Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Twinstructions: Twins Nursery – making ROOM for 2!


Twins Nursery – making ROOM for 2!
Posted on November 29, 2011 by Joanna
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I learned that organizing a twins’ nursery can be a fun project, but it also takes a lot of planning and strategizing. This week Mandy and I will share with you our tips and advice for creating the perfect nursery for your twin bundles of joy. Below is my plan for tackling the challenge and making room for 2. While working on my babies’ nursery, a few things were especially important for me: safety, functionality, fun, and cost efficiency (I am big on saving money anywhere and anyway I can!).

Here is my advice on how to accomplish this:

Plan early
I started planning the nursery as soon as we found out we were having 2 boys. Based on my experience, I do recommend that you start organizing everything early. With a twin pregnancy, there is a chance that you could be placed on bed rest or even hospitalized so you may not have the opportunity to shop for nursery items and decorate the room by yourself. If you don’t run into any complications, I can almost guarantee that you will be exhausted in the late stages of your pregnancy, so hanging up pictures and ironing curtains will not seem like a dream activity to you.

Decide which room or space in your home will serve as a twins’ nursery
We picked a small spare bedroom that was previously used as an office. The office was already painted blue. This color worked great for the nursery, so we did not even have to paint the room! I was happy to save time and money.

Decide on the décor
I am not a big fan of the nursery themes. In my opinion, it is more fun for the parents (especially moms to be) to design super cute rooms for their babies. Nothing wrong with that, I actually enjoy seeing other people’s theme nurseries, but personally I will wait until my kids are old enough to express what they really want their room to look like. Besides, all the theme accessories are very expensive and some of them are not useful or functional. I feel similarly about buying expensive nursery furniture sets. It is very pricey and not always useful when the kids are older. So W and D nursery is simple but warm and colorful.

Establish your budget
How much do you want to spend on your nursery? I decided that I didn’t want to spend more that $500 total. I know a few people who organized great nurseries for less than that, but most of my friends were shaking their heads in disbelieve saying that $500 will not even buy me 2 nice cribs. So let me tell you that it does buy more than 2 nice cribs and I will show you how I did it. Shop smart Make a list of must have items for your nursery and decide which ones you are going to buy and which you will register for. This step is a key to saving money. I decided not to buy or register for any expensive baby furniture sets. I focused on finding perfect and inexpensive cribs and changing station. I also did not buy crib sheet sets (I did not use bumpers and found comforters not useful or safe for babies). Besides, they are very pricey and all I really needed is 4 crib sheets. I did not buy any wall paintings, because we decided that we would use boys’ photographs as nursery artwork. I also planned carefully for what I registered for. I registered for only the items that I was absolutely sure I would need. My cribs were the most expensive product that I registered for @ $142 each. As a result, I received most of the nursery items as gifts from generous friends and family.


So here is my list of must have items for twins’ nursery:

2 cribs - Babi Italia Nursery 101 Crib – $142 per crib (we received them as a gift, so $0 cost to us). They are plain and simple but also very nice looking and good quality.

2 mattresses – Serta Nightstar - $79 per mattress (we received them as a gift, so $0 cost to us)

Changing station (or a comfortable place to change diapers and dress your babies) –Nursery 101 Concord Dressing Table – $79. My changing station matches our cribs. It is good quality and for safety reasons I like that you can install a changing pad securely in place. I also like the storage room underneath. It is easier for me to find onesies or socks in the small baskets rather that search in dresser drawers.

Storage room for clothes, baby gear and other accessories: you can use a closet, a dresser, storage baskets, or bookshelves. Be creative. Don’t think that an expensive dresser is the only solution when trying to build a nursery on a budget. Besides the closet space I used storage baskets. I bought them from different stores and also reused a couple that I already had – total cost ~ $ 50

Night light – I used the Kinderglo Moon - $25. When I purchased this nightlight, I did not realize how useful it would be in our house. I love it because you can charge it and take it with you anywhere in the house! The light is not too bright but strong enough to see when you are changing diapers in the middle of the night. Kinderglo has 2 settings (30 minutes or 8 hours) it also has 5 different light colors. The moon shape is super cute and I think it will also work great when the boys are older.

Humidifier – I used Crane Adorable Cool Mist Humidifier - $40. This humidifier has the word “adorable” in its name. I do agree that it is well-earned! It is adorable and works very well.

Monitor - Sony Baby Call Nursery Monitor ~$35 (we received them as a gift so $0 cost to us)

Couch, guest bed or a glider (a place for you to sit, lie down or relax while spending time in the nursery). We reused our fairly new loveseat that was already in this room. It was also a great place to sit while feeding the babies. Bookcase – we reused the one that was already in the office.

2 cribs mobiles - we used Fisher-Price Rainforest Mobile and Ocean Mobile - ~$45 (we received them as a gift so $0 cost to us)

Window treatments - we already had blinds installed in the room and I just purchased 2 kids valances on clearance at Target for ~$6 each.

Rug – if you don’t have a carpet in your nursery I recommend getting a rug to make a soft place for crawling babies and more cozy play area. We used the rug that we already had in the room. It matched the loveseat so it was a good solution.

Wall decals – Transportation Peel & Stick – $9.99. They added nice colorful touch to the room. They are very inexpensive and you can easily remove them at any time.

Final results: We originally placed the cribs side by side with few feet of space in between them. Than we realized that placing them in this corner type of setting saves room and also gives boys opportunity to interact. They can stand almost next to each other and “talk” which they do quite often lately :) Changing table with storage baskets and loveseat and the rug. We play a lot on the rug and next to the loveseat. Unfortunately, W and D recently figured out that it is a lot of fun to take stuff out if the storage baskets and spread it across the room. I will have to make different arrangements for the clothes and fill up the baskets with their toys.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Nat Your Average Girl: Maternity Mondays: Week 19

Maternity Mondays: Week 19
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Thursday, November 10, 2011

The Culinary Couple: The Nursery

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Thursday, November 3, 2011

Port of Thoughts: It beats for you

November 3, 2011
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Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Kids Today: ABC Wrap-Up

October 2011