Birdies and Owls

Description

Creating a nursery for our first child to enjoy beyond the infant stages of her life. My wife helped with this but due to her busy work schedule (she is a nurse) and strict exercise routine, most of the work was left to me. I am certainly not an expert designer, and I realize it is far from perfect, but I did the best I could with what I had - a somewhat limited budget, a tiny room with poor lighting and (yuck) berber carpet.

Design Inspiration

The room was painted dark yellow with a burgandy/red accent wall, and felt very small and confined.  It did not look anything like a girl's nursery, so we knew we wanted to do something with it.  Being new at this, I only knew one thing for sure: I wanted to stay far far away from hokey designs, Disney characters, and princessy pinks.  I decided I liked the general style of PB Kids and picked the Hayley bedding as my inspiration. 

Decorating Style

Tasteful color schemes, traditional furniture, unique decorative items. 

I'm an amateur, so I trust the professionals.

Project Details

Both of us are super busy, every day of the week, with full time jobs, sports, and other activities.  Like I said, if we could, we would buy everything from a boutique but we cannot afford the time, energy, or cost to do so.  Instead, we rely on stores like Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, and Peir 1 which offer some great options if you are willing to allow some time between purchases - and will spend some time in those hole-in-the-wall boutiques if/when we come across one.

The only DIY tip that I can offer is to utilize some sort of computer program to design your room before you get started.  What I did is drew the room in Adobe Illustrator, and then collected sample images of all the items I liked, and placed them in the room.  You're not going to get all of the angles perfect but it works well enough.  I will upload mine as an example.

Favorite Items

The mirror we found at some boutique in Rehoboth, DE, the bedding is from PB Kids, and the swivel/rocking chair we found on clearance at a local furniture shop. 

I am also proud of the crown moulding I put up.  It took some mitering assistance from a friend but, it was something I wanted to do from the get go and was happy with the way it came out.

Advice

I don't really think I am the right person to be giving advice, but would recommend settling on a color scheme (hopefully something tasteful) and mix/match items that fit the scheme.