Beautiful and Affordable Play Room

Do you love the way this gorgeously styled play room looks? Could you envision it in your own home and does it make you yearn for an interior designer?

Photo from Sloan Mauran ID

If you answered yes to any of the above, then you are not alone. I too stopped dead in my tracks and wished my upstairs rec room looked like this. Well my friends, good news! This gorgeous and yes totally affordable room is more achievable than it looks.

Okay so let's start with what you might not have in your kid space, beautiful hardwood floors, 8" baseboards, beautiful AND expensive wood double hung windows and of course that arched window seat. But aside from the architectural details, the styling of the room is perfection and yes achievable.

Would you believe the meat and potatoes of this room comes from Ikea and a few other chic and cheap retailers? Allow me to demonstrate....

First we'll start with Ikea, where you'll find about 80% of the items for this design.  This rug is not the exact same as the photo, but a very close second and you can't beat the price.

The ever so popular Ikea toddler table and chairs.

The bookcase...Ikea as well.

   

Or the Ikea Expedit turned on its side.

Some baskets to fill the shelves.

The comfy armchair in pink if you have girls or if you are striving for gender nuetral, the red.

The apple green pillows, also Ikea.com.

And the wall art.  Frames from Ikea and wall cards from LandofNod.com.

And finally the biggest splurges for this very affordable room, the beautiful gord lamp and custom roman shades.  The lamp is from LampsPlus.com and the fabric is an apple green cotton duck from fabrics.com.  The perfect fabric for a simple roman shade. 

So there you have it, high style for a steal.  keep in mind this design works beautifully because the bold furniture and asseccories are accented with clean crips neutral walls. 

Ice Cream Dreams and Waffles

I love this fun and vibrant breakfast nook featured in Traditional Home magazine.  Styled after a traditional ice cream parlor, it's a setting perfect for food, crafts and fun. 

This look would be so easy to duplicate in your own home.  Striped walls with a pale barely there pink on the bottom and that table looks a lot like this oh so chic and affordable Ikea one. 

A similar chandelier could be found here and spray painted white, then pull it all together with a set of vintage chairs recovered and whoa la!  High style for a steal. 

Stylish Kids Room for Two

If you follow my blog regularly, it's no surprise how much I adore Christie Chase's work. So naturally when she featured a children's bedroom designed for two; boy and girl, of course I had to share. Check out her post featuring this stylish and modern room here and her flikr photos here. 

Bathroom Facelift Update: Wallpaper!!!!

Exciting things are happening here today. Wallaper is going up in the very tiny bathroom on the second floor. For a recap of the redesign click here. I am so excited! What a difference some wallpaper can make.  The paper is Ralph Lauren Lancast Damask in Citrine. 

Here is the before.  How about that brown tile?  Ugh!!!  Awful isn't it?

Room Design: Bathroom Facelift

To say the bathrooms in our new home are horrific would be a huge understatement. While they are functional and clean (after hours of some serious elbow grease) they are dated and plain. The only bathroom that has been update in the past decade (yes, I said decade as in 10 years) is the very cozy (chic word for small) upstairs bathroom. This bathroom will always be the kid’s bathroom, but will be used by guests and is right next to our rec room.

Immediately I envisioned pink in the decor but I husband put the kibosh on that one. He doesn't object very often to my decorating ventures, so when he speaks up I listen. Sigh...men. Remodeling this bathroom is not an option in the near future since the two downstairs bathrooms are in far worse condition and need to be gutted down to the studs. So by the famous words of Tim Gunn, I had to "Make It Work".   Click on the photo to enlarge.

The entire bathroom is covered in a very boring brown/beige tile you can find at Lowes or Home Depot (why couldn't it be white subway?). So to get the creative juices flowing I created an inspiration board to help guide me.

I started with a celadon green and gold damask wallpaper from Ralph Lauren's Lancaster Damask Collection. Decorating side note, this tiny swatch does not do this paper justice. That was my starting point and everything else just kind of fell into place. I want the design to be sophisticated and classic since I won't be addressing this room again anytime soon. I plan to skirt the pedestal sink with the celadon Asian toile fabric and use it for banding on the shower curtain. The swatch arrived today and it's a perfect match. Don't you just love it when you get lucky? The mirror is just inspiration since this one is too heavy to mount to the face of a medicine cabinet, but I am heading to Round Top this weekend so maybe I’ll get lucky. Notice how I still managed to sneak some pink in? Wallpaper goes up next week. I’ll update you soon.

Shopping Guide:
Vanity Light - Shadesoflight.com
Bath Rug - Potterybarnkids.com
Fabric - BuyFabrics.com
Wallpaper - DecoratorsBest.com
Sink Faucet - Overstock.com
Soap Dish, Vanity Seat and Train Rack - Restorationhardware.com
Mirror - BallardDesigns.com
Peonies - Diane James Design

All The Best Bedrooms Contest

Don't you just love peeking into other people's homes?  I find it so interesting and inspiring to see how they choose to decorate and showcase personal items.  All The Best Blog is hosting an All The Best Bedrooms Contest and the entries are top notch.  Below is one of my favorites.  A beautiful pink and aqua pad for a little girl.  Click on the blog link above to preview more entries.

Blog Love

Check out this fun blog called Spearmintbaby.com. It’s stocked full of fun, stylish and creative decorating ideas for kids. I promise it won't disappoint. It's one of my new favorites. Below is a sneak peak at a nursery recently featured. So fabulous!

Navy and Orange Nautical Nursery

Since I’ve been favoring designs for girls lately, I thought I should throw some love to the boys. So here’s a nautical nursery that’s all sophistication and royal regatta with nothing “dingy” about it. Get it? Okay bad pun. Click on the photo to get the full details.

I try to avoid theme decorating at all costs. If it’s not done properly it can look very cheap. It takes a great designer to pull off a room designed with a theme and make it look fabulous. So here I’ve designed a boy’s nursery that isn’t in your face nautical theme, just sophisticated and modern with subtle hints.

I chose a gorgeous Ralph Lauren large navy and white stripe as my starting point. The chair pictured on the inspiration board is obviously not a rocker but you can see how striking the fabric is when laid on the horizontal. Coordinating fabrics are the geometric orange and white and flax linen. I love the organic look of flax linen.

As for the walls I would add a white bead board all the way around the room covering ¾ of the wall height and the rest of the walls painted a soft oatmeal color. The bead board gives the room an east coast Nantucket feel. The paint swatch to the left of the chair is Oatmeal by Serena and Lily.

The crib is from Restoration Hardware and I think it’s safe to say I am head over heels in love with it. It’s sophisticated and the best part is it converts to a full size headboard! The rug is a soft wool but in a very natural color favoring a woven seagrass. If this was a toddler’s room I would have shown a true seagrass rug, but since it’s for a baby I went with the wool.

Instead of a chandelier or hanging fixture I chose a flush mount antique nickel star. It reminds me of how you would see the North Star late at night in the middle of the ocean on a yacht. I wish! A few other design details not pictured would be adding long curtain panels with grommets. The grommets remind me of a boat’s sail or a true sailor’s knot as curtain tiebacks.

Shopping Guide:
Fabrics: www.CalicoCorners.com
Monogram: JacquelynReese.com
Rug: Pottery Barn
Light: Circa Lighting
Crib, Changing Table, Porthole Mirror and Fan: Restoration Hardware and RH Baby and Child
Art: www.NameYourDesign.com
Bead board Toy Box: Land of Nod
Mobile: Gap.com
Hat: RalphLauren.com
Shirt: Janie and Jack
Paint: Serena and Lily
Garden Seat Table and Arrow Sign: Ballard Designs

The Nursery Diaries

To say that I am anxiously awaiting the final chapter in Erin's nursery posts would be an understatement. I am literally bursting at the seams. I love her design style and would fly her over to decorate my house from top to bottom if I could afford it. Her nursery is sure to be a design masterpiece that I will study like a devoted apprentice. I've blogged about the status of her nursery before, you can read about it here.

Today she has divulged more details and reading her post is like reading the teasers for a TV series season finally. I can't wait! Click here to read her full post.

There’s No Place Like Home

Recently one of my favorite blogs did a focus on interior designer Robyn Karp and I was blown away. Not by the obvious talents for adult spaces, but by the rooms for children. They are gorgeous! He or she (not sure if Robyn is a man or woman) knows exactly how to take a kids room and make it innocent, sweet and fun for the little ones and still ooze high style for mom and dad.

One of my favorites is this little girl’s room ready for a toddler in the first photo, then change the bed and it’s ready for their teen years. Perfect!




And here are more of her fabulous designs.

Project Nursery

Next time you need a little creative help designing your child’s room visit Project Nursery. A website dedicated to just about everything that has to do with children. They have a feature called “Real Rooms” where readers post pictures of their nurseries for inspiration. Below are just a few of my favorites, but check them out for yourself and get inspired.

Love the silhouettes!