Today I finally finished William's room. Down to getting all the baseboards/door frames repainted. I realized yesterday that almost everything in there was done on the cheap, so I'll fill you all in on that as we go. The theme is Paddington Bear, whom I thought everyone had heard of. Apparently not. Paddington is a British storybook character and it was later made into a tv show on BBC. I've never seen the show, but I liked the books when I was a kid.
First is the crib. I managed to get this crib from Walmart on sale (more than $75 off) for $115 including shipping. For those of you who are pregnant and will have to buy a crib, Walmart by far has the best prices, and they have awesome sales.
The whole Paddington Bear theme came to be when I ran across this crib bumper at Goodwill for a whole dollar. I couldn't pass it up. I made the crib blanket and crib skirt to match, bought some sheets at Target, and whalla- crib bedding set.
Next is the mobile. This, I found on ebay. I could only find one anywhere on the internet. I think I paid $3.75 for it. They had a buy it now on there for about $15, but I bid on it instead, and got it WAY cheaper.
And here is the kite and clouds. The perspective is off in this picture, but you get the general idea. I made this to match the kites on the crib bumper. I spend about $2 at Michaels to make this. A couple of dowel rods, 4 sheets of styrofoam, some ribbon out of the discount bin, and some yarn that I found at Goodwill. Oh, and I used some paint to paint the long string onto the wall since I didn't want to use an actual string and cause a choking hazard. It's harder than you would think to paint a string onto a wall...especially when it's textured. The clouds I painted on with some watered down acrylic paint, and a sponge. Oh, the mobile is hanging by a rope I made from leftover ribbon from the kite. Everything matches perfectly.
This is the dresser/changing table. The dresser I found a thrift store, and repainted. It took me awhile to figure out exactly how I wanted it, but I'm happy with how it came out. The changing pad and cover came from a childrens consignment store...the wipe warmer, hamper, and diaper pail I did get new. Wipe warmer and hamper were just the cheapest I could find, and the diaper pail is the same one Noah has which I highly recommend. It's the Diaper Dekor Plus. I has its own refill bags that you're supposed to use, but a tall kitchen trash bag fits it just fine and they're a whole lot cheaper. We're had some pretty nasty diapers put in there, and once that little flap closes, we don't smell anything.
I think that no room is complete unless there is something on the walls. Wall art however, is expensive. Picture books, are not. I found a Paddington picture book online for $8. That's more than I would typically want to pay for a book, but I really wanted pictures for the walls, and just ONE actual Paddington print was at least $30. So, $8 for a whole bunch of pictures was worth it. I have to admit, I felt like I was doing something wrong when I was cutting up that book...
The pictures came out really cute. The picture frames are all from thrift stores, or I already had them, and repainted them to match the room.
These are what I'm using to put diapers in, and hide stuff that isn't so pretty...like noise machines. I got them at Michaels for a few bucks each, but still used a coupon. I painted them, and beat them up (Noah helped with that part) and then made the little kites out of leftover big kite materials to tie them into the room a little more. Josh says the boxes look like they've been sitting in a barn for 20 years. That was the goal. :)
This is one of my favorites. At the beginning of the Paddington books, he has just arrived in London from "Darkest Peru" and he's found by the Brown family sitting in Paddington train station, on his suitcase, with a tag that says "Please look after this bear." I wanted to use the travel part of the story somehow in the room. Making an end table out of an old-style suitcase is how I decided to do that. I found the suitcase in an antique store here in Old Town Clovis, bought some table legs, braces, and spray paint at Lowes, and an endtable was born.
The lamp was another Goodwill find, and the lampshade was on clearance at Ross.
The glider was Noah's and moved into William's room. The name on the wall was kind of an afterthought because I decided this wall was too bare. It's one of my favorite things about the room now. They sell wooden letters at various craft stores, but why would I want to go buy them when I could make them?
I cut the letters out of a big piece of cardboard, from the box the crib came in, and then covered them with burlap. Lots of staples were involved. Then I used the kite yarn from Goodwill to make the hangers, and some macrame cord, which I also had bought at Goodwill to hang the letters from, and to make the little bows at the top.
I found this on ebay. I think it was $1.75. Cute, eh?
The light fixture that was here when we moved in was awful, and I decided that it had to go. So, I ran down to Walmart and found this. It's the cheapest one they had, but it works really well in the room. I put it up all by myself. ;)
Lastly, is the little trike. My grandpa made this many moons ago, and I managed to get my mom to let me have it. It really has nothing to do with Paddington, but it's antique-y looking, and that's just the perfect sized spot for it, so that's its new home.
Hope you've enjoyed the tour. I had a lot of fun making everything, even though it took a heck of a lot of time. Totally worth it. :)
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