Travel/Cultural Themed Nursery

A Project For: Taj
Age: 14 months
Location: Honolulu, HI
Description:
I wanted to create a cultural/travel themed nursery for my second son. I'm 2nd generation Indian and my husband is 4th generation Chinese, so I wanted to reflect both of our cultures in the nursery.
Design Inspiration:
Planes and travel were my 2 inspirations for the nursery. The art prints were custom made by the fabulous Lisa Barbero on Etsy. My parents met in Madras, Indian and my husband's great grandparents were from China. He and I met in New York and now live in Honolulu, so all 4 places were important to us (an therefore to the conception of our son!) The Annette Tatum chevron fabric was the jumping off point for the color palette. I love seersucker since I was raised in North Carolina so I used that for the crib bumpers and everything grew from there. It was tough because the room is really small (only 8 feet by 8 feet) so I had to make use of every foot and keep things from looking too cluttered..
Decorating Style:
I love combining layers of patterns. My design esthetic is pretty eclectic. I love modern, but use a lot of vintage pieces in our home too. The nursery has very clean lines because it's such a small room. Koa wood is hugely popular in Hawaii and I chose the crib set which reflected those colors.
Project Details:
Most everything was DIY - my mom made the crochet airplane mobile (we placed musical push buttons inside each plane), curtains and the crib set. I made the sign with our son's name in Tamil and Chinese and the city nursery art prints are from Lisa Barbero on Etsy. The glider is from Costco and the crib and dresser is Bonavita. The Tamil alphabet blocks are from Gnaa and are hand made from teak. They have loads of different languages.
Favorite Items:
So hard to choose just one! I love the airplane mobile which was a real labor of love by Mom. I also really adore the city art prints.
Advice:
Don't get overwhelmed and try to get everything done before the baby comes. Eventually, everything will come together. As you live in and use the space, you'll make tiny adjustments that will make the room really feel complete.

Judy

The room looks great! I am very interested in the name/birth time sign, was it a DIY? thx!
Annie

I love the multi-cultural inspiration. I bet your baby looks really beautiful! I haven’t seen how Indian/Chinese would look combined, but I know multi-racial people are exotic and just rare beauties. I am multi-racial myself so I know. LOL!
Rupa

Yes, it was DIY and a real labor of love! I had my parents write out his name in Tamil (the Indian language they speak) and I found an app online that had Tamil font. I enlarged it and printed it out. Then I cut it with an exacto knife and traced it onto the canvas (after I had painted the canvas blue with some leftover wall paint). I filled in the characters with acrylic paint markers. I did the same with the Chinese characters.
Rupa

We think our boys are pretty cute! That’s the beauty of Hawaii, practically everyone is multi-racial and they’re all gorgeous and unique!

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Travel/Cultural Themed Nursery

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