Safari Animal Themed Nursery Tour

Creating Rory’s nursery has been a fun project in our new house which I’ve loved! Rory is nearly 10 months (where has time gone?!) and his nursery is finally complete! It was the first room we painted in our house after moving in a week and a half before the little guy made his entrance. So safe to say it was pretty manic moving into a new house and having a newborn! I remember the week before I had Rory we started putting his beside the bed crib up and realised that it was missing a leg! Luckily it arrived the day before I came home from hospital so the little man had somewhere to sleep… I mean not that he used it much as he much preferred to sleep on us for the first 13 weeks!

While I was in hospital Tim went about getting the house ready for Rory. As it was during lockdown, Tim was only allowed in for active labour and while I was on the recovery ward. After that he went home and built the chest of drawers for Rory’s clothes, nappies and muslins etc as well as the cotbed! His dad came around with their old rocking chair and they managed to finish cleaning the carpet in nursery and the front room. Tim did a great job of getting things ready for when we got home a couple days later!

Anyway… Rory’s nursery!

This room was always going to be a nursery. When we first looked around the house I could envisage this room with a cot, rocking chair and a little baby. As soon as we put the offer on the house I started pinning ideas and slowly got an idea together for the nursery. It was quite fun pulling it together – hunting out pieces for the room and deciding where they’d go.

We decided we wanted to paint the room a light blue and have a safari theme. We both love animals so knew that’s what we wanted. So we slowly went about getting prints, a garland and other bits and pieces for his room. We wanted it to be cosy and fun at the same time!

One of my favourite things in his room has to be the ‘Rory’ garland above his bed we got on Etsy (see here).

The Chest of Drawers is very handy for keeping all his clothes and other bits packed away and organised. Here’s a pic of where everything is kept! The room is a little small to have a wardrobe as well but we feel the chest of drawers does the job quite nicely. Every month or so I try to go through Rory’s clothes to see if things are getting too small and if there’s anything that can be moved up from the bottom draw to his current clothes draw.

Where we got everything:

  1. Cot – Tutti Bambini Ravenna Cot Bed & Cot Top Changer in White. This has 2 levels and we’ve loved it so far. We didn’t really use the changer on top and it ended up just accumulating a lot of stuff on top and when he moved to sleeping in the cot we took it off all together. We got the cotbed elsewhere but Smyths Toys have a really good offer on!
  2. White fake fur rug – I think I got it from Argos a while back and used to have it beside my bed but it goes quite nicely in the nursery! See here for similar from Wayfair.
  3. Monitor – Before Christmas we ended up having to get a new monitor as our previous one stopped working one night. We’ve gone for the BT Video Baby Monitor 6000 and love it so far. I’d definitely recommend it.
  4. Prints over cot – Etsy. It took us ages to find prints we liked and these hit the bill!
  5. Rory garland – Etsy. Definitely one of my favourite things in Rory’s nursery!
  6. Felt lion – Brandalley. I’d seen that Rebecca (Roses and Rolltops) has an elephant for her little one Freya and wanted something similar for Rory.
  7. Safari trio wall décor art – Etsy.
  8. Bookshelf – Noa and Nani. I love the idea of displaying books and for Rory to eventually point or pick a book he wants to read.
  9. Rocking chair – Ours is Tim’s old one from over 30 years ago so I’m not too sure where it’s from! Tim’s dad gave it a refreshen up and painted it in Farrow and Ball white before we got back from the hospital. Here’s something similar.
  10. Wooden bus and train – We got these as Christening pressies. See here and here.
  11. Rory train name – Another Christening pressie! See here.
  12. Disney figure – A Christening pressie from his God mother who loves all things Disney.
  13. World map print – Etsy. I absolutely love this print! Although it’s not 100% accurate as it misses off UK&I haha! 
  14. Stuffed animals – Most of these have been collected over the years and there are also 2 of my little teddies from when I was little – my well-loved tiger and bunny! There’s also Edgar the Dragon (John Lewis a few Christmas’ ago), a couple Jelly Cats Bunnies (see here and here) and Lion (see here), my Uni of Birmingham graduation Teddy, a Cambridge St Catharine’s College Bear from Rory’s God Father (see here) and other stuffed animals we’ve picked up in random places over the years.
  15. Noah’s ark print – Etsy. I got this from a cute little shop in Stratford Upon Avon. They had so many cute bits and bobs and I’ll have to go back at some point to pick up some more bits!
  16. Play all day sign – Etsy. I’m a sucker for Instagram targeted ads!
  17. Gro Egg – We used this a lot to begin with but not so much now. We still have it out to have an occasional check. See here.
  18. Chest of drawers – Ikea. I love this chest of drawers (Hemnes with 8 drawers). It has so many drawers and of different sizes so it’s perfect for keeping everything organised from muslins and clothes to nappies and bibs.
  19. Toy box – Noa and Nani.
  20. Hooks on door – Done by Deer. I got this from MiniMini in Solihull when I was having a little wander. It’s such a cute shop! We’ve used a few command strips to stick this to the door. A perfect place to hang Rory’s hoodies/ coats.
  21. Shutters – California Shutters. We got them when there was 25% off so keep a look out for offers. We have these shutters throughout our house and love them.

I love Rory’s room and hoping over the years it’ll be a safe, fun and cosy place for him. We won’t need the rocking chair in there after a few more months and I’m thinking of turning that corner into a little reading nook for him. I’m thinking of either a comfy little chair for him or a bean bag type chair where he can take his books.

Until next time,
Cathers x

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