I have a confession. I hate the way baby "stuff" looks. I know, not really convenient for a woman who is about to have her first child -- and who lives in a one-bedroom apartment. The fluffy chairs, all the plastic, and the pink (oh, gawd, the pink). It's so not my style. And, as far as I'm concerned, right now, my style is my unborn daughter's style. And it will be until she's at least old enough to, you know, talk.
In anticipation of her arrival (and out of my love for interior design), I've started decorating her room. AKA the nursery. AKA the little nook in our railroad apartment that was formerly (and formally) our dining room. And, so far, I'm happy to report that it is possible to have a child's room that isn't so, well, childish.
To know me is to know that I loathe clutter. I adore clean, white, bright, minimalistic spaces -- and although this look isn't really feasible in a dimly-lit, 800 square-foot brownstone -- such an aesthetic has been the "inspiration" for my daughter's room. In other words, all the furniture we've bought so far is -- you guessed it -- white. And we're not purchasing a single thing -- at least, not yet -- that we don't think is essential. Also, our mindset when buying any furniture has been "Can she use this when she's no longer a baby -- or can we?" Of course, we want the room to have some personality, and we want it to be known that it does, in fact, belong to a baby. So, here's what we've done thus far.
Instead of a changing table, we bought a plain, white, Malm dresser from IKEA. We'll put the changing pad on top, and instead of keeping the drawers plain and white we bought these things called o'verlays. In short, they're amazing. Check out what they do:
They take this ...
To this!
Pretty cool? And although the "changing table" doesn't have, like, teddy bears and flowers on it, I think it can totally pass for a something you'd find in a little girl's room.
After the dresser, we bought a rug, a mini-crib, and an unbelievably gorgeous (kind of expensive) string of garland. All seem girly and cute -- not necessarily things we'd buy for ourselves (especially the crib), but none are overly "babyish."
We've also had this mentality with everything else we've bought or registered for: Clean lines, gender-neutral (in case we ever have a boy!), and always as plain as possible (no prints or patterns on the car seat, please!).
To some -- like many of my relatives -- this may seem a bit odd. Babies love babyish-looking stuff, right? And some adults do, too. But to me, these kinds of items are the perfect way to try to keep my tiny home "stylish" while I have a kid taking over.
And besides, I did register for one of those Fisher-Price bouncy things.
Do you like "baby-looking" baby stuff? How did you decorate your baby's nursery?
Image via Honza Soukup/Flickr
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Comments 36
i would choose cherry furniture. :)
We tried for years for a baby so when I finally concieved, I knew I'd be setting up my dream nursery for our child :) He's going to be two in June and soon after we are moving to Germany, once there he will have a "big boy" room that I'm going to do in the Disney Cars theme :) I'm so excited. I know it's not for everyone and it's by no means "necessary", i Just feel like I waited so long for this, I'm going to go all out :)
Our daughters room was excessively "baby" with a rainforest theme. Gender neutral, but babyish. Now that she is older, we have updated it to more "grown up" things. Loved that it was babyish when she was a baby, but that is my style. My mindset was that there WILL be a baby in the house, may as well look like it. Have been decorating this baby's room similarly, so that the rainforrest items will work but with a different spin, pond theme. So that the "baby" stuff will work in there without looking out of place but when he gets a little older we can update it to be different than his sister's room. Just what is working for us. I love those overlays! Totally might get something like that to spiff up the old dresser we just moved out of the basement for DD's room.
Our guest room which will soon be a nursery was just painted a cream/tan color to match the rest of the house and I want black baby furniture. I have a white couch in there already. I like neutrals but will gladly accept pink or blue accent items.
Chill out F.. some people have leases that aren't up until certain dates.. or even OWN one bedroom apartments that they would need to sell.. It's not exactly child abuse to not have your own room for a little while. .. Although, I do have to say, very brave on the white chair! White furniture frightens me, lol so much possibility for stains.