Design Reveal: Take Me Out to the Ballgame

This room was designed for a wonderful little man who had just moved with his family to New York from San Francisco. We simultaneously worked on this sports-themed room for him and a geography-focused room for his older brother, which we will reveal in our next post. The challenge was to create two rooms that encompassed similar elements that the parents wanted in the room while making them each reflect the two boys’ different personalities.

The parents asked for a youthful room that was fresh but not overly contemporary, so we decided to combine some modern pieces and mix them in with other retro and fun pieces.

Our starting point was the mother’s request for a cork wall on which her sons could put up art, homework and pictures like she had as a child. Working off the inspiration of striped baseball uniforms, we created a navy and beige striped wall using colored cork wall panels. We continued the wall “stripes” onto the floor, aligning the colored bands of “made you look” Flor Tiles with the colored bands on the wall.

Opposite the bold cork stripes, the wall behind the bed was wallpapered with a subtle baseball striped wallpaper that alternated a navy stripe and a red stripe that resembled the stitching of a baseball.

Against the subtle and muted tones of the wall and floor treatments, we selected fresh white furniture and pops of color to bring in some energy to the composition. The campaign bed by duc duc was the first furniture choice, and the trundle below the bed was selected to house friends when they stay over—however, it quickly became a “hide and seek” space during the room installation.

Coupling the bed with duc duc’s Alex nightstand in bright blue brought a pop of color and energy to the room. To retain a youthful feel, we like to combine pieces of similar styles rather than installing an entire matching range of pieces. The baseball bedside lap was chosen to charm the room’s inhabitant.

Lastly, duc duc’s Austin desk, with bright orange draw interiors, awaits homework with an industrial-era style green lamp to add a contrasting color and style to the rest of the room. Right behind the desk, we framed out a portion of the cork wall with a shelf above for art and future awards, and beneath it in the area behind the desk, we painted the wall in chalkboard paint. We paid homage to the family’s loyalties to teams from both New York and San Francisco with Gemini Studio’s vintage-style New York Jets and a retro San Francisco Giants image.

Storage baskets for sporting goods and baseball caps, wall mounts for treasured baseballs and football-themed brightly colored throw pillows all add layers of functionality and fun to the room for its energetic young inhabitant. Overall, we created a room for fun, for work and for sleep that we hope will build hopes and house many memories.