The Nursery (Part II)

So last week I talked about the general basics you should consider before designing a nursery for twins. Today I’m going to give examples of the things that inspired me, and how I tackled it. I’m hoping that I will inspire you to build the perfect nursery for your little ones.

The main colour theme in our home is chocolate-brown with hardwood and ice cream coloured shag carpet. We have lime green as an accent colour in most spaces. I love lime green in a home. It is fresh, bright, and goes well with most other colours. So I knew that I wanted  to incorporate that into the nursery (keep in mind we did not know the sex). The walls are already a deep smoky chocolate-brown and I knew that no matter what colour accents we chose, the wall would make a great backdrop for anything. I also wanted to pull a bit of the cream colour from the carpet into the decor as well.

The first thing I did was go to a hardware store and grab a ton of paint swatches. Then I went to Michael’s and hit the “construction paper” section. I picked out a few perfect shades of lime and then grabbed every color that jumped out at me and seemed to go well with it. I also used magazines, nail polish and makeup colors and anything else that really spoke to me. Then, I looked at different websites to get some motivation. I went to chiccheapnursery.com and it expanded from there. One thing led to another and I ended up exploring literally hundreds of sites that lead me to more inspiration. I put it all on a vision board.

I slowly started picturing what I wanted in this room. I knew I wanted it to be simple and modern, yet cozy and fun. Above all, a good use of space for two human beings to share and grow in. I liked the idea of polka dots.  I liked the idea of greens and blues which are calming, and maybe a splash of pink or red if there was a girl in there somewhere. I liked the idea of homemade mobiles made from lanterns, although the string balloons really jumped out at me too. We had picked out some gorgeous Natart cribs in a rich mocha brown, but I wasn’t about to drop too much on the rest of the furniture. Change tables, dressers and rocking chairs specific to nurseries seemed to be exorbitantly priced. The more books I read and the more people I talked to, the more I learned that a rocking chair is not necessary, change tables can be made from anything, and a well constructed closet will do just fine in place of a dresser. Not only that but we did not have the space for all of these things since we would have two cribs. I’m not a big fan of IKEA furniture, but when I saw how much you could do to personalize it at a fraction of what nursery furniture costs, I knew that this was the way to go for now. After more inspiration on ikeahackers.net, my creative juices got flowing…so we went shopping to actually turn some of these things into reality. The mosaic of pictures above may seem a bit scattered to you, but to me, this was a clear idea of what I really loved and gave me something to come back to. I was off on bedrest so I had all day to dream up different ideas. Using a vision board or a simple file folder with all your ideas tossed into it can be invaluable in helping you narrow down themes, colours and general design for the room. Next week, tune in to see how my “vision” came together to create the perfect room for our two boys. I hope today’s post has given you some food for thought. Make sure you check out the websites I mentioned for some truly inspirational and unique ideas!

Thanks for stopping by!