Pink and Brown Birdhouse Nursery

by Kyle & Emma Heiberger
(Columbus, Ohio)

Lots of creativity and love went into our baby girl's Pink and Brown Birdhouse Nursery!

First my husband and father-in-law had to refurbish a worn, water-stained oak floor by renting a belt sander and sanding it down which began the transformation of this room into a pretty baby girl's nursery. After sanding it smooth, they stained the floor using a Minwax, Golden Oak stain. They waited the recommended 24 hours and then applied two coats of Minwax Fast Drying Polyurethane that really gave the floor back its luster.


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Next on our list was the walls and trim. We used Behr FreshAire paint because I wanted to be able to help with painting during my pregnancy. Our paint color is a nice earthy taupe called Shaded Path. The paint we used on the wooden moldings is the same as we used in the rest of our home, Olympic Satin Interior paint in Dogwood Blossom. Our hopes are that the neutral wall color will grow with our daughter and coordinate with any bedding she might pick for herself down the road.


My husband is the artist in our family; he painted (freehand) the tree and birds silhouette mural using Swiss Chocolate paint over the baby bed. Again, we wanted the art to grow with our little girl so we didn't want anything too baby-ish or cartoon-ish. My husband decided a classic design for the nursery wall mural would be best with a classic yet modern look. We used the Swiss Chocolate paint to give the IKEA Rocking Mouse a makeover from its off-the-shelf Red finish to a coordinating Chocolate Brown.

The baby's crib, changing table and chest of drawers are from the Baby Italia set called Scandi. I wanted to buy a matching night stand for later on when we put a "big-girl bed" in the pink and brown birdhouse nursery but I couldn't find anything in two-tone like the Baby Italia set. I did consider a Creighton Walnut Cherry nightstand that had perfect wood tone, clean lines and the same shape. All that was needed was to paint part of it white, and so that's exactly what we did. It turned out so well that everyone just assumes it came as part of the set!

The nursery glider and ottoman are the Mercer design by Dwell Studio. The floating wall shelves (Lack design) and the dresser drawer and closet organizers (not shown) came from IKEA and the lamps are from a collection of Amy Coe nursery decor.


The pink and brown baby bedding and fabric are primarily from the Olivia collection by Dwell Studio. I just fell in love the modern tulip design! When I bought the set it was already on clearance sale at a discount so I bought up as many matching pieces and decorative items as I could find.

I bought an extra crib skirt and additional receiving blankets and used the fabric to make a window valance and decorative basket liners.

The diaper stacker and hamper are from the Carter's Love Bug collection (although they may not look like it now). Using my seam ripper, I took the hamper lid apart and the top portion of the diaper stacker. I removed the embroidered fabric that matching the Love Bug collection and replaced them with pieces fabric from the Olivia collection that looked beautiful in our pink and brown birdhouse nursery. This was much easier and less expensive than making these two items from scratch!


Finding the best curtain rod for this room was more difficult to find than I had ever imagined. One wall with the two oversized windows called for a rod over 10 feet in length. Rather than buying wood curtain rods (which were more expensive and not long enough anyway) we used 1 1/2 inch PVC pipe for the rod, glued a finial on each end and spray painted the whole thing white. We used a standard plumbing elbow to make the corner. The rod holders, curtain rings and clips, finials, PVC and all the necessary materials came from Lowe's home improvement store for under $150. The curtain rings and clips were the most expensive part of our decorating project. If we had used tab top curtains that would have made the cost much less.


I found the cute, unfinished birdhouses at JoAnn's and painted them to match the color scheme of our baby girl's Pink and Brown Birdhouse Nursery. I especially love the one hanging on the mural wall. All of the wooden accessories including the duck puzzle, the whale crayon holder and the climbing bear were mine as a child. My Mom had kept them in storage for all these years along with a beautiful wooden table and chairs set that will one day replace the changing table under the window. I feel that those personal touches really made the room come together.


You may wonder what plans we have for this room's future. When it's time to bring in a full size big-girl bed I plan to recycle all of the fabrics in the crib bedding and changing pad and make them into a full size quilt. I have brown velvet fabric left over from the curtain valance that will make a nice border for the quilt and both the Olivia fabrics and the Love Bug fabrics will be perfect for patchwork quilting squares. I believe I might be able to make my own tulip appliqué that matches the tulip design in the pink and brown Olivia baby bedding set.

I hope that you enjoy reading our story and seeing our pictures of the nursery and got some good nursery decorating ideas. We had so much fun creating this unique room for our little girl.
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