In the Nursery with Leah Sicat

This is our interview series in which we bring you the nurseries and kid rooms of successful designers, entrepreneurs and moms. Through this series, our featured guests will divulge some of their design secrets and share stories of how their nurseries came to be.

This week’s featured designer is a treat for many reasons. Leah Sicat is not just the marketing director of one of our favorite bedding companies, Carousel Designs, she’s also a former U.S. Army officer, mother of three and wife of Carousel’s co-owner Allan Sicat.

In 2010, following five years as an active duty U.S. Army officer and six more years as a marketing communications manager at GE, the West Point graduate decided to leave the corporate world to lead marketing for Carousel Designs.

For more than 25 years, Carousel Designs has manufactured high-quality baby bedding and nursery decor. Leah took some of her favorite prints from Carousel Designs and used the Nursery Designer tool—a unique, interactive design tool—to help her when creating the nursery of the Sicat crew’s newest addition, baby Matthew. She’s sharing the space with us today.

With so many choices available at Carousel Designs, how did you decide on the orange, gray and blue nursery colors?

I was inspired by the vibrant colors in the gray and orange See Saw fabric, and I adored its unique spin on the traditional chevron design. I also loved the ikat pattern in the coordinating gray and orange Ikat Dots fabric. Both of these fabrics felt bright, cheery and modern—elements I definitely wanted to have in the nursery. I had already created the more conventional pink and blue nurseries for our other two children years before, and since this was our third baby, and our second boy, I wanted to do something a little bit different. Once I had chosen the fabrics and designed the bedding, everything else followed.

You definitely achieved a cheerful space! What else was important to you when creating this space?

I wanted to create a modern space that is also clean and contemporary. There is a bit of accepted chaos that comes with being the third child, so I wanted my son’s nursery to be a haven for both of us—a nice little organized escape from the madness! The room definitely appeals to my “type A” sensibilities! I also wanted versatility. In a few years, we hope that our two boys might share a room, so I wanted a nursery that could easily transition back to a guest room if we decide to go that route.

What did you enjoy most about the design process?

I enjoyed pulling the room together over time; I loved how it slowly evolved from ideas on my Pinterest board (many pulled from Project Nursery!) into a reality. It was also a lot of fun for me to become a Carousel Designs customer. Just like many other moms, I obsessed over the Nursery Designer, spending hours designing and redesigning my ideal virtual nursery, refining it as I went. The process not only helped me as a mom who needed to create a nursery but also as a marketer; I gained lots of insight into how our customers use the Carousel Designs website and online design tools. Win-win!

Photos by Kristi Motter Photography

Do you know of a fantastic nursery or big kid’s room designed by a successful designer or business owner? Please send a photo of the room to Adrienne@ProjectNursery.com for consideration.