The Challenge:
Gender neutral: We are choosing to be prepared for a boy or a girl
Age range: We are choosing to be prepared for newborn through age 5
Two?: We may consider taking a sibling set of 2. And/or we might have a child biological in the midst of this foster parenting adventure.
First, acknowledging the obvious: There is no theme. I’m not a fan of themes for ANY room, kids rooms and nurseries included. It is neutral. We’re keeping the colors gender neutral and soothing for reasons I hope are obvious. We’ll add more color depending on specific kids and what works at the time. And of course we’ll also have toys and books adding pops of color all over the room.
Specifics:
I mentioned last week that we’re planning on a SOMNAT crib. It comes in turquoise (love!), green (love!) and pink (cute but not boy-friendly). I ain’t gonna lie—when I first saw the green one on IKEA’s website back in August, I almost went and bought it right then. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE colored cribs. At some point, I started preferring the blue one. I could still do the green if blue is out of stock. We’ll see.
It was at least 2 year ago when I fell in love with the KURA bed. It’s a four poster twin bed. It’s a loft bed. It’s a bunk bed. Oh the versatility! I would have adored this as a kid. My bunk bed was cool but this just begs to be turned into a fort or a house or a secret cave or a cozy hiding place. We’ll keep it as a low bed for now, so it’s toddler friendly. If we’re confident in a kid’s ability to climb the (I’m guessing) 3′ ladder, we’ll flip it around. If we have 2 kiddos that are bigger than crib size, we’ll have to use it as a bunk bed.
Beyond the essential pieces of sleeping furniture, we have our little green 2 drawer dresser and yellow lamp and a full length mirror for the wall (I read somewhere that mirrors promote good self-esteem for kids.) I’m also the proud owner of the Animal Alphabet poster from Petit Collage. Currently, I have this chair and footstool in the book nook of the kids room, but it’s not real comfortable and I would prefer to have a rocker anyway. I have lovely memories of my parents reading books to me in a rocking chair when I was little. This mid-century rocker from Urban Outfitters fits the bill stylistically but it’s a bit pricey for my taste.
We don’t have a dresser yet. I’d like to find a vintage one like the picture above that’s changing table height, walnut or teak, and not more than 46″ wide. That’s not too much to ask, right? Oh, and less than $100 please. If we can’t find that, we have a white MALM dresser that’s out on loan and I think we can get back.
RIBBA picture ledges work great as shallow book shelves. My plan is to get 4 and create the look of a bookshelf with the depth of 3.5.” Rugs. We have issues with rugs. As long as Jason and I have been married (almost 8 years, that is…) we’ve been pet owners. Getting pet hair out of rugs is a nightmare. Now we’re the proud owners of a beloved cocker spaniel and well, she pees sometimes. Always on something absorbant cuz she’s smart like that. So we don’t do rugs at our house. But, we do have the perfect doormat by our backdoor. It’s got rubber anti-slip backing and it’s machine washable. Hello! It’s so perfect because it secretly is a bathmat. So, I figure I can get 4 of these perfect TOFTBO rugs and put them together to create one perfect, machine-washable, kid-friendly 4’x6′ rug. I’ll let you know how that works out. Other than that, I think I’ll add some art, maybe a mobile above the crib, perhaps commission my mama to knit a pouf like this. I also included some samples of bedding from Target I’m considering.
Budget Breakdown:
KURA twin bed (4-poster, bunk or loft) – $199
SULTAN HARESTUA twin mattress – $100
SOMNAT crib – $99
VYSSA SLOA crib mattress – $50
RIBBA picture ledges 21″ x 4 – $40
TOFTBO bathmat 2’x3′ x 4 – $40
Chair + footstool – using what we currently own for now
Dresser found on craigslist for $50 (details coming soon) – $50
ANIMAL ALPHABET poster – won in a giveaway
ELLIE GRAY 1 gallon of Sherwin Williams Cashmere paint – $27 (purchased on sale)
Full-length wall mirror – free (from my parent’s house)
Paint for green nightstand and blue mirror – already owned
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TOTAL: $605
myMCMlife.com 
I love all of it!
I’m excited for you and your husband. Looking forward to seeing what God has in store for your family!
This is so great! I absolutely LOVE this kind of stuff, where you’re “setting up” for the exciting things that are soon to take place. So, I had a blast reading about how you are going about doing it.
Also, I noticed that we have the same “profile” as you do. We also are open to boys or girls, any race, ages zero through age five. We can take up to two kids, and said that we are definitely open for a sibling set. The only difference is that with four kids, we are out of bedrooms. So, whenever we get another placement, as long as it’s a girl, they will share my room. We are planning to build a trundle bed, as it would be pretty tight if we squeezed in another twin. We even had a neat experience of posting a wanted add on Craigslist, for another quilt to match mine (which hasn’t been in stores for a couple of years), and one lady had one, we purchased it from her, and after hearing about what we were going to use the quilt for, sent our money back. It’s been such a fun experience “preparing” as we wait for a call.
I’m sure you are feeling so much of the same emotion, and trying to enjoy these last few months of waiting before getting a placement, yet still being super excited for the day you get “that call.”
Glad I will get to follow your journey as you begin fostering. 🙂
love your selections. have you looked for any of it on craigslist? We are interested in the kura bed too (that way our daughter, almost 2, can sleep on the floor with a mattress) Anyway, where we are everyone on craigslist wants $200 for it, I can’t figure out how they are trying to sell it for full price!
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