connected together by complimentary embroidery thread that wraps around the entire outer edge in a simple stitch. Read more about creating each of those guys here.

The made over glider has been moved to next to the crib for now while we build out Liv’s little reading nook.

Very excited to cross ‘updating Liv’s mobile’ off of my list! And wanted to be sure to share my resources with you all since they were so great to work with.

More Project Nursery posts found here: a new reading nook part 1, finished after photos, no sew fabric pennant, baby clothing art, handmade felt butterfly mobile, DIY crib skirt, basket liners part 1, part 2, the, glider makeover, recovering an ottoman, sewing lined curtains part 1, part 2, part 3, curtain fabric selection, nursery fabric board, rocking horse find, new pendant light, new sconce lighting, vintage wall art addition, changing table makeover, nursery wall striping tutorial , painted animal project, the initial inspiration board breakdown, the before pictures

Project Nursery: A Reading Nook

I’m working on carving out a little space in Liv’s nursery for a reading nook.

When her Aunt asked me what she could get Liv for Christmas and her birthday (which is just three weeks later) I mentioned a table and chairs for playdough, drawing and reading. We settled on this adorable set and I love how it looks in the nursery!

Chairs by Room & Board, table by Whitney Bros. I searched and searched for a few weeks before finding a set that had both good reviews (ie wasn’t going to break immediately) and at a reasonable price (and maybe had a little design appeal…). It was probably because fo the holidays but everything was sold out. Found the table initially on Amazon but for $50 less at the Today’s Classroom website. PS West Elm currently has the same chairs in white and a natural wood on sale.

I hope to create little book racks out of painted wall plate holders or spice racks, and maybe an area for a big roll of paper. The pictures above are a new addition too, though I’m still trying to decide what photo will go in that top frame before I mat it. The bottom is an adorable card that Liv received when she was brand new – fits perfectly with the nursery and talk about inexpensive art!

The rocker was formerly in that above corner and I’ve been playing around with its new placement.

Here’s the official start of turning Liv’s space slowly into a big girl room. Oh man, it’s too soon.