Playful Spaces

One of the first things our client told us about her son when she asked us to design his room, is that he was a nature lover. When we finally met Léo, there was no mistaking it…he likes to spend all of his time exploring the outdoors; rain or shine! So we decided that his room was going to reflect exactly that.
This was going to be Léo’s first big boy room, as he was getting evicted from his current nursery to make room for his soon-to-arrive little brother – YAY! The bedroom that he was moving into was left with walls in very poor condition on the bottom half from the previous owners. So the first order of business was to find the best way to treat the walls, and we settled on some beautiful beadboard (installed by Léo’s very handy dad), which tied into the nature theme perfectly.
A few pieces that we were asked to keep in his new bedroom were the recently converted crib and Léo’s current dresser.  With just a few tweaks to the original colour story, everything seemed to work together perfectly.  Our original floor plan was designed around a single bed that we were going to use, so although the toddler bed fits right into the room, there is also enough space once Léo is officially ready for his big boy bed.
Léo’s mom thought he had more than enough stimulation throughout the day and wanted his room to be more serene.  Done! The walls were painted in a soft, calming grey and the custom bedding was made to match (by Léo’s talented mom) – with an adorable bird pattern to boot. Beautiful birch wallpaper spoke to our client’s Finnish roots and she loved the idea of a play tent in his room for some quiet reading.  We sourced this fun chevron fabric for a small pop of colour and our client once again took the reins and made the tent herself! Isn’t it great?
The rest of the small details for the room fell into place once the main design pieces were chosen. We had so much fun finding all of these great little nature inspired accents for Léo’s room (tiny branch crayons!? Come on!), but our favourite is definitely the custom wood slice wall hanging. We found out that an old high school friend and her father have an amazing local business together and make the most beautiful hand made wood ornaments and accessories.  It was the perfect finishing touch for little Léo the adventurer’s room.

As much as we love decorating nurseries, that excitement is always amplified when it’s for one of our own little ones! We didn’t know if I was having a girl or a boy while I was pregnant, so the first things we bought were some neutral modern furniture pieces that could go either way, but once I had our baby girl I knew I wanted to make her room just a little softer. We started by finding this great bedding from Lolli Living; I just loved the minimalist and modern print paired with the soft girly pinks and mints.  It was the perfect jumping off point. Then we painted the walls the palest of pinks and added some adorable heart decals. Once we found this amazing sleepy eyes print, we knew it was just the thing to finish off the look of Olivia’s room. It’s so simple, but so cute! We carried the sleepy eyes theme into a few other places in the room, along with repeating the birds from her bedding and added a fluffle of little bunnies (yup – that’s the adorable term for a group of bunnies. Amazing!). It became the perfect mix of modern and sweet pieces for us and our little girl.

For as long as we can remember, we’ve always loved nurseries, and the idea of making a space for a little one as playful, pleasing, serene and just plain spectacular as possible.  This being our first opportunity to decorate a nursery (and for my very own little one!) we shopped high and low for the perfect inspiration for Little C’s space.  That inspiration came in the form of this classic yellow and grey car nursery bedding set from Pottery Barn Kids.  We knew we wanted to do something bold on the walls, but still keeping it neutral, so we opted for the grey and white stripes with just a pop of yellow.  We chose furniture that could grow with C, and fit just as nicely in a toddler / big boy room as it does in his nursery.  Some sweet details from Etsy and the room was complete!