Levi’s Toddler Room

With my due date rapidly approaching, we’ve been busy preparing our home for little Alexia Grace. This week we moved the crib into Lexi’s room, so I was able to set up Levi’s room as a toddler room. We all greatly enjoyed Levi’s “helping” move the crib and reassemble it in his baby sister’s room. We’re hoping that involving him in the process gives him some ownership in passing down his crib, so he doesn’t miss it. So far, so good.

Toddler Bed

In order to make this as easy as possible on our little man, we started him out in his toddler bed at the end of November. At that time he was 16-months-old, and while we had to revert back to the crib for many nap times, Levi slept well in his toddler bed at night. He did nap in the toddler bed, but only about half the time. In the past six weeks or so, Levi has exclusively been sleeping in his toddler bed, so we felt it was safe to go ahead and move it to the nursery.

A few people have asked us where we found a lime green bed. We didn’t, rather my husband cleaned up a used, white Costco toddler bed, installed new hardware and spray painted it lime green. One of the things I really like about this bed is that we can reuse all his crib linens, including the blanket my mom loving made for him. We also reused the too-long crib skirt, which was the inspiration piece for his room. Plus, it was custom-made by Carousel Designs, and we’re going to get as much use out of it as possible to get our money’s worth. Levi’s toddler bed was our first project in getting ready for baby #2, and I love how it turned out!

Play Space

The other big change we made to Levi’s room was incorporating a play space.

About a year ago when we were rearranging our living room, we moved the glider from Levi’s room to the living room. This really opened up the space in his room, which we used as open play space until adding the toddler bed, which really crowded the space with the crib still in place. So now his room feels so much bigger!

For Christmas, we gave Levi the IKEA Mammut Children’s table and chairs, which we set up in the kitchen until this week. Levi immediately loved the table and chairs, and while he’s not liking having to use his high chair in the kitchen again, he seems to enjoy having somewhere to sit in his room other than the floor. We had a couple extra lime green throw pillows in the living room, so I set up those with the lumbar pillow formerly in the nursing chair as a reading nook. It makes it more comfortable for my husband and I to sit on the floor and read to Levi, as we found reading in his room before nap and bed times seems to get Levi ready for sleep much better than doing so in the living room

Since Levi’s toys were getting out of control, I also did some reorganizing. Thanks to a couple of navy storage bins on sale at Babies R Us, passing down a few baby toys to his little sister and simply rearranging the remaining toys, I was able to come up with a system I think will work better for the time being. I’m also thankful for having a built-in desk in his room with lots of shelves.

Artwork

The Levi sign and banner were loving made by two good friends, who are much more talented with arts and crafts than I am; these were both gifts from Levi’s baby shower. While I did paint the tree piece above Levi’s built-in desk, I had guidance from an artist at Pinot’s Palette where I recently attended a friend’s 30th birthday party. The planets hanging from the ceiling were made by my husband in late elementary school or maybe junior high, and until 2013 they were hanging in his old room at my in-laws home. I thought the planets would look cheesy, but they turned out much nicer than I expected. Levi still has no idea what planets are, but he points to them and says “ball.”

We are still planning to add a little artist’s gallery wall above Levi’s dresser/changing table. I found some inspiration on Pinterest from the blog Honeybee Vintage’s “Making a Creative Space,” and I’ve purchased the curtain rod and hooks from IKEA, so we’re all ready to add this inexpensive gallery space. We just haven’t made it that far yet. I’ll do a separate post on this project once it’s completed.

Nursery Decor that Grows with Your Child 

I’m blessed with and thankful for my handy husband who made Levi’s room so nice with special touches like wainscoting and trimming out the built-in bookshelf. We also intentionally selected colors—navy (my husband’s choice) and lime green (my choice)—and patterns for his room that we felt would transition well as Levi grew up. So far our decisions for his nursery worked out really well for the transition to a toddler room. Hopefully the trend will continue as he grows!