Transforming cheap bookshelves in the babies nursery

So all week I plan to share Hadley's baby nursery, but I don't want to just show you how it looks, I want to bring you along and help you see why we made the decisions that we did. Yesterday I showed you one wall of the room, today I want to give you a little closer look.

We have all seen these inexpensive shelves at stores like Walmart. They usually cost around 20.00 and are functional but not too attractive. We knew we had a plan to take care of that.

Imagine this wall if we didn't have the bookshelves. Notice that all of the furniture, dresser, crib, and changing table are all about the same height? That isn't really a good idea in a room, it shortens the room, you need to have pieces that are all different levels in the room. It's more interesting and pleasing to the eye. The bookshelves seemed like a great way to add the height we needed and would give us lots of space to add WOW to  room!

We picked up some simple strips of trim to add to the shelving. We did this to make the shelves look a little more substantial and have a little classier look. We decided to paint them pink because we were concerned about the creamy white of the dresser not matching with the stark white shelves. We purchased Christmas wrapping paper at Hobby Lobby for 80% off after Christmas and wrapped the cardboard backing.  It is a great background for all of our accessories. The shelves were 20.00 each, 20.00 more for trim and a few dollars for the polka dot paper and for less than $85.00 we have a great look that fills up a large wall in the room. I showed you how I transformed the little owl here.

This lamp was a Goodwill purchase, it began it's life as red. We spray painted it and added some fun flowers to the lamp shade.

This little elephant was a gift from a visit to Santa. He was unfinished wood and we painted and added some scrapbook paper. The saying is hung on the back of the shelving to give some height to the area.

A little frame picked up on clearance at Ross will soon hold a picture of Hadley. The spool is an antique wrapped with a fabric banner we made. I didn't get a close up picture but the bottom 2 shelves will be for her book and toys.

 So on the other side of the dresser we have another shelf  full of cute little chochkies. In the left corner you can see a blue thing with a flower on it. It's a frame we made. We got the idea from UCreate. Soon it will have a picture of a new baby on it.

I love these little blue shoes. They were a pair of those ugly brown leather shoes kids used to wear. We spray painted them blue and added a ribbon for the laces.

Isn't is cute! I just love all the personality that these add.

And this picture was purchased from Pier 1. It was a huge inspiration for the room.

A little bird resting on a nest of newspaper in a cute little cage.

She is so sweet.

It's such a pretty room. And all of these choices helped to fill this wall perfectly. Tomorrow I will show you another side of the room.

Parties I'm linking to:
Uncommonly Yours
Savvy Southern Style
Domestically Speaking
Blue Cricket Design
52 Mantels