Not finding out the gender of our second child was pretty easy because we lived in a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom house with no space for a second child’s bedroom AND life was very busy because we were planning on moving throughout my whole pregnancy. That meant that most of the nursery decorating decisions were removed from the equation. We moved into our new house two months before Leo was born and naturally, the second we moved in, it was game on for getting the Baby’s nursery done. We set out to create a gender neutral room that could grow with our baby and be personalized once we found out if it was a boy or a girl.

When Leo arrived, everything fell into place and the foundation we set with our decor seamlessly transformed into the perfect little lion’s den for our sweet baby boy. We already had the furniture from Luke’s old room and all the little puzzle pieces fit together like they were all meant to be!

1 – Ikea EKBY MÅNS Black Brackets  $7.50 per pk / 2 – Be Brave Little One Free Printable  Free / 3 – Rustic Brown Metal Marquee Lights  $24.99 each (got from a store in Walnut Creek but these are very similar) / 4 –  Hampton Bay Bronze Semi Flush Mount with Organza Shade $89.96 / 5 – Crate and Barrel Black and White Rug $149 / 6 – West Elm Bubble Knit Pillow $44 (got mine for half the price from Home Goods) / 7 – Crochet Lion $28.99 (a sweet Christmas gift from Leo’s cousin’s Connor, Emilie & Aaron) / 8 – Behr Coliseum Marble Gray  / 9 – Printable Whimsical Retro Animal Flashcards $5 

We completely gutted the room which included replacing everything except the walls & ceiling. We tore out old nasty carpet (we are so lucky to have beautiful hardwood floors under almost all of the carpet in our house), removed all the old trim and molding, replaced the doors, added thick baseboards and crown molding, had the vent moved to the ceiling, and replaced the light fixture, outlets and all hardware.

Though the room included lots of painting, lots of patience with a 3-year-old toddler who wanted to help with EVERYTHING, and lots of trial and error, we finished it relatively quickly and it was all ready to bring our little lion home to.

Thank you to Raffa P. for helping Gino with the crown molding, thank you to Gino for all your hard work on making it perfect (even to inspector Sarah’s expectations), thank you to Jamie V. for picking up the adorable marquee letters for us, and thank you to Gino’s Mom, Nancy, for the cute button L and to my mom for the little L and piggy bank, they are prefect additions to his shelves.

We learned a lot with our first complete room remodel and carried those lessons into Luke’s room and our hallway, so more posts to come!