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Welcome to the first room in our new home tour (check out our last place here)!!

Ahh, I'm SO excited about this room! So some quick background: when we saw this house online, this was the only room not pictured in the listing. We were super nervous and thought it would be a total gut job. I was 38 weeks pregnant and v ready for our little Moon to make her debut Earth side and did not want to move in and immediately live through any major construction. Obviously, I had already been brainstorming what her nursery would look like. Her middle name is Moon (read more about the meaning behind her name here!) so I planned on leaning into that whole theme. I had been eyeing this Moon Wallpaper (use code THECONFUSEDMILLENNIAL for 15% off!) and was very excited to finally move into a place all our own and bring my visions to life.

So imagine my shock and awe when we walked into the room and the exact wallpaper I had planned on using for her nursery was already on the wall! Even wilder, the exact light fixture from IKEA I'd been eyeing was already up!! I knew I wanted to put in an offer right then and there! Plus, she started kicking like crazy, as if to say, “Mom, buy it! This is our house!”

The problem:

This room is tiny. It's the tiniest bedroom in the house. The previous owners had a crib, dresser, and glider in this room and it felt claustrophobic. So claustrophobic that I started calling it the closet before we moved in. When we actually got in to the house and the room had no furniture in it, I was surprised by how big and functional the room actually was – but it's still to small for a long term bedroom or guest room. Plus it shares a wall with our bedroom. E and I have always had a rule when buying a home: we'd never share a bedroom wall with our kids.

So we decided that this will be her nursery, but she'll move into her “big girl room” when she gets a little older/needs more furniture. At which point this room will become an office. Both E and I work from home. My office is currently in an open room which most people would probably use as a formal living room. So it's only functional until she's like two, at which point I'll need to move somewhere with a door so I can be out of sight from her while I'm working.

E has been working from our kitchen table and from the guest room (his old office). If you read my post on my mood board for this house, you know I'm all about choosing functional pieces that can be repurposed as we grow. And that's exactly what this room is about. We know it'll be a floating office for E and I in the future, so we wanted to skip the traditional baby items.

Choosing items that can be repurposed:

Closet /storage

We got the Nordli dresser from IKEA. It fits perfectly into the little closet space which is great for free-ing up floor space in this smaller room. I love that it has clean lines and can double as a dresser for now, or a filing cabinet in the future. The Nordli dresser can be made into a ton of different configurations from how tall it is to the width of the drawer. So it's actually not too difficult to put together once you realize that. You see, when you get it, it comes with instructions for all the different configurations. I tried starting from the front of the instruction manual before realizing that and got v confused. Once I realized that the instruction book had a bunch of different configurations, it became easier to navigate to the relevant parts for building.

We want this room to stay pretty minimal so I like that the dresser also acts as a great table top to put the baby monitor and her night light. Thankfully the night light is on a wall switch dimmer so we can easily lower or raise it if we need to go into the room in the middle of the night. As it transforms more into an office, we'll take out the hanging shoe rack and build in more shelving storage in the closet.

Changing station

Since we have all the other stuff on top of the dresser, we can't use that for a changing station. I also didn't want to get an actual changing table, because, like I said, I like when we can repurpose pieces and felt like a changing table had a limited shelf life. Instead, we opted for this amazing sit-stand desk from IKEA. You just push the button and it raises or lowers to your desired level! You can also rise it from your phone! How cool!?

The legs were originally beige so I spray painted them white. This was super easy, I will say just do light layers though. On one little part I had sprayed a little too much paint so when the legs collapsed down it stripped some of the spray paint. It's not really noticeable, just more of a heads up. The desk itself was really easy to set up and transitions from high to low seamlessly! I am honestly dying to switch this room into my office so I can use this all the time! The desk comes in a black or brown top. We opted for the brown since it brings in the natural wood colors of the picture frames on the wall and floors.

Shelving

For next to the desk, we wanted to do shelving. So I opted for these spice racks from IKEA. For now we're using them as book shelves in the nursery; in the future, they'll be the perfect filing system for work docs, or can act as a styling moment for inspirational quotes, photos, etc. I love the versatility of these! We decided to leave them the natural wood color for now, but these can be painted very easily. The natural tone I think softens up the room and pulls in the rug under the desk. I love the versatility of these. For instance, when baby girl moves to her big girl room, if I want to take two of them for that room, I totally can and can always paint these later.

I debated what artwork to display over the wallpaper. I love the gray scale baby animal prints you see everywhere – however with the moons I didn't think it made a ton of sense. Also, I like to buy pieces that can work anywhere in our home, and the baby animals felt very limited for future re-use. Instead, I opted for these prints which I got last year. I love how simple they are against the busy wall paper.

Bassinet

I've talked – scratch that – raved about the SNOO before but I'll do it again! It's a smart bassinet that is unlike anything out there! It's designed to mimic the babies experience from the womb and will respond to your baby's cries. I can't even tell you how essential this is for every baby in my opinion! Yes, it's pricey, but worth every penny if you value your sleep! It uses a swaying motion side to side, and has a noise machine with sounds that mimic what it sounds like in the womb. When baby cries (like when they are learning to connect a sleep cycle), the motion and noise increase teaching them to soothe and connect the sleep cycle.

There are four levels. If the SNOO can't calm your baby, it will alert you. Now, obviously you're still caring for your baby if she's hungry or needs to be changed. But this truly helps them learn to connect sleep cycles and teaches the parents (at least in our experience) to give your baby a little space while doing so. By 8 weeks baby girl was sleeping through the night. By 12 weeks she had been doing regular 11-12 hour nights for a couple of weeks!

A lot of people get concerned about the baby developing a dependency on the SNOO – but here's the thing: babies come out addicted to motion and sound from being in the womb, so this makes the transition to earth easier for them. It allows them to adjust to their new environment which is no longer temperature or light controlled before introducing them to the no motion and no noise. Shop it here.

Rugs

Originally I had a big area rug in this room, but it didn't work IMO. Neither the bassinet nor the desk were fully on it. Which left everything feeling kind of misplaced. Instead I decided to give each side of the room their own rugs. Underneath the desk we opted for layered rugs. The natural one was a Nordstrom Rack find from years ago. By itself, it looked a little too bland so I added this clearance rug from Target. Once we did the layered rugs on the desk, I felt like the bassinet should follow suit. We did this extra long fur rug I already had and then paired it with two sheepskin rugs from IKEA to give the effect of a long rug. The IKEA rugs are the SOFTEST rugs I've ever stepped on! They are an absolute treat for my feet when I'm sitting next to the bassinet. It's like walking on a cloud that I never want to get off of.

Decor

Alright, now that all the big furniture items are out of the way, let's chat smaller decor touches! The room opens up to a short wall. We used some old art from my old office when I was a therapist. The pieces worked perfectly in here with the multi-colored rug. The orange bench is also from my office when I was a therapist. We paired it with a throw pillow we got on clearance a long time ago and this faux cactus. The pictures are further a part than I'd like, but this wall was a gallery wall from the previous owners so we just used existing nails in the wall since this is a temporary set up.

Above the bassinet I used the existing hook for an evil eye my step-mom got me instead of a mobile. I've read that mobiles can actually distract babies when falling asleep, and found that it took her a few days to even adjust to the wall paper (she was FASCINATED by it).

For the spice rack book shelves we got books from the library. One of the shelves ended up being the perfect spot for baby girl's Cuddle + Kind stuffed animals! We love these. They are super soft and hand made. For every doll purchased, 10 meals go to hungry children!

When it came time to decorate the desk area, I decided to carry the evil eye theme over. I DIY'ed the art above the desk and used a frame someone had given us. Since the desk is such a larger surface area than a changing table, it gave me the opportunity to create a little styling moment. We use the seagrass basket as a trash can. The diaper caddy works perfectly for all our essentials.

For our changing pad we have the Hatch which I LOVE! It's a changing pad and scale in one. It's a little pricier, but actually cheaper once you take into account buying a changing pad, changing sheets, piddle pads for on top of that, changing table tray, etc. This is more of a one and done solution which I love. I added in the peek-a-boo elephant which was a gift, with some old faux plants we had with some other little touches we had around the house (the buddha, a spare salt lamp, and a photo of E and I).

Voila!

There you have it! The first room in our new home tour is done!! I can't wait to start working on the next room and show it to you guys!

Moon Inspired Nursery Reveal + Tips