Name: Penny Lou
Age: 4 months
Location: Portland, OR
Starting with artwork by Mary Blair, a sea foam green record player, and a love of mustard yellow, Penny Lou's parents Molly and Curt created a nursery that is fun and functional. With DIY visions of grandeur, the outcome looks super pro: handmade cubby baskets, cloud shelves, painted picture frames, and a refurbished dresser only start the list. Molly's best advice is to make the nursery a place you too want to hang out; Penny Lou's vibrant space of artwork, golden books and record collections have us wanting to pull up a rocker...
>> Inspiration: We wanted to make a fun space for our daughter to grow. We love art of Mary Blair and found lots of ways to incorporate that into the room. The Sea Foam Green vintage record player was the inspiration behind the wall color.
Favorite Element: The cubby shelves. We like so many little things and this shelving unit allows us to display all of those things and have the space not feel so cluttered. The cloud shelves are a favorite, but I also like the dirty clothes bin that we found at Value Village to an absurd degree.
Biggest Challenge: Finding a rocking chair that we could afford, that was comfortable, and that looked good … Countless hours wasted researching online. We lucked out and ended up getting a converted Eames chair/rocker as a gift!
What Friends Say: People really seem to enjoy her toy/ book/ record collection because they are mostly faves from when we were little, or our actual old stuff.
Proudest DIY: I couldn’t find baskets that fit our cubby shelves, so I decided to make them. A frustrating process indeed! I’m so happy with the results. It is nice to have places to put away small toys, burp rags, diapers, etc. Here are the directions I used…
We enjoyed making lots of things for Penelope. I didn’t realize just how much we had done until I got to this question. The curtains, cloud shelves, painted picture frames, refurbished dresser, the dolly on the shelf and the pennant holding wall birds!
We also have lots of creative friends and family that have added so much to this nursery.
Biggest Indulgence: Flor “Toy Poodle” carpet squares
Best advice: Make the room a place you want to hang out in. Have a comfortable place to play on the floor.
Dream source: a time machine
Resources: thrift stores, internet lurking
>> Images: Molly Anderson (Penny Lou's mom)
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Comments (42)
Such a bright, beautiful room-loaded with personality! Where are the cubby shelves from? They don't look like they're from the ubiquitous IKEA Expedit collection.
This room is so fun and virbrant. I love it!
Best. Room. Ever!
There's just so much joy and creativity put into this and it shows.
Can you tell me about the paint? Which color did you use? We are thinking of the same duck egg blue/green for the future nursery, but I noticed you just put it on one wall. . . I wonder if all four would be too much seafoam. ??
Pretty girl and a pretty name.
:)
are those flor tiles on the floor? beautiful room!
Totally awesome! Love the paint color and curtains, and of course all the vintage treasures. But my favorite thing might be the sweet birds with the banners--what a genius little whimsical tweak to the cute banner idea. Also, where did you get your laundry basket!? I'd love to get my hands on one of those.
I love Mary Blair's illustrations. You've got one lovely room and a beautiful little girl!
We're about to have a little girl who will be sharing a room with her brother and I've been trying to figure out how to combine some blue and yellow in her side of the room so that it all works together and I've just found some inspiration from your ideas!
Thanks for posting!
that's one of the best nurseries I've seen. truly beautiful! i love the vintage mobile. and what an adorable baby!
PLEASE, APARTMENT THERAPY!! Stop.... with.... the.... adorable... babies! You're killing me with preciousness!
This little girl is so cute, I wanna scream! You guys have had a series of the most adorable children lately and they're making me pine for a chubby cheeked lil one.
I love this room and really, it's the exact environment that I am trying to create in my entire home, but I just can't get down. Love it!
What fabric are your curtains? They're great!
the cubby shelves were found at a used office furniture store.
the paint is Valspar simply seafoam. We put it on one wall as we were having a little girl and didn't want to over do the blue as we wanted to use other colors as well.
yup Toy Poodle flor tiles.
the laundry hamper unfortunately is a thriftstore find so i am not sure where to find another.
yeah the birds holding the pennants designed after Mary Blair's birds in I Can Fly.
we really were inspired by all the nurseries on ohdeedoh.
thanks for all the comments and feedback.
I love this! Mary Blair is one of my all-time favorite illustrators. Job well done! Oh, could you tell us what the fabric is that you used to make the little baskets?
Oh, and ms. Penny Lou is just adorable, too! Great smile! Thanks for including the shots of her. I love when we get to see the darling little ones who inhabit these awesome spaces. :)
Fabulous child's room! I absolutely love the colors and the whimsy. What a great mix of old, new, diy and scavenged finds. Lucky baby. What I like most about this room is that it serves the baby and not just the design tastes of the parents, that is after all what it should be about!
Great job, fantastic room that will grow with your lovely daughter- stimulate her creativity.
p.s - Where did you get the garbage can and the cloud shelves - wow!
Love the Goldenbooks. Great room. There is something perfectly Portland about it.
The room brought up a question though. Is there anything to look out for when buying or giving your child vintage toys?
LOVE THIS ROOM. LOVE IT!! I absolutely love Mary Blair and everything about this room is just perfect, including little Madame. So jealous of your hamper.
Inspirational, beautiful, happy space. I love your advice to make it a space you want to hang out in. Our nursery (sister/brother) is still in progress, and posts like this help me remember what i want to create. Thank you!
And adorable girl. she looks so happy!
Absolutely adorable room for an absolutely beautiful baby!
Truly inspirational -- thanks so much for sharing!
kkdm: more info about cloud shelves here:
http://wallstory.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/cloud-shelf/
Where did you get the mobile and what brand is it? It looks like the vintage Christmas ornaments I have from my childhood that are wooden and labeled "Watkins."
Wonderful!
Those little cloud shelves are AWESOME, way to go making them yourself!
So many great things in this room! Where do I start! I really like the cloud floating shelves with the vintage toys and I love the color, curtains, and shelves with the colorful objects. Those little vintage vintage pictures are cute too!
this is my favorite nursery yet!! i love how original it looks! great job : )
Great nursery! Love the colors and illustrations...just bought a set of the Cloud Shelves from Modern Dose!
http://www.moderndose.com/product_info.php?products_id=586&osCsid=4d3954ca285f60e25af4c6f8d823e614
P.S. Your daughter is insanely adorable!
Love the bird pennants and the crib at an angle. Where did you get the white light fixture--is that Ikea?
Your baby=too cute!
love this nursery...where did you get the fantastic lamp that's sitting on the cubby shelves?
Where did you get that neat boombox pillow?!
So cute, great job.
boombox pillow was a shower gift from pottery barn kids
crib mobile was a thrift store find. do a google search on "mobiles by irmi" this was the zoo collection. there are a few other themes.
the lamp in the corner is from Ikea i don't see it on their site.
the handpainted kids lamp is a thrift store purchase and i don't see any markings on it.
the fabric for the storage boxes was found while traveling and I don't know any info on it.
let me see if I can find the pear fabric info. we got it from bolt fabrics in portland.
Maisy!!! I love it! What a beautiful fun room..and the cutest little girl ever.
My boys are blond haired ..but being born with a mess of dark hair your cutie is what I always pictured my daughter would look like..You are lucky people!
Sorry..its Miffy..got my characters mixed up ;(
love your room and using Mary Blair artwork is a great idea!
What an absolutely lovely room... I think it's my favorite nursery I've seen on this site. Thanks for the inspiration!
I know it's already been asked, but can you provide any more information about where you purchased the fabric banner and birds? I'm curious what the birds are made of- wood or heavy paper?- they are just too cute!
Again, fabulous job!
This is beautifully executed! LOVE the cubbies. Mary Blair was also the inspiration for my 10 month old daughter's room - "Mary Blair Woodland Animals". She is such an ongoing source of inspiration! I'm an animator and have begun an apparently never-ending project of designing children's prints that combine my two favorite aesthetics, mary blair mod and victorian :) For anyone looking to do room like this - note that Flor also makes those tiles by Alexander Girard (great for mary blair theme) and François Robert (great for a golden books/city/richard scary theme). In case anyone is interested, I'm selling my children's prints on Etsy ;)
Hello Prints
Great post!
LOVE THE ROOM! We almost named our 4 month old daughter Penelope. Maisie (our daughter) is now very jealous and wants to know why mom is not working harder on her room.
I love the entire nursery, especially the Mary Blair prints. Can you tell me where you got them?
SCERumptious baby! Love the room, love the seafoam wall, the storage unit, the bunny and crib quilt. Great colors; very sunny and cheerful without being too too much.
the Mary Blair prints were just images we found online http://www.flickr.com/photos/60585948@N00/2223610562/in/set-1499986/
We had them printed on photo paper then found old frames from thrift stores and spray painted them orange.
the pennants were made by my sister from fabric scraps for the baby shower. the birds are made from cork board and felt.
thanks for all the compliments. we started on the nursery pretty soon after we found out we were having a girl so it was all a little at a time.
What a great room. I love the colors (they were my wedding colors, so I'm a bit partial.)
First, what an adorable baby! And I love her name! Is Penny short for something (I probably should read the other posts)? Anyway, I love the nursery. I love the chest painted white with yellow (mustard) drawers, etc. I have a planter in a bright yellow that I would love to copy to paint a chest of drawers, but I thought it would be too bright. But I can just do the drawers, what a fab idea! And I love the orange frames, we have a Charlie Harper print in a bright orange frame for my daughter's room.
love, love, love the room!
can you tell me where you got the stuffed bunny that is in the crib with your adorable daughter?
thanks!
Penny is short for Penelope.
That bunny's name is Miffy. We got ours on ebay. I see there is one available now as well.
http://cgi.ebay.com/RARE-NEW-14-MIFFY-RABBIT-PLUSH-TOY-STUFFED-DOLL-YELLOW_W0QQitemZ270441709164QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3ef794fe6c&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
could you tell me where you got the crib quilt?
I'm in LOVE with that crib. What brand is it? Where does it come from? This is the best nursery ever!