Design Reveal: Alphabet City

Today’s Real Room makes Melisa and I two proud bloggers. The parents-to-be came across an alphabet themed wall from one of our past Real Room posts and it proved to be the inspiration they needed when designing their unborn baby’s nursery. They are waiting to find out the baby’s gender (so fun!), who is due on Mom’s birthday (double fun!) and wanted to be sure the nursery was filled with vibrant energy. I have to say I absolutely love what they did with the lime green dresser, its given me a bit of inspiration to update my daughter’s nursery furniture to make it new again. Welcome to Alphabet City!

What was your inspiration for the room?
The idea of doing an ‘ABC’ room actually came from Project Nursery’s Real Room: A to Z post. I loved the alphabet wall. My friend, Casey, even called me one day asking if I had a ‘U’ yet!

What best describes your decorating style?
Very random…I start with one piece that I really like and go from there. My living room started from a container of paper scrapbooking flowers I saw at Michael’s and my spare room started with a scrap of fabric. I don’t like to go and purchase a room as you see it in a store. I’ll find items at thrift stores, discount chains, up scale stores, relatives

basements and make a lot of things myself! I couldn’t find art for my living room, so I looked through pictures I had taken of flowers and edited them in Photoshop to be the colors I wanted! It was inexpensive, custom made and added just the pop of color that I’d been searching for!

Please share with us your choice of paint colors, furniture, art, diy tips, etc.
The room was freshly painted prior to us buying the house in June. I liked the neutral color. We don’t know if we’re having a boy or a girl and I was beginning to get tired of seeing pastel green and yellow, so I wanted to add some bright colors. While collecting the alphabet, I found ‘ABC’ linens at Target, which I took to several stores to find matching papers and paints to decorate the ABC’s. I tied in the patterns from the ‘ABC’ wall by lining the back of the storage unit and creating the wall art with the same paper. The dresser was a free find from my mother-in-law’s basement! We just sanded, added chipboard letters and painted it ‘Giggle Green’. I found the green fabric for the curtains and chair pillow on the clearance shelf at JoAnn’s, which just happened to match the dresser and provide a fun punch of color on the back wall. I also added two photo frames with pictures of family to surround our baby with the faces of loved ones.

What is your favorite item(s) in the room?
It’s probably a tie between the ‘ABC’ wall or the ‘ABC’ dresser. I had fun hunting for and decorating all of the letters for the wall. I really like the way the dresser turned out. I spent a while choosing the color, but became nervous after they mixed it at the store. It seemed almost neon in the container! My husband reassured me though and I really like the final product. The chipboard letters give a little character without taking over the piece.

Is there anything else you would like PN readers to know?
Try not to stress out over the nursery. Enjoy the process. People kept asking me if I had the nursery ready, but I just took my time and enjoyed the process. I finished it with 6 weeks to spare! Sometimes I sit in the glider chair and just imagine how great it’s going to be when there’s actually a baby in there!