Designing the Baby Room

The baby room, despite my best intentions, officially has a theme- birds and trees done in silhouettes with modern-stylized fabrics. Our colors are periwinkle blue, soft-lime green with white and brown accents. I've been pulling together various inspirations and my vision has slowly begun to materialize.


Some visual stimulation is below....

Fabrics:
Below are some of the fabrics we picked from the Amelia collection. Lots of blues and greens- the one on the top is the panel we will use for the crib quilt. There are other fabrics but for now- these should give you a taste. The blues are more powder-blue than what we have on the wall, but it should work out okay. The greens are pretty dead-on though.


Window Treatments:
I love the branch look. I knew I wanted sheer curtains paired with a roman shade but was stuck on what kind of curtain rod to get. I think this will add the perfect touch of whimsy that I'm looking for. I'd like to add roman shades as well. The walls are a pale periwinkle bluish-purple and the room will have soft lime-green accents. I'm still debating colors for the curtains and roman shades. For now, I'm content with white sheer shades and a soft lime-green roman shade, both in solids/no patterns.



Fabric Bird Mobile (free template from Spool Sewing):
My mom has generously and graciously agreed to make the mobile for me. At first I didn't like the branches but since seeing the branch curtain rod above, I've changed my mind. If they were painted white, I wouldn't mind so much.

Mine won't have the dead-hanging off bird at the bottom of the mobile either. That's just creepy.

We'll use the Amelia fabrics to make the birds. Cuteness! Wonder if I can get my mom to make extras- they'd make great rattles, don' t you think?



Bird Silhouettes:
I've been scavenging the web for silhouettes and have found a few I like. In particular, I really like the swallow silhouette below. Some uses for it - painted on the walls or on the crates I plan to paint.


Painted Murals:
The reading corner with the soft lime green chair will have a tree mural (done as a silhouette in either white or a couple shades darker than the wall color). I'm still hunting around for a template.

The closet, the opening which you can see from the room, will have another silhouette painting- birds on a telephone wire seen below.




Chair:
The color is similar to the one we picked- but ours has a rounded back. And we picked out an ottoman for it as well. Big thanks to my folks for purchasing it for us! It'll be super-comfty.
It'll go in the corner of the nursery with a low, long bookcase next to it with a reading lamp. The tree mural will be behind it.

Rug:
We found our rug in an antique store in Prescott, AZ while we were there in October visiting with Kevin's family and then attending my brother's wedding. I' m so glad we were able to find something from Arizona to incorporate into the room. The photo below is remarkably similar is color, shape and size (3 by 5) to the one we found. It's now occupying the middle of the nursery floor.

It is incredibly soft and plush, decadently so.

I have two walls semi-planned out- the dresser/changing table wall and the crib wall. See each below:

Changing table wall:
We will use our white dresser as a changing table. The changing pad will be strapped/secured onto the dresser and will likely be done in some kind of sage-lime-green minky fabric. I will have baskets lined with green fabric for diapers, creams, etc.

The Ikea shelf we plan to install will hold several more baskets, lined with the same green fabric and will contain toys, stuffed animals, etc.

Under the Ikea shelf we will hang four 6"X 6" bird silhouettes done in black with the canvas painted the same color as the wall. The middle (fifth) canvas will have the initial "G" painted in black with the canvas color painted the same green used in the closet for contrast.






Crib Wall:
The crib wall will have the closet displayed on the right with the closet interior walls painted a soft lime-green. See the birds on a wire mural above? The birds will be peeking out from the back wall of the closet.

The painting is called "kindred spirits" and is of 5 women, looking downward (in this case, looking down at the baby in the crib) with green leafy vines growing behind them and 5 yellow love-birds on various branches. I love the colors and the imagery of women as benevolent guardians.

The quote above the crib says (in case you can't read it):
To our children we give two things: one is roots, the other wings.

I like it- it seems to tie together the trees (roots) and birds (wings) theme nicely.