A Tale of Two Nurseries

I am bad with design.  I don’t have the artistic, coordinated eye needed to make a space look pulled together and effortlessly styled.  Most of my style evolves from “I like this color, that kind of goes with it, and this was free” and then mashing everything together.  My living room was supposed to be blue and brown (due to a pair of cute pillows I found while house hunting), but ended up drowning in a sea of brown (couches, pillows, rug) with an occasional blue blanket or pillow thrown in, and then topped off with artwork that is currently on loan to us from my sister-in-law which has red in it.  Eh, close enough.

So when it came to trying to decide on nursery decor, I was prepared to call in an expert (aka: any of the lovely mom’s currently blogging with me on MomRoad).  Because I just didn’t know what I was going to do.

Fortunately I did have a pretty firm foundation on what I DIDN’T want, and that helped steer the direction.  I DIDN’T want any cartoon or Disney characters featured prominently in the design.  I didn’t want a “Theme” room (jungle animals, airplanes, sports themes, etc.)  And I didn’t want baby blue on the walls.

What did I want?  Something that said “little boy” without screaming it in a baby-ish way.  For me that meant more saturated colors, clean lines, and a certain crispness to the room.  Now if only I could decipher what that meant.

I picked out a bedding I loved – navy blue and lime green.  Sure, the crib sheet that came with the set had little alligators on it, but I was less concerned with the alligators and more obsessed with the color combo.  Navy & lime, THAT was my theme!  Until I started looking at replacing the light in the room.  I wanted something simple, brushed nickle or silver.  My husband?  He grew up in a room with a basketball light hanging from the ceiling.  No simple, grown-up light would do!

After searching endlessly, we finally found a light he really liked.  It had airplanes hanging from it.  Ok fine.  I guess that doesn’t clash TOO badly with my navy and lime theme, even though the airplanes were all primary colors.

Following the airplane light, my husband thought it would be really cool to put some airplane decals on the walls.

Nope.  Nuh-uh.  No Way Mister.  NOT happening!  This will not be a theme room!  Not in my house, no way Jose.  Never never never.  It’s been vetoed and I’m standing FIRM!

You can see where this is going, right?

Notice the airplanes hanging from the light?

Oh yeah, and of course the airplane wall decals?

… Are there any harder words in the English language to say than “You were right honey…”

Cause he was.  Totally.  This nursery?  A-friggin-dorable.  I still have my navy and green coming into play with the rug, bedding, artwork and accessories, and the saturated colors and clean lines I was hoping for, but we all know the kid isn’t going to care about lime green baskets, a perfectly coordinated rug and my superb organization in his closet.

It’s all about the planes, people.

Ok Junior, I’ll admit it – Daddy did good.  He even picked the perfect shade of gray for the walls, and installed chair and crown moulding in the room.  And he was right: those airplane decals?  The bomb (dot) com.

Thank goodness for Etsy.com and a little compromise : I got him away from multi-colored decals to these simple, clean ones, available HERE from ababywall.  Her designs are too.stinkin.cute and she will customize the colors to your nursery!

So Junior, here’s hoping you have your daddy’s eye for design & detail, and your mommy’s eye for quality, good-egg kinda people (like your daddy).

B.T.Dubs: this post is in no way sponsored or solicited by ababywall on Etsy – I just thought she deserved a shout-out for her fantastic product and for making our nursery the crown jewel of our home.