When we decided to name our second daughter Isla, I thought a tropical theme would be fun.  Unlike her older sister’s room where I tried to avoid the color pink, I decided to use a lot of pink in this nursery and round it out with more neutral woods and black and white and grey.  I had seen a few tropical nurseries that were more muted, but I was happy with the whimsical, modern edge Isla’s nursery took.

I knew I wanted an accent wall with removable wallpaper and when the initial design I wanted from Pottery Barn turned out to be out of stock, it happened for the best because I finally got to buy some of Chasing Paper’s wallpaper that I’ve been in love with forever.  I love how different the black and white design is and our newborn loves the black and white as well – she stares at it all the time.  To go along with the funky design of the wallpaper, I decided to also do the modern chandelier and to leave most of the other elements pretty simple so as to not make the room too “busy”.

Once I had the pops of pink figured out in the drapes and some of the accent pieces like the flamingos and baskets, etc., the rest of the room came together pretty easily.  We live in the city in Chicago so space is somewhat tight and we decided to take the doors off the closet and make it another design element by painting it pink while adding practical storage with the ELFA shelving from Container store.

I am more of a stickler for practicality in design now that I’m a mom of 2 (although I’m sure my husband would beg to differ) so I wanted to make sure most of the items in the room served a purpose like the bookshelves and the bins and the book ledges that are actually spice racks from IKEA.  I had fun finding the tropical trinkets I was able to add throughout the room and my mom did some custom artwork (the pineapple) in addition to enlisting our toddler to make some artwork for the room.

If you look in the sources, you’ll see I shopped high and low for most of these pieces but we’re really happy with how the room came together and I enjoy the calm but fun feel the room has from the design.

Photography is by a wonderful photographer in Chicago named Katie Basil – highly recommend her for newborn and family photos if you’re in the Chicago area.  www.katiebasil.com