Nursery Inspiration

It's time to change Little Brother's big boy room into a nursery for Baby Sister!

This room doubles as a guest room when needed so the queen sized bed will stay in place. We'll move the bookcase and butterfly chair out and bring in our contemporary styled maple crib along with my grandmother's antique rocking chair. The space will be cramped, to be sure, but I think we can still achieve a light, cheerful atmosphere.

The main source of inspiration for the new room decor comes from the Cathedral Window quilt that the professor's grandmother made for us during our first year of marriage. I've always kept it folded at the foot of the bed but now I plan to use it as the actual bed coverlet.

Taking his cue from the saturated colors used in the quilt the professor suggested that we design the color palette for the room based on the CMYK color model -- cyan, magenta, yellow, and key black, the four inks used in most color prints. Toss out the key black and add in a little bright green and I think we'll be able to create a fun and feminine feel without being overly pastel.

In moving away from the primary colors I'll replace the red bed skirt with a white, tailored one; a pair of beautiful vintage pillow slips from my great, great-aunt will look much more feminine than the current red pillowcases.

These images should give you an idea of the color palette that we have in mind, as well as the overall feel that we're shooting for... kind of a shabby chic meets classic mod look in saturated tones.

For the most part we'll be using what we already have, what we can find, and what we can make to create Baby Sister's room. I would love, love, love to get my hands on enough of the Alexander Girard fabric {top left} to create a stretched canvas wall hanging to go over the bed, but yardage is big, big bucks! I hate to see the current Eames fabric panels leave the room but am confident we can find a home for them somewhere else in the house.

Overall the nursery should be colorful, cheerful, and feminine yet remain in keeping with the simple, mod'ish look found throughout the rest of our home.