If you are one of those blessed couples who have a baby on the way, you might be interested in some fun and functional ideas for your nursery. Grandmothers and grandfathers, this could be interesting to you as well. Matt Fox, my decorating partner, and I have decorated quite a few nurseries in our careers, and this balloon-inspired nursery is one of my favorites.
In fact, the first item we had for the room wasn't the expected crib or special baby blanket. For this room, our inspiration pieces were three framed prints depicting old-fashioned hot air balloons. The colors were soft yet primary enough to be interesting to a baby, and they had a free and easy feeling about them that might conjure up wonderful dreams for this little one.
In our desire to expand on this theme, we decided to go all the way and paint the walls of the room with a sky full of floating balloons.
To paint the mural, we started by creating the sky and clouds. This was an easy base coat in yellow, with light and airy white clouds dabbed on with a natural sea sponge and slightly diluted white paint. Once the clouds were dry, we positioned the balloons.
There are a total of three in the room, of varying sizes to make them look either closer or farther away. Using the pieces of artwork as a guide, we lightly drew on the large circular shape of the balloons using a pencil tied to a length of string.
From there, we fashioned a basket just below and connected the two with straight lines made by tracing along a straight edge. The designs within the balloon were either made up or inspired by the pieces of art. Painting them was a breeze, and to really make the balloons pop off the walls we traced around everything with paint pens that gave the balloons something of a coloring-book appearance.
The lower portion of the walls was done in a soft blue denim painting technique, complete with seams and stitches.
For the windows, soft off-white pleated shades gave the room a warm glow, perfect for afternoon napping. Then, gathered denim valances topped off the shades, bringing some of the blue from the technique below the chair rail higher into the room.
The next step was to place the furniture. With a crib, dresser and rocker to arrange, we did something a little different for the room. We made sure that from the door the crib is in plain sight in the opposite corner of the room. Positioning at an angle gives it even more prominence.
The dresser had to be at an angle as well so the crib didn't look askew, so it was placed on an angle in the corner next to the crib. The rocker was somewhat randomly placed, since it would move around the room to be used wherever convenient. The furniture was white, but even wood tones would have been wonderful in this room.
Now, those of you with babies already are probably wondering where the changing table was located. Well, this room was so small that Matt actually turned the closet into a changing table.
A shelf was mounted at the appropriate height for changing and equipped with a lip to hold the changing pad. A clothes bar was mounted under the shelf for hanging clothes and small shelves mounted to the side of the closet served as storage for diapers, folded clothing and toys. It was a wonderful project that just might help you out, if space is a problem.
For accessories, a child's room is a breeze — toys. But we did add a denim blue rag rug to follow the angle of the furniture.
With all this blue, you'd think we knew before hand that this baby was a boy. Fortunately yellow is a great color for girls, too, and these parents are just thinking of the blue as a cool, calming accent.
(Shari Hiller writes this column with Matt Fox. They also co-host the HGTV show Room by Room. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)
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