As soon as I found out that I was having a girl, I got on the nursery theme bandwagon. This was the perfect excuse to reimagine a room in the house even if it wasn’t going to be used much right after birth. After choosing her name, Celeste, I knew I wanted to go with a celestial theme. In line with that, I wanted something a little more gender neutral without giving up some feminine features.
I first started out with a color palette that I thought would meet my gender neutral-ish requirement: blues, greys, purples. I wanted to do a mural of a night sky on one wall and then bring in some more warm tones with wood furniture elements. I loved how the mural turned out and you can read more about that process here.

The other thing I wanted to keep in mind, and be more realistic about, was acquiring all the baby furniture. In the grand scheme of things, babies do no use their furniture that long, so it felt irresponsible and costly to purchase new furniture. So I spend many many many days looking at craigslist until the perfect crib came up for sale. I was looking for a light natural wood with a more modern look. And huzzah! I found it and bought it for a measly $50! The family told my they had bought it second hand too and it was in great condition for going through multiple children in two different families.
As a side note, I did find the retail listing for this crib and it was around $1000….so I would call the a STEAL.

As for the changing table – again another piece of furniture babies outgrow quickly so I just bought a dresser secondhand and dressed up a bit. I changed out the legs and hardware and added wicker detail to the drawers to tie in the nature wood.



And finally, I found a side table second hand that I took my reciprocating saw to make the top more interesting. I whitewashed the top, painted the legs to match the color scheme and the hardware to match the dresser.

As for a rocking chair, my mom donated hers to me – which was the same rocking chair she used when I was a baby! The room came out super cute and I really hope Celeste appreciates it when she is old enough to….or perhaps we can DIY something new together haha!

Rachel Williams
Artist | Designer | Educator
Making mistakes and fixing them, so you don’t have to