Portia’s First Impressions Inspired Nursery

Description

Two things about my family are for certain: 1) We are "Do It Yourselfers," there's no project we won't attempt; and 2) We adore Lilly Pulitzer. After a recent move from Florida to Ohio we weren't about to shy away from those bright costal colors and felt a sweet and joyful Lilly inspired nursery, full of personal touches, was a must for our sweet daughter, Portia.

 

We enjoyed many DIY projects in Portia's nursery from the curtains (thanks, Mom!), to the tiny touch of ribbon on the crib skirt, to painting the dresser we found on Craig's List with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, all the way to the beautiful changing-pad box created by my handy husband; our love of "DIY" projects is abundant in this sweet, sweet room. And, I can't tell you how many tiny gold dots I painted on the round mirrors and the frames; it was most certainly a labor of love.

 

The inspiration came in three places for this project: 1) that bright and beautiful Lilly inspired fabric; 2) the gold on Portia's crib; and 3) repeating circles.

I touched on our love of Lilly and joyful, happy colors earlier, but the GOLD! Oh, the GOLD! I love, I mean l-o-v-e gold! Our entire wedding was drenched in gold glitter, thanks to hubby for humoring me, I undoubtably drew inspiration for the gold from Portia's crib - which took me forever to pick out - I repeated that gold pattern throughout the nursery.  On the frames, changing-pad box, mirrors, and pouf. If I could convince my family to allow me to paint gold the nail heads on our oh so comfy glider, they'd be gold too, no luck thus far.

The repeating circles throughout the nursery seen in the mirrors, the ceiling medallion, the rounded edges on the crib, gold grommets on the curtains, and the rug all came from our observation that this room had just too many straight lines. Those straight lines were in the brick, the floor boards, and the very square room that it was, and so I wanted to add lots of circles to break up that rigidity.

Our home is antebellum - we knew it was important to respect the home's traditional look of exposed brick and original floors and meld those fresh and exciting colors for Portia. In addition to that, we had done Bridget's room (Portia's elder sister) just down the hall in the same Lilly inspired First Impressions print, only with pinks, teals, and greens (photos in progress). The use of the same print, although bold colors, provides some continuity to the look of the children's bedrooms - which I felt was important.

I hope you enjoy browsing photos of the room belonging to our "Sweet P," as we adoringly refer to Portia. It was so fun for us, and as my husband so sweetly said "Being in P's room makes me happy." We hope it makes you happy, too.