Zoe’s Room

by Kara

I’ve been meaning to do a post on Zoe’s room for a while now. Now that we are maybe almost possibly moving, I guess its a good idea to write about it before she’s in a new room.

Zoe’s room is by far my favourite room in my house. Its bright, neat, and girly, and it was so much fun to decorate!

Before it became “Zoe’s Room”, this room was an odd conglomeration of office, guest room, and storage area. It was – I forget what colour the walls were. Green? Yellow? Brown? I’m sure my husband would remember. All I remember is that it was dark, and it had a very faded carpet covering a beautiful wood floor. When I found out I was pregnant, it became my mission to empty the room of all its old furniture and turn it into a beautiful nursery. At 22 weeks, I found out I was having a girl, and the design ideas began.

After the room was emptied, my husband tore out the old carpet. Since there were some areas where the wood had been painted, we had to paint the floor, rather than stain it. We chose a very light grey, and I love the final effect. It makes the whole room bright and airy. We painted the walls a light purple. All the furniture is white, and there are dark grey curtains that match the dark grey and yellow rug. The walls are decorated simply: A canvas print above the book shelf, a shelf of frames above the change table, and some wood prints above the crib.

My favourite piece of furniture in Zoe’s room is this shelf. I’ve always wanted one of these Ikea shelves, and I love it in this room. Its so organized. The black boxes are filled with blankets, shoes, hats, bibs, dolls, and teddies. I plan on filling the top shelves with books as we build up our collection.

I also love the canvas print and picture frames above  the shelf. I got the canvas print from Winners after Zoe was born. It is a perfect match for our colour scheme. The picture frames were purchased soon after our first ultrasound as I was searching for the perfect frame for the ultrasound pictures. As you can see, they’re both still empty. I wound up getting a simple white frame for the ultrasound pictures, which is still sitting on the shelf above the change table.

I decided not to get an actual ‘change table’, but rather to use a small dresser. This way, when I no longer need a change table, Zoe can still use the little dresser.

The black shelf beside the change table is filled with disposable diapers and wipes. At home, I use cloth diapers which are stored in the top drawer of the dresser.

Decorating Zoe’s room was a big project for me when I was pregnant. A lot of people told me just to do it after she was born, since she would be sleeping in my room for a while at first and wouldn’t care where she was sleeping afterwards. But it was important for me that this room be ready to welcome our baby. Its true that I didn’t use the change table for the first 2 weeks of her life, and she did sleep in our room until she was 5 months old. But I loved knowing that she had a place in our home, a beautiful room where I could put her down for a nap or where we could sit on a rocking chair reading books.