It’s been such an emotional coaster ride setting up our new home: the excitement, the stress, the exhaustion, the adrenalin and – ultimately – the fun! To me, setting up a new place is all about turning an empty box into an actual home, and transforming an empty space into an actual room. Even though these two months have been crazy, I feel this is exactly what we’ve managed to do with our new home, and Rick agrees with me!
I wanted to kick off the room tours with Jamie’s room because, well, he’s a special little guy and his room is one of my favourites. You might remember, this is what his old nursery looked like (well, bits of it anyway). I wanted his new room to be a ‘big boy’ room: fun and colourful with a slight eclectic feel and with pieces of decor that could be used in other rooms of the house down the track. I also wanted to use furniture that we already had.
First up, we kept the Hensvik change table/cabinet by Ikea (shown above). This has proven to be a good little change table for us, and I can picture us keeping it for some years to come. Even though its colour is white, it does give off a somewhat girly vibe because of the curved, um, bits at the top. So I tried to make it more boyish by using an old Vittoria Coffee tin for storing the plastic nappy bags and by snapping up a deep red planter pot from Bunnings to replace the very pastel-coloured bin we were using before.
My initial idea was to stick old pages from vintage books onto the back panel to fill up the empty white space. However, for the sake of time, energy and my sanity, I decided to keep the number of DIY projects to a minimum (when you have three boys under three, opting for efficiency and sanity is a no-brainer). Instead, I picked up the ‘Bonjour’ sign from Bed, Bath & Table on a whim one day and, in my opinion, it completes the space perfectly.
The delightful bunting is from Paint Robot and was originally purchased for the other boys’ room but it works beautifully here to add interest and colour to an otherwise bare wall.
This is the view from the entrance into the room. Even though the window isn’t that big, the room still gets a good amount of light.
This room started out with just the Boori chest of drawers (on the left), the Ikea Tullsta armchair and the dark brown cot. Add to that the slight latte colour of the walls and the dark brown carpet, you can imagine how desperate I was to add some colour in order to inject some life and vibrancy to the room.
The replica Phillipe Starck Aha Prince Stools were the first things I tracked down. I really wanted them in yellow and was close to giving up when I discovered that Life Interiors did yellow ones! I ordered a pair because I didn’t think that a single one would sufficiently fill the space, plus I was confident there were at least three or four other places around the home where I could use one. That’s one of my key tips in home decorating – if you’re ever unsure about anything you’re purchasing online, always have one or two other backup uses for it!
The vintage red Planet lamp was from my old studio (purchased from Explore the Kerb when we moved into our last place), and the crochet blanket was from eBay. I have to say, you will be seeing at least a couple of other crochet pieces in the other room tours. It’s an easy and classic way of adding colour to an armchair, couch, bed or even – the floor!
Speaking of floors, I’m still patting myself on the back for finding this awesome rug from Crate & Barrel! (Yes, my fellow Aussie friends, Crate & Barrel ships to Australia and might I add that the shipping charge for this rug was only like $30.) The unconventional stripy design was exactly what I was looking for, and the colour palette was irresistible. Word of warning though – this rug is more purplish than it appears online and also the rug feels a bit rough, like hemp. I was slightly disappointed by this at first but Rick convinced me that it simply made the rug more suitable for a boy’s room. Men and their logic.
Of course, no kiddo room would be complete without some beloved soft toys! Clockwise from top left: Nino the horse (he actually neighs, which for now freaks out Pete and Jamie so sadly Nino doesn’t get ‘ridden’ a lot); Monkey, Rick’s oldest friend (he’s had it since he was 0-1!); Jamie’s teddy; and Woof Goes the dog and Flappy Ears the dog, both given to Angus when he was born and both named by Rick. The red cross cushion is from A Cushy Number, and the union jack cushion is from Table Tonic. The alphabetical artwork on the chest of drawers is the ubiquitous OLUNDA picture from Ikea, which comes already framed.
And last but not least, the ‘Keep calm, go to sleep’ canvas art was one that I designed myself and printed through Cheap Canvas Prints. Originally the words were going to be ‘Home, sweet home’ but Rick was absolutely adamant that we didn’t use that phrase (I still don’t understand why). So I thought I’d jump on the ‘Keep calm’ bandwagon and give our little man an essential piece of advice: to go to sleep (and most of the time, he does do this very well, bless his cotton socks).
Well, that wraps up our first room tour. Hope you enjoyed it – more to come!
