Baby Rooms

You'll want to steal ideas for your own bedroom.

Nancy was recently faced with the challenge of completing a quick and affordable bedroom makeover for a couple who is adopting three siblings. She transformed a guest room into a bright and airy girl’s room in only five days, and while there are plenty of lovely touches in the space, it’s her simple and cheap solution for a wall treatment that really stopped me in my tracks.

Stacy had a great home office. The question was, would it be a great nursery, especially if she wanted to re-use many of the same pieces? Let’s see what this room looks like reconfigured as a nursery and which items Stacy kept in the space: Sweet, right? As you can see, Stacy kept the gray paint along with the colorful turquoise shutters (re-repurposed from her wedding). The fetching tissue paper artwork is a DIY project.

Name: Ursula (7 years) Location: Soho, NY Making a room for Ursula in our new home together took awhile but it was a joy. For her first room to herself in our new life (we were sharing a one bedroom for a year), I was able to take a white sheetrock box with a high ceiling and make it airy but cozy and have plenty of storage for her growing lifestyle of clothes, dolls, costumes and toys. Before! During!

Soffia bought two of these tall, imposing pieces at an Icelandic Goodwill—I’ve dubbed them “bookdenzas”—and wanted to lighten them up and give them some personality to use in her son’s bedroom. Here’s what she came up with: Soffia tells us: The tall book case is an old piece of living room furniture that was very popular in Iceland in the 70s and 80s. I bought it for around $40 at a local Goodwill.

This ruddy red (marsala?) room color is quite nice, but perhaps not entirely suited to its 2-year-old occupant, Vera. Her mother, Petra Probstner, took a big risk and painted murals on all four walls mimicking the urban landscape of Chicago that lay outside the windows. The result is, frankly, breathtaking. Amazing, right?? As you can see in the progress photo below, she taped the mural off and then filled it in with grey, mint green and peachy-pink paint. Thanks for sharing, Petra Probstner!

Sometimes I come across an adorable kid’s room on Pinterest and get the urge to spruce up my girls’ rooms a bit. Unfortunately money is tight these days and spending money on a new lamp or cute print is just not in the budget. That’s when I usually start getting creative and try to come up with projects that I can complete on the cheap.