Brand New Baby, Brand New Nursery

Upon the arrival of the newest addition to our family, I finally finished the newest addition to our home, Baby Maxim Paris’ nursery.

When coming up with a theme for the room, for some reason, I just couldn’t let go of the idea of doing some sort of canopy over the baby’s crib. And, since I was having another boy, the princess/fairy crib idea with drapes and canopies galore went right out the window with the fairies. I decided the only way to do a canopy for a boy was to create a circus tent… but I didn’t stop there… I thought a vintage circus would be much more challenging and give me more of an inspiration.

For this nursery, I wanted to try a more textured and busier look with wallpaper and build the room around that. I spent countless hours searching for the perfect wallpaper and came across a pattern and design that fit the theme to a T… T as in tiger… roarrrrr….

Tiger Wallpaper

The tigers standing on each other’s heads reminded me of circus performing animals and from a distance, the spaces in between the tigers created a really unique geometric shape.

Because the wallpaper is so busy, I didn’t want to plaster every inch of the wall with it, and I wanted to bring in another “circus” element, so I decided to break up the wall space with a chair rail. Above the chair rail would be all wallpaper, and below, a matching vertical stripe. My original thought was to find a striped wallpaper, but after realizing I may just lose my eyesight searching online and through countless wallpaper books for the perfect stripe, I gave up, and decided that painting would suffice.

Chair rail up.. Ready to roll

LL helping Mama wallpaper

Picking the perfect paint color

If you’re thinking of mixing and matching so many textures and colors, it’s important to keep the colors in each element as closely matched as possible… otherwise, you’re bringing in too many elements which the eye can’t blend together, and I think, creates a messy and incohesive look. I matched the light aqua color from the wallpaper for the stripes down below.

Let’s start painting those stripes!

Gettin’ there…

My initial sketch for the canopy

Fabric shopping

I looked at so many fabrics with a bright red and white stripe, but I ended up choosing this more subdued red and beige stripe with a tiny light blue stripe going through it… could it be any more perfect?

And… Voila! La piece de resistance… the reason I chose this whole theme to begin with…

Voila!

After I picked the fabric, it was time to have it matched to the space, and thanks to my amazing neighbor with the magic hands, he sewed my custom made canopy. I found the perfect tassels to hang on the ends, and don’t forget the gold-toned pom pom edging to complete the look.

The finished nursery

Circus Posters

Another detail I really wanted to incorporate were the vintage posters. I’ve always thought these nostalgic pictures were so amazing and luckily my husband found an entire coffee table book on vintage circuses in the bargain bin, so we just cut pictures out of there, bought these frames from Target and brought a little nostalgia into the space.

Just because you’re designing a nursery doesn’t mean you have to think strictly nursery furniture. You are no less of a parent if you don’t invest in one of those made-for-nursery rockers… I say get creative and find any comfy chair that matches the decor… this way, when your kiddo outgrows the nursery, you can try and use the chair in another part of your house. And, I tend to never get too matchy matchy with furniture. This chair and foot rest are completely different styles, yet blend so well into the style of the room.

All about the details

I’m all about the details… I found these two elephant hooks on Etsy.com

Vintage Elephant Pillow

I found this on Etsy too… I asked the person to make the chevron pattern the same light aqua color and then sewed the edging on the pillow myself for a cuter finish.

Maxim

I love using kid’s letter blocks for decorating… These Russian letters spell out Maxim.

A closer look at the combination of the wallpaper, the unique chair rail and the bold stripes.

After months and months of planning and then attempting to make this idea into reality, I am so happy with the finished product… Now if only baby Maxim could appreciate it just as much as I do 🙂

If you have any questions about the nursery, I would love to hear them!

~Ta-ta from Googoogabgab