Saturday, March 27, 2010

nursery works: part one

somebody tell the little man or mini-me. the room is ready!

if you'll travel back in time with me a minute, here's the inspiration board i had in mind for the space. definitely going for a clean yet punchy look. some old + some new, all mixed together.

to start, directly to the left of the door into the nursery [when you walk in] is the dresser. its one of two olivia babymod pieces i scored from walmart, of all places. yeaaa, i know. but just look at it!

peg legs....three clever holes for drawer pulls....stark mod lines....muah!

i positioned it here so that late night changing could be quickly and easily accessible. i also really wanted a lamp for this spot that could dim, so that i could turn on task lighting without illuminating the entire room and shocking my poor eyeballs. or those of le bebe.

i love lamp.

just look at that gorge linen-y texture. love the cross-hatching that occurs naturally around the whole shade....and those metal studs that secure it shut are just the bee's knees. i'm thinking they're meant to be hidden around on the back side, but i love 'em right out front as a feature.

the bright ring of light emanating out from the bottom of the lamp doesn't go unnoticed by this chica, either. beam me up, scotty!

as for that alpha magic happening above the dresser. the story there is i first spotted this white-framed print on z gallerie's site, about a year ago. [yes, a year ago....so if you do the math, i wasn't pregnant, which might betray just a little of my excitement to tackle this room 'someday'....]

speaking of tackle, does anyone else love this depiction of the dead fish under mr. walrus' flipper?

but i digress. back to the point....er, print. after eye-spying it on z gallerie's site, and finding out it was the work of a very talented ms. jenn ski, i banked this in my memory for the rainy day on which i'd actually get to start building my nursery. then lo + behold, shortly after moving into our new home, i uncovered the identical framed print at the back of my local steinmart store and for 20% less than the online z gallerie price! commence celebration!!

my hub was less excited about the pre-pregnancy purchase so you can imagine my excitement when not two weeks later [and the print luckily not returned!] i was staring at two pink lines on a stick. and ripping up a steinmart receipt with glee.

i love the fresh and whimsical way jenn ski has with her prints as well as the subtle use of fabric-like color blocking, as opposed to plain pieces of color for everything. you can see another up-close example of that in the 'woodgrain' she uses on this chair, in a print i hope to have for our house:
moving around the perimeter of the room, next up is my little wall of shadow boxes. i'm blessed to have some angle interest in the room vs. just a square box of a spot to work with. [this angle is the wall that goes up two stories from the foyer....well technically its just a wall up here, and beneath it two pillars that frame the sw corner of the dining room]

aaaaaand what's inside box #1? let's see!

this is where things really started to get fun for me. i hoped for a modern yet vintagey-eclectic mixture of things in the room so visually there was lots of layered interest throughout. this first shelf holds.... a robin's egg blue pot i uncovered for $.50 at a garage sale, probably six years ago. a compact book with a punchy melon and pink flamingo cover [a nice play on the boy-girl mystery, perched atop that blue pot!]. an antique wooden clothes pin found on etsy.


and font-abulous airy letters from a local kids' shop named tip toes....found in a clearance bin at the back of the store.

box numero dos holds another garage sale treasure that i love....an old sea-glass hued canning jar. alongside it sit three perky wooden apples from a local antique/vintage shop named 'found'. another mod little letter. and a lovely fabricy-hardcovered book....a gift from a baby shower.



the secret behind these wall boxes is that they actually used to be dark stained wood....a target global market trio we've had since house number one. they're a few years old now but a fresh coat of white paint does wonders, doesn't it? i personally love how the woodgrain still shows through for an added bit of texture.


and box #3. doesn't every kid need a dose of dr. seuss in her/his life?

accompanying that quirky orange story book is another scattering of letters from tip toes boutique. oh how i love that Q. and the g. and the....uh....&.

you may have noticed that between the three shelves i wanted some correlation and connection color-wise so there's a subtle balance of some orange, some yellow, some blue and some warmer browns that appear in the groupings.

and that's all the tappin' this mama's got in her tonight. back soon with the next nursery post!

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

its coming. can you feel it?

the nursery post is in the works! wait + see....hopefully it will have been worth the wait.

in the meantime, check out this new hamper option from jj cole for just $30. modern + totally un-cutesy. i particularly love that it doesn't scream 'nursery'. a great find by project nursery....that you can win if you're lucky!