A Magical Nursery : Your Design Preview
Working on this gorgeous nursery while I was pregnant was a dream. My client and I were ‘wombmates’ and we were excited for each other during our pregnancies!
However, this pregnancy was special for my client. Having known her for about a year after starting a separate project with her, I knew she wanted kids but had struggles with infertility for several years. When she revealed to me that she too was pregnant (after announcing my pregnancy), I was elated!
Then she asked us to design her nursery for boy + girl TWINS, and it just felt like…a full circle moment.
All I had as direction: “Natural, bohemian vibe”
Nuff said.
Creating spaces for children is so fun because you can let your imagination run wild. Almost anything is acceptable! Combination of textures, colors, vibrancy—it’s all possible!
So, I got to work first by putting together a mood board of the space–getting on the same page for the overall general aesthetic. We needed the space to be gender neutral yet joyous for this special life moment.
Next, we got into space planning and furniture boards. I feel that having a room with two cribs certainly limits possibilities, but it also offers a sense of symmetry… The good thing is, the kids can grow into their space and most of the pieces can remain in the same places. I offered two options, but one was definitely the winner with a few tweaks!
Original Furniture Board, before edits
Step 3?–curating the palette.
I love wallpaper in a nursery or kids’ room (or powder room, or wildcard room haha!), and I was thrilled when my client said she was into it as well. I found this hand-drawn wallpaper by These Walls at Studio Four, and loved the playfulness in it’s lines. I was hoping my client would go for it, and in the end she did! To add a layer of texture, we also wallpapered the ceiling in a faux cane wallpaper by Wallshoppe.
We went on to curate the gender neutral palette around our beloved wallpaper. Since the wallpaper is so colorful, we could really pair it with anything! However, we still wanted it to be neutral, warm and ultimately bohemian, so decided a combination of natural oak, olive green, and yellow accents would work best. We incorporated these colors in the final details, and chose a neutral fabric from Imogen Heath for the custom blackout roman shade (for those sleep-training nights).
Once we had the palette down, I began to finetune the furniture. We had two maple cribs, an olive daybed, and a natural olive rug from Lorena Canals. I highly recommend a rocking chair for any new mom, since it’s the easiest way to put baby to sleep (and since my own experience with child #1 involved a lot of ab workouts rocking the child without a chair). So we chose a compact natural linen rocking chair with wood legs to nestle in the corner.
Next, we needed a dresser/changing table. Our original olive dresser was on backorder, so we decided to find something vintage, and paint it. And we are Oh so glad that we did! Choosing a dresser from Asbury Park Vintage, we polished the brass hardware and refinished it in olive green Milk Paint. (Not shown, stay tuned for the reveal to see results!) I just love how transformative unique vintage items can be—the dresser has become one of my favorite parts of the room!
Final Furniture Board 1
Final Furniture Board 2
Finally, we finished it off with yellow wall sconces that can be turned on during changing or feeding time, yellow ledge shelves for books, a brass and rattan-wrapped floor lamp behind a vintage/found table from Montage Antiques, and client-owned heirloom artwork. We styled the space with woven hampers, gorgeous pillows on the chair and daybed from Lulu & Georgia & 100 Main Street, and a woven felt basket with maple handles for all the diapering goods on the changing table from Honeychurch Home... Most of these, local shops to the Northwest corner of CT (and not shown in this rendering—be on the lookout for our reveal!).
3D Rendering, Duke Renders