Jaxon’s Custom Canvas

Description

I have to give mucho kudos to my older brother. He and my sister-in-law are expecting their first little monkey this month and I need to say how impressed I am by their new digs for baby Jaxon. Of course, my sister-in-law propelled much of the design, but my bro has many Martha Stewart-DIY qualities, and this room would not have been complete without his say or inner designer touches. So take a look and see what they did!

Design Inspiration

Our inspiration was to put together a nursery that was cozy, happy and not too overly “babified”. We wanted a clean, modern look that reflected the style we have throughout our house.

Decorating Style

We like a clean contemporary look. We don’t necessarily follow all the “rules” of design, we tend to go with what WE think looks good. You hear some designers critique some rooms, and you think “does anybody really like that?” Keep it simple and do what you like.

Project Details

For paint we wanted to use blue since we’re having a boy but we wanted to have fun with it and use a few different shades of it to make it more interesting. We weren’t able to find a lot of wall art we liked so everything you see we made/painted, except for the monkey painting on the wall shelves. For the race car track, we just painted a couple large pieces of pre-stretched canvas and added a stick-on racetrack that you can configure any way you want to. We also have a cute pillow under the window with a similar race car on it that pulls the two together.

The other artwork above the crib was also designed on large pieces of canvas. We wanted to incorporate numbers and letters that are also on the crib bedding. We spelled out our baby’s name “Jaxon” and just at the least second, we went back and did the 1, 5 and 6 in brown to pull from the other features in the room as well. For curtains, my wife found a couple bed sheets we liked a lot so she hemmed the bottom of them and there you go, inexpensive curtains that look great. I bought the stainless steel curtain rod to pull together the stainless steel on the bottom of the legs on the crib, dresser and wall shelving brackets too. The chair in the corner came from my office and was originally a natural wood colored. I gave it a quick sanding, primed it and then painted it the brown you see throughout the room. My wife did the same thing with the bookcase under the window too. Painting pieces you might already have in your house is a GREAT was to save some extra cash$. The chair we were looking at for the baby’s room would have cost over $500. So…. re-purposing my office chair and refinishing it with supplies we already had; cost us nothing.

Favorite Items

I think our favorite items in the room are the custom-made art pieces over the crib. We feel it looks sharp and classy while adding a lot of interest and a great focal point.

Advice

We had a blast putting the nursery together and doing it as a team. Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb and try something you might not normally do. Look at a lot of different room designs and find a style or concept you like and decide if it’s something you can see in your house. Most importantly, have fun with it and don’t take yourself too seriously.