Baby Cribs
1185 Dundas Street East (Dundas/Dixie), Mississauga
905-803-9689
Hours: ?
We found out about this store through eBay where this store does a fair amount of business. The owner, Enzo, was quite nice and a few forum posts seem to suggest that he's a decent guy to deal with. The prices for the cribs are quite reasonable. They also carry a few Caramia cribs which are priced reasonably. FYI, the prices on the eBay listings are often a lot cheaper than the in-store prices, so if you are heading out to this store, check out the online listings first so you have some bagaining intel. His in-store prices include a crib mattress, so that could account for some of the price discrepancy.
Decorating a nursery on a budget
January 27, 2009
Erika Tustin
TORONTO STAR
Cutting corners is essential in this unstable economy, so when it came to decorating our unborn child's nursery, we decided to make every cent count without sacrificing our vision.
We wanted a modern, gender-neutral room not decorated in the typical green or yellow colour scheme used when couples don't know the sex of their baby. (We are one of the few couples we know who decided to keep it a surprise.)
As everything baby is either blue, pink, yellow or green, to achieve this look requires shopping prowess, using the Internet, old-fashioned legwork (traditional baby stores likely won't have what you're looking for), and an open mind.
We also didn't want to contribute to corporate Disney, so keeping it engaging without plastering cartoon characters on our walls was a must. After looking for inspiration online, we settled on a geometric design that would go with our wall colour – silver.
Instead of painting the design ourselves or hiring a professional, both costly options, we bought wall stickers that can easily be removed as the child develops his or her own taste. We found a colourful geometric circle design at Chapters for $32.95 and a gold-and-black tree design from Ikea ($19.99, tinyurl.com/slatthult) for another wall.
Next was the furniture. We purchased all of it – crib, dresser/change table combo and glider – online, sort of. We found the crib on eBay at Baby Cribs, an online store where you can pick up items at 1185 Dundas St. E. in Mississauga. Instead of paying for shipping, we drove there to make our purchase, which turned out to be a great move. The store was selling convertible cribs, regularly priced at $599, for $299, with a free $50 mattress. The cribs had slight imperfections, such as uneven staining, but I've examined our crib and cannot see any imperfections. We managed to snag a large three-drawer dresser/change table combo with storage unit, on sale for $349. It was the floor model, and had nicks, but nothing a Sharpie couldn't fix.
For the final touches, we went to Ikea, where we bought a rug ($34.99), some stuffed animals ($2.99, $3.99 and $7.99), a laundry hamper ($17.99), a lampshade ($16), a clock ($12.99) and ecru drapes with grommets (a real deal at $59.99 for the pair). Lastly, we mounted some postcards in mismatched frames purchased for $10 at Adina Photo & Custom Frames (3 Grosvenor St.).
In total, we spent $1,076.87, including a can and a half of paint, which is not bad considering we bought everything new. (And, in total disclosure, we really only spent $576.87, as my parents kicked in $500. Thanks, Mom and Dad.)
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