Woodland Nursery Reveal
Take a tour of our woodland nursery reveal! Full of simple and easy DIY projects that made this precious nursery possible on a budget.
When we were pregnant with our first baby, we went on a babymoon to the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. We love staying in the log cabins and decided we wanted a woodland themed nursery.
While there, we picked up a chainsaw carved black bear for our baby boy, which served as the true inspiration for this rustic woodland nursery.
The challenge for this room was to obtain an adorable Pinterest-worthy nursery, but on a very tight budget. Everything needed to be budget-friendly, which ultimately led to an entire nursery filled with DIY projects.
At the time, we were also renting base housing while in the military. In other words anything we did, such as a wall feature, needed to be able to revert back to the original wall color quickly and easily upon move out.
As a result, every corner of this nursery contained something handmade with lots of love and instantly became our favorite room in the house.
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Woodland Nursery Series:
For quick reference, below are the tutorials of all the DIY projects in our woodland nursery reveal. If you are looking for a great way to organize your little ones closet with fabric bins, check out this post.
- Buffalo Check Woodland Curtains
- Woodland Nursery Signs
- Ultrasound Picture Frame
- Paper Mache Deer Head
- Floating Corner Shelves
- Industrial Pipe Shelf
- Distressed Wood Letters
What we did in our woodland nursery:
Since I do not have a before picture let me give you a quick visual of what we started with. Imagine a standard bare bedroom with beige walls, carpet, and two windows. The end.
Easy enough to imagine right? Now let’s jump into where we went from there.
Color Scheme:
In general, I tried to keep the color scheme of this nursery gender neutral. This way it could easily be shifted depending on if we were to have a baby boy or girl.
The main colors used were navy blue, white, gray, and wood tones.
If our next baby was to be a girl, I planned to incorporate a touch of pink and florals into the mix, such as flowers between the antlers of the paper mache deer head.
Painted Accent Wall:
What better way to hone in on the woodland inspired nursery than to have bears painted on the wall for our baby bear.
I had seen these beautiful birch tree wall stickers, but wanted to take it a step further and add some bears.
To make this project more budget-friendly, I chose to simply freehand the drawings onto the wall and purchase small pints of paint.
The finishing touches were the precious woodland signs, made by a dear friend, and a convertible crib with wood stain that matched the dresser while reminding us of a log cabin.
We fitted the crib with a truly organic and safe mattress along with neutral and organic crib bedding.
If you want to know what one baby product is worth the splurge, it’s their mattress.
Considering babies spend approximately half their lives sleeping, and with how much off-gassing conventional mattresses release, I chose the quality of his sleeping quarters as our splurge-worthy baby item for peace of mind for both health and safety reasons.
You can find more information about the family brand I trust for my entire family here.
Reading Nook:
In order to make use of this corner space, we opted to turn it into a cozy reading corner.
We were surprised by a friend with this personalized chair from Pottery Barn Kids and deemed this spot the ideal location for it.
Next, we added some corner shelves for additional decor and made for the perfect place to mount a baby monitor.
Our son loved being able to climb into his plush chair and cozy up in this little corner. It also made for a beautiful space to take his monthly photos with these milestone blocks!
Nursing Nook:
When designing the nursery, I knew I wanted to have a cozy and convenient space for nursing – a corner dedicated to late night snuggles.
This meant a comforting rocking chair and a nightstand for a glass of water, nightlight, phone, etc.
For the windows, I decided to make some bear and buffalo check woodland curtains, which provided the room with the optimal balance between light-filtering and blackout curtains.
Framed between the curtains are these woodland nursery signs we built and were inspired by George Strait’s song, A Love Without End, Amen.
You can find both the printables and Cricut files used for the curtain appliques and sign stencils here.
The rocking chair is my absolute favorite piece of the whole nursery – it was my great, great grandmothers. A family friend handmade this rocking chair for her and the seat was handwoven by my great grandfather.
Five generations of babies have been held in this timeless rocking chair. I hold dear all of the moments spent snuggling, nursing, and reading to my precious little ones in it.
In order to take extra care of this family heirloom, I used the same material as our nursery curtains to make a matching cushion and pillow set for the rocking chair.
Gallery Wall:
The wall opposite of the crib was where we decided to put the dresser and gallery wall.
The so-called dresser is really a cabinet I had used in my living room during college.
Regardless of the fact it was not very deep, it ended up being just the right size for a nursery dresser and the cabinet doors were great storage areas for diapers.
Repurposing this cabinet saved us money on a dresser. These were the days before I discovered the existence of Facebook Marketplace.
Above the dresser is our collage wall full of DIY nursery wall decor… one of which was never completed. Whoops. Can you tell?
The unfinished shadow box was intended to be used for some items that had belonged to our son’s namesake, but we ended up moving before I could acquire them.
We built this industrial pipe shelf to provide a cute and decorative way of storing extra burp clothes and baby blankets.
On a whim, I had the idea to try and craft a paper mache deer head out of paper lunch sacks, newspaper, and twine. And it worked! This project cost me zero dollars to make and was actually quite a fun – and hilarious looking – process.
Lastly, I finished off this gallery wall with a simple DIY ultrasound picture frame and distressed painted wood letters.
I hope you enjoyed our woodland nursery reveal and found inspiration for your own nursery. Loaded with DIYs and lots of love, we couldn’t be happier with the finished product and were so excited to be growing our little family!
Shop our favorite baby products here!
More DIY Projects:
- DIY Bassinet and Playard Waterproof Mattress Protectors
- Antique Trains Boys Bedroom Inspiration
- Bathroom Mirror Frames (coming soon)
- Faux Shiplap Wall (coming soon)
- How to Restore an Antique Jenny Lind Bed (coming soon)
Find more DIY builds and projects here.
If you found inspiration through this woodland nursery reveal, please let me know by leaving a comment below! Or tag me on social media to share your sweet nursery!
