His Shelves

Paxton's nursery has a built-in shelving unit. When we first moved in, it was one of the things I fell in love with. And when the twins were in that room, we filled it with books and stuffed animals.  I wish I had taken a true "before" picture, but this is the best I can do.

When Gavin and Vivian were in this room, the back of the shelves and the selves themselves were all white. I had a can of blue paint (not the same color as the walls) in my craft supplies that I had found in the "paint returns" aisle of Walmart several months back (for only $3!) and I decided to paint the back of the shelving unit with it. Of course, I then also wanted to repaint all of the shelves white (the same color as his dresser.

Here's the shelving unit after one coat of blue paint:

And here's the unit after 3 coats of blue paint on the back and 2 coats of white paint on each shelf:

I put a few goodies on the shelf that day and then went shopping for more over the next few weeks.

After several trips to stores like Ross, T.J. Maxx, Pier One, Target, and shopping online, the shelving unit was complete! And I just love how it turned out!

I started out with three stacks of books.

I took some of the books from the twins' collection, some from my collection (the stack on the bottom are my Wizard of Oz series books), and some I bought on Amazon. I got Pax five or six gently used owl-themed books from the Internet including, "The Owl Swings a Dowel," "Berkeley's Barn Owl Dance," and "Oliver the Owl."

Then eight (!) owls were added into the mix.

Some framed photos, framed art, vases, two brown boxes, an hour glass, a teal plate, a green basket, and a couple pairs of baby shoes (blue and orange, of course) were added and everything was moved around until it was just right.

Here are the left selves:

And here are the right shelves:

 

I just love so much about these shelves. I hope to fill them up with more books as Paxton gets older, but right now, the twins' room and the downstairs playroom are where most of our kid books are housed. And yes, I'm fully aware that most of these things will need to all be removed in less than a year, but for now, nice, pretty, breakable things will fill these shelves.

Click HERE to read even more about his Woodsy Owl nursery transformation.