Choosing Elements to Complete Your Nursery

Hi, I am Brian and we are telling you how to build a nursery now and in this segment, I am going to talk to you about what pieces should go in the nursery. Once you have picked the crib, the next thing to do is to choose what other components need to go in the room. The first thing that we suggest is a six-drawer dresser. We technically don't recommend buying a juvenile piece of furniture because a child can not grow with it and you buy a six-drawer dresser, it is a piece of furniture that has longevity in the room that the child can grow through in the teen years with.

Now, typically, we recommend buying a six-drawer dresser that is 34-36 inches in height so that it can also be used as a changing surface. There is two options were changing surface. One is called the contoured pad. This is the contoured pad which mounts at the top of the dresser. The way it works is that it has these snaps that just clip to the back of the dresser so it doesn't slide around once it's mounted. It adheres to the back so that you can change on top. The nice feature with this is you can take it off. If you want to use it downstairs or you want to take it to another room or you can travel with this. When you are finished, you have a clean surface underneath again for the child to grow into.

The next piece that we look at is typically the glider and we are going to get into gliders in our next segment and go to gliders in detail on the next segments. This is a bookcase. Generally, I recommend putting a bookcase in the room because you have places for showpiece, picture frames and obviously, books. If the room doesn't have a large enough footprint to accommodate a bookcase, the alternative is something called a hutch which goes on top of a six-drawer dresser which I am going to show you in another room over here.

As I have mentioned, if you don't have the space in the room to accommodate a bookshelf the alternative is called the hutch that can go on top of the six-drawer dresser. This too can be used as a changing surface by placing the contoured pad in here. If you are using it as a changer we do recommend taking off the bottom shelf so you do not hit the baby's head or your head on here when changing. Now, that I have gone over the different choices as far as pieces that go in the room I would like to show you an alternative to a contoured pad.

As I had mentioned earlier, the contoured pad is a very nice for you to turn a dresser into a changing station. There is an alternative to the contoured pad which is called the flip top. The flip top is a relatively new product and it is designed so you can change the baby vertically as opposed to horizontally. Some people found it very awkward to change a baby at this angle. So, the idea is to change this way. To lift the baby's bottom slide the diaper underneath and then close the tabs. When you are done using the flip top or a changer what you can do is just take the metal brackets off the back of the dresser and what you are left with is a regular six-drawer dresser for a child to grow into.

Now, one component that I didn't talk about earlier is a night stand and it sounds like an odd piece to put into a nursery but we recommend it for two reasons. One, if you are buying a convertible crib it's a piece that finishes off a room so the child can grow into it. The other thing is it's very nice to put next to the glider rocker, to put a drink down or to put a lamp on. Now, that I have talked a bit about the different components to put into nursery, Jim is going to talk about what to look for in a well constructed dresser.