My budget 'Under the Sea' Nursery Makeover

It's taken a while, but I'm finally all finished with the new nursery - just in time for baby no.2 to make an appearance! This room has seen many revamps over the years, the most recent being my lockdown project to transform our very messy spare bedroom into a little working from home office. We kept the single spare bed in there as we often have guests come to stay, but with a new arrival imminent this entire room needed a major rethink.

How this room looked before - as my bright & cheerful home office

I've had a lot of fun planning this space, however as this is a really small room, deciding on a layout has been a bit of a challenge. The spare bed has now gone - replaced with a sofa bed in the living room so visitors are still welcome! - and my desk has moved downstairs into the conservatory whilst its not needed during my maternity leave. 

My first steps when planning a new space is always to put together a mood board, as this helps me to visualise the space and think about what's going to work. 

In terms of the colours in here, I'm still in love with the bright and cheerful yellow arch I painted onto the alcove wall when designing the home office two years ago (exactly how I did it in this post here!). I didn't want to lose that, as it really adds something to this small space, so I worked around that coming up with a scheme that would embrace it. 

We're once again not finding out the gender of the baby until birth, meaning the scheme needed to be gender neutral too. I settled on an 'under the sea' theme, and had lots of fun putting this all together! 

Like all spaces in our home, this room struggles with natural light, so it took a few tester pots before settling on a beautiful, soft blue which I felt would work for both a little boy or a little girl. I've gone with 'Celestial Blue' by Little Green, which I had colour matched to save money, and is the perfect compliment for the yellow too.

I wanted to stick with the half painted wall, as I love the way it looked in here previously - its also a great way of adding some colour without painting the full wall and therefore risking making a tiny space feel darker and smaller. I do intend to add some scallops in here too, as I feel it will finish it off nicely, but that will have to be a job for after baby is here as I'm not sure my back will allow it!

I've gone with natural wood furniture from IKEA - always my go-to when furnishing a budget-friendly makeover like this. These are the Bjorksnas drawers with the Sniglar cot to match.

In terms of accessories, I've continued with the pops of yellow through a bargain H&M rug, and a beautiful pom pom cushion which was from George Home. I've also tried to re-use some of the bits that were in here previously, such as the bamboo shelf, one of my favourite lockdown purchases. I've styled it with a toy octopus, a little pair of shoes, a scallop shell and a framed photo of my Dad. He's no longer with us, but I wanted to include him in here in some way.

I've kept the frames that made up the mini gallery wall in here - simply replacing the prints with some ocean-themed ones from The Poster Store. Ideally, I think natural wood frames would work better, so that's something I might change in time when budget allows.

I couldn't resist the urge to hand make some decorations too, so I've spent the first couple weeks of my maternity leave making some bunting, a macrame rainbow from rope and thread (exactly how I made it here), some felt sea creatures and a wall hanging by painting an old table runner - I used the same technique as I did here.

On the wall above the cot I've popped some IKEA Mosslanda shelves finished off with some wooden hooks from H&M. I've styled these with a couple of books, some ocean-themed prints, toys from Little Dutch, and some cute outfits. To the cot I've added throw from H&M which I already had, and the bedding was a bargain John Lewis sale find. Finally, the clementine swaddle blanket was from etsy. 

I didn't include everything from my mood board - simply because budget didn't allow for it, but I'm really pleased with how its turned out, and I can always add extra bits in here over time.

Now all that's missing in this room is its occupant! What do you think?

Thanks for reading,
Sam Xx