Decorating Baby Rooms-Where to start???

[bealoobaby]

Kids rooms, baby rooms, toddler rooms. Where do we begin and how much will it cost? I think one of the best tips I received was to start with art. I'm certainly not an interior designer, but I do have an eye for colour combos that I like. Within a piece of art you can find a perfect colour pallet. I found some kids art on a great site for "all things handmade" called etsy.com. It operates like Ebay with easy search menues, but just has very cool, unique art, jewellery, baby clothes and more. I even brought the art to my local paint store (my favourite is Benjamin Moore) and pulled my main paint colour and all of my feature colours from the art. Next was a trip to Wallmart where I picked out coordinating solid colour sheets that matched the art. I mixed and matched the shams, sheets and duvet colour in coordinating colours. The art was very inexpensive- I just bought a few coordinating prints featuring beautiful, whimsical, soft pastel coloured fairies and castles. They came in standard frame sizes (8x10 and 11x14) so I just went to Michael's Craft store, used the 40% off coupon and found great frames. I also found great, inexpensive frames at Wallmart and Homesense. Its so nice to get away from the plastic, mass-produced Licensed stuff and instead have this beautiful space with unique art that sparks the imagination of myself and my kids. I didn't want to spend a fortune on art, because as my kids will grow so will their rooms. Etsy.com was the perfect place to find inexpensive, but beautiful and unique art. I liked the site so much that I teamed up with a friend who is an amazing artist and we have started our own Etsy store: Bealoo Kids. This has been a great way to be at home with my kids, but still have a career that is flexible.

[rachelhayton]

Hey thanks for the site (etsy.com) I do a lot of baby art and havent really sold much on Ebay, this might be a better market! I also want to agree with your suggestion to start with art! I found some really cute things in childrens books and on line to find my insperation. All you need is an idea of what you want. A theme is also great. I ended up painting my daughters room like a spring day, grass along the bottom and wild flowers and 2 bunnys. I love it- and I found the sweetest furniture at TARGET the shabby chic collection is perfect for a soft look!
thanks again!

[clarksmommy]

While most deisgners love Benjamin Moore colors, Benjamin Moore still does not have a ZERO VOC paint available. Sherwin-Williams makes an excellent paint with ZERO VOC content. It is called Harmony, and it is available in all except the darkest colors, like red and navy. A lot of designers are now bringing their color samples to Sherwin-Williams for matching, because their superior-quality paint is the safest on the market. Children and pregnant women should not be exposed to VOCs. We just moved into a new house last fall and we've only been using Harmony paint - we love it!

Wendy

[talsinai]

Hi,

I had the same problem and just couldn't find something that I liked! You see, after failing to find a nursery decor to my liking, I decided to create one myself. And so I did.

My little one was excited about it and so were my friends. At some point I couldn't ignore the flattering feedback so I created www.TeddyBoards.com, turning my son's favorite wall hanging into a must-have product that every little one would love to have in their room.

I'm a new mom just like you and would love to hear feedbacks from all of you!

[leeniebeenie007]

Start with your crib,then matching furniture, the bedset, matching art,etc. If you have a recliner in your living room or one you dont use, you could buy covers to go over top instead of buying one.

[HarperKsMommy]

Our daughters room was inspired by my love of Vera Bradley bags.lol. They had a set at Pottery Barn Baby that I really liked, and it had a design similair. Its hard to describe. We bought Oak Furniture to go with it. An Oak convertible crib, Then and Oak armoire that she can use when she older, and then the matching changing table. Its adorable! We also bought the matching butterflys to go with it from PBB. There various sizes and its what was used as her mobile.

[JWills]

I am going with a Rainforest theme, thanks to the Fisher Price Rainforest Collection. My father and stepmom have given me a beautiful furniture set, which includes the crib, changing table, and dresser. And my sister is really creative and very handy with a paintbrush, and already informed me she was working on a few things for the nursery. And I have a few ideas lurking around in the back of my mind too ;)

[ktejmommy]

I LOVE Ikea!!!! Everything there is SUPER inexpensive but not in any way cheep.. they're a sweedish company, so my theory is that they just don't understand the "american way" lol.

I had an issue of my DD and DS having to share a bedroom for a while and the bedroom just happened to have brand new PURPLE carpet (it's a darker purple, it's not overly distracting) when we moved into our house. I had to figure out a way to have a gender neutral room that would accomidate the purple. I sat on it for 6 months and then I figured it out:

I painted the walls a check pattern of 18" squares of 2 tan colors, it's fun but still not "whoa" and it's neutral. Then I found The barnslig line of baby and kid bedding and accessories at Ikea.. it's a ton of bright primary colors, crazy zoo animals (I have a thing for Giraffe's). The whole room came together beautifully, I love it, it's my favorite room in my house. The bright colors do mask the purple floor and nothing's extremely overbearing.

[craftyashley]

I would start with bedding, then you can pick from the colors in the bedding. I loved the toile print in my girl's crib bedding, I found so much stuff to match it, it's so much less baby and more chic than I thought it would turn out. Love it!

[cay8099]

I know this is cliche, but I love Winnie the Pooh, so that's what we did in my sons room. For my baby shower someone gave us a teddy bear that was a beautiful shade of green, and I fell in love with the idea of painting his room this color so that's where we started. It is a shade between neon and pastel green. When we first painted it everyone sneered and asked me what I was thinking. Then we sponge painted light yellow and light blue dots sporadically to tone it down. We found a wide border at Lowe's and hung it right in the middle to break up the monotony. The furniture in the room was all white, and we hung pictues of Pooh in white frames on the walls. Then we put up white shelves and put stuffed Pooh bears on them. When the room was all finished everyone said "OOOHHHHH, this is what you were thinking, wow." Even my mother was impressed.