Max spends his days cloudgazing on a grassy hill. Anne tells us about his memorable room: My husband and I have never agreed on furniture or decor, but when we were expecting our first child we got excited about the chance to create a space that was really cool. Designing the room was a way for us to come together, focus on our child, and learn to combine our ideas. Out at dinner one night, we came up with the idea of having the wall be a gradient, such that one wall was midnight and going around the room the wall would fade until the last wall was daylight.
I had seen the image of a tree flying the moon as a kite online and wanted to incorporate a cheerier version of that on the night wall, and my husband really wanted green hills on the daylight side of the room. Not being painters, we enlisted Morgan Bricca, a local muralist, to help us out.
We wanted to make sure that we didn't make the room too cutesy, so that we could just change the furniture and the paint would still work for an older child, so we had Morgan paint a few small canvases with critters, rather than painting them directly on the walls. We also liked the 3D effect that the canvases added. (Although over the crib, they are safely secured with earthquake proof hangers.)
As for the cloud shelves, my husband found some examples online, but nothing was quite what we wanted, and none of the examples were purchasable, so we decided to make them ourselves. We just cut the cloud shapes out of foam core board, and placed them over floating white bookshelves that we got from West Elm. The toy chest is actually a brown leather ottoman from Target, and serves the double purpose of providing a second seat in the room where my husband can sit and read stories aloud while I rock our son.
Thanks Anne!
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That shelf thing is brilliant! I never would have thought about foamcore to do something like that.
Love that the Crib and changing table aren't exactly matching. The mural and cloud shelves are fantastic too. And that Blabla mobile is my favourite.
Careful with the ottoman-turned-toy chest though. These are often not safety rated for kids, so there's the potential for tops slamming on fingers -- or worse -- little ones getting trapped inside!
Wow. Speechless. In a good way!
Thanks for the nice comments. :) Heather, you are totally right, the ottoman toychest is not safety rated and will definitely not do once he is old enough to get in there (which he is not yet). It's pretty cheaply made and is already starting to break down. I'm definitely on the lookout for a nice toychest with safety hinges that will fit in the room.
I love the day-to-night idea, and those cloud shelves are downright clever.
Love the cloud shelves! Mind if I steal that idea?
Also, maybe try looking into getting one of those "anti-slam" hinges that they have on toilet seats and such for that cute ottoman. I have no idea if that would work, but you never know. :)
Just an FYI hinges on the IKEA blanket chest we have do have a safety stop. I imagine that other IKEA products would as well since ours is a quite inexpensive wood one.
I'd love to know how you managed such perfect gradients. What a fantastic space!!
Stunning! So well designed.
I think this is my favorite baby boy nursery! Excellent choices in color, design and furniture. Where is the bookcase from? Your little guy is very lucky!!
Thanks for the compliments. :) To answer a couple of the questions:
The bookcase was from Target. http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html?ie=UTF8&asin=B001NQCMLA
Yes, definitely steal the cloud shelf idea! We basically created a template using a graphic design program, and then printed it, and used it to trace the design onto the foam core. Then we used a razor cutter to carefully cut it out. Just make sure you buy the shelves you like first and make sure the cloud template you design has a space in the middle with the correct dimensions of the shelf, so you can cut that out too.
The gradients were done by our painter Morgan Bricca (http://www.muralsbymorgan.com/). I'm not exactly sure how she did it, but it involved big brushes and two shades of blue plus white. She made it look easy, but I know it wasn't.
Lovely. This is a great example of a tasteful, but still child friendly room. I always hate seeing rooms where it looks like the parent is trying to hide the fact that they have a child by making the room look too adult. This room has the perfect balance of tasteful, but still child-like. Love, love love it!
Love this nursery! Where did you get the robot / animal paintings in the room? Love those!
The paintings were done by the same artist who painted the walls. (http://www.muralsbymorgan.com/) She did a whole series, but several of them are in other rooms of our house.