So I questioned whether I should share Jackson’s Dinosaur Themed Nursery. Why did I question…because it’s definitely not a Pinterest perfect nursery but let’s be honest I’m not a Pinterest perfect mom and I’m even less of a Pinterest perfect decorator but our life deserves to be shared anyways. Even more honestly, the fact that not a single piece of furniture in this room was purchased together and it’s a hodge podge of wood grains, made me question if it should be shared. But I’m so proud of how we put this itty bitty tiny room together and how it cost us next to nothing to do so!

The day we found out we were expecting a little boy, I was on speaker phone with my mom and she asked “So have you thought about nursery themes?” My mom’s a big decorator, it’s definitely a hobby of hers and so she was anxiously waiting for the gender reveal so she could start looking for ideas. The hubby heard the question and immediately offered the idea of Dinosaurs. I didn’t even have to second guess it. Yes! A Dinosaur Themed Nursery it is! All the more yes because when the hubby was growing up, his thing was dinosaurs. His mom tells stories all the time about his dinosaur obsession and it’s still something he enjoys learning about and watching youTube videos about. As he says, it’s the nerd in him. It’s something he looks forward to passing down to Jackson and enjoying together, so if we could maybe instill that love in him early, why not?!

The crib was our gift from my parents, we got it from Ikea. When we started the nursery planning process, we looked at alot of places for cribs and discovered that most cribs on the market are a good $500 plus because they’re the “grow with me” style crib. Meaning they’ll convert from a crib, to a toddler bed, to a single bed to a double or queen bed. The hubby and I knew we didn’t want to spend that amount of money on a crib that we weren’t sure if five years from now would make sense in the home we were living in. We also dream of purchasing bunk beds for Jackson because you have the rest of your life to sleep in a queen sized bed, it’s only acceptable to sleep in a bunk bed when you’re a kid. So my mom recommended we check out Ikea for cribs, BINGO mama! We found just a crib, that’ll transform into a toddler bed for a little over $100.

To be honest, one of the only things we personally purchased for the nursery was the grey dresser. It was another Ikea purchase. We definitely knew we needed a changing station but didn’t want to purchase just a changing table. We heard about the recommendation to get a dresser and just throw a changing pad on top and call it a day but when you no longer need the changing station, you now have a usable dresser. As well as the fact that we’re working with a super tiny room here and so space is tight which means we needed to utilize as much storage space as possible for all those adorable baby clothes we were gifted. So another piece with drawers was a must.

As soon as the hubby suggested a Dinosaur Themed Nursery, I jumped on Etsy to find some inspiration and almost immediately found this poster. I fell in love with it and it was one of the first items on the registry. I got the frame from Ikea and it’s by far my favorite decoration piece in the nursery. I got the poster from PaperPaintPixels, a great buying experience and an awesome product! Highly recommend purchasing from her!

The changing pad cover came from BuyBuyBaby. I want to get another set for the crib, it’s just so cute!

The rocker came from our basement! The hubby’s brother had it in his basement and a few years ago passed it to us. It lived in our basement and when we were looking to purchase a rocker, the hubby suggested we just brought that up. I had mixed feelings about the pattern. It’s dated and blue and I had this vision of a neutral colored nursery and this blue chair didn’t work with that. But we moved it up there anyways and figured we’d just find a slipcover for it. Then we purchased the rug from Wayfair and when we put the rug in there with the chair, I kind of fell in love with the look. With that, my vision of a neutral colored nursery with soft colored woods went out the window and allowed the space for a nursery of hodge podge furniture that saved us a ton of money!

The Roar sign is from Hobby Lobby – it was a gift along with the other dinosaur themed signs in the room. Hobby Lobby has a ton of really cute Dinosaur Themed Nursery items.

The wooden shelf unit was made for me when I was a baby by my Uncle Mike. We found it while going through some old boxes of mine and decided it needed to go up in the nursery. Now just to find little trinkets to put in there. I want to find things that have meaning and value behind them, so it’ll be a forever work in progress.

The ceramic dinosaurs are from my shower. My sister got them from Target and they actually were used to hold the cutlery on the food table – their backs have holes in them because their original purpose is to be planters! Now they’re just really cute decorations.

The other two dark wooden dressers were dressers that we had in the guest room and weren’t being used. They had been purchased years ago when the hubby moved to Maryland but we upgraded our master bedroom since then but kept these because why get rid of furniture you may someday need it. Well, we needed it and we’re using it! Each drawer is packed with something!

The wooden blocks were a gift from my mama. She purchased them from Etsy for my baby shower with the purpose of them being used in the nursery afterwards.

So that’s our little man’s nursery! It’s a hodge podge of furniture pieces but we both really love it and it’ll change as he grows and it takes on his own personality.

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