Monday, August 02, 2010

Early Nursery Design Ideas

So it's a little very early for nursery planning but I've been tossing around a few ideas and thought I'd throw 'em out there, since family members (mostly my sweet sisters-in-law!) have been inquiring.


We (er, I) am thinking generally white or cream furniture with a wall color that has yet to be determined. The walls are currently a nice pale yellow and we may just leave them as-is. But I also adore blue walls (no matter the gender) so we might haul out the paint wheel and explore our options. 

One thing that I'm really firm about is having a comfortable rocking chair and I'm loving the one from Pottery Barn kids (Note E in photo) . It looks like an armchair but has a nice glider function. After we're done with it in the nursery, I'm thinking it might make for a nice reading nook in the office. A good book, a cup of tea, feet up on the ottoman...you get the idea. The tough part is going to be finding one that isn't insanely expensive. 

Another element that we'd like to incorporate, in addition to the comfy armchair, is a covered bench or daybed (Note C) . It would be nice to have another seating option in the room. We're still trying to figure out furniture placement since the room has some challenging design features: a nook, a diagonal wall, two half closets, sloping ceiling, etc. I'm actually quite excited about the bench: it's something we could easily build and incorporating storage underneath would be a big plus. Maybe with some pull-out baskets?

As for artwork, we're barely thinking along those lines yet. I've long been a fan of decals (still trying to convince Chris that we need a giant global map decal on our office wall...) and I like the idea of adding a visual element to the vertical space. Since I'm no good at painting or stencils, I'm thinking decals are my best bet. Plus there are so many options out there. We're definitely going to do a tree/forest, perhaps with some whimsical birds/beasts thrown in for good measure (see notes B and D, in photo). I also love the umbra wall flowers and I'm determined to acquire them, even if they don't end up in the nursery. 

And that, my dears, is as far as we've gotten in regards to nursery decor. We're going to put everything on the backburner until we find out gender and then we'll probably look into our options come November or December. Knowing my design tendencies, this plan will probably change dramatically between now and the end of the year. Except for the umbra flowers. I'm keeping those, no matter what. Fortunately, we've got a long way to go before the nursery actually needs to be in place. :)