The Practical:

Creating Teds nursery was in some ways the biggest design challenge of all our projects as it required hard consideration of the way we used each space within the flat and a budget that was anything but fancy. When I first discovered I was pregnant we had just finished renovating our bedroom, it was the smallest of the three bedrooms in our apartment but always felt the cosiest so had become our logical sleep space. The largest designated bedroom is downstairs and had been most usefully purposed as a study to house all our books (alongside my dream upcycled 1940’s desk with Fornasetti print!).  The final bedroom option was a narrower but longer room with a small window which didn’t feel at all inviting and had become a dressing-room-come-dumping-ground before entrance to the attic. It goes without saying that when a baby comes along there are many things you need to rethink and the use of space is one of them. After much discussion we decided that the simplest and most practical solution was that our current bedroom should become the nursery. The challenge was that we had to negotiate how we were going to turn our newly decorated room which we didn’t want to spend money redecorating into a child friendly space, including negotiating the holes I had made in the walls putting up pictures, mirrors etc which were now impractical or dangerous and just how the dumping room was going to become a grown up living space now that we would be spending more wakeful time in there. I am super pleased with the outcome in both so today I am sharing Teds vintage-circus-Native-American-nursery!

The Style:

We went to town with Teds nursery and really layered the themes to create a tapestry of fun. The nursery is a true phantasmagoria with multi layered trends from tribal and Native American to Nordic geometrics, circus and zoetropes with a touch of industrial vintage and the odd dinosaur thrown in for good measure! I have never been one for matchy matchy interiors so for Teds room I just kept picking up things I was drawn to with the caviat of thinking how to style them all together later.

The grey feature wall painted in Farrow & Ball Plummett really makes this room work for me, it was sheer luck that it worked so effectively as it was painted in the spring for us before I knew I was pregnant. This grey side of the room has a more vintage feel than the rest of the room with the reclaimed and painted bright yellow £10 chest of drawers which really pops out against the cool dark grey wall and doubles as a changing station accessorised by a chevron babychange that my mother in law kindly created for me when I couldn’t find any chevrons on the UK market. Once I had painted the drawers I tried to give them a slightly beaten up old feel which matches in with the industrial ruler as coat hooks and re-purposed wire storage rack for nappies and toys. The large arrow wall decals were angled precisely to cover up picture hook spaces and are brilliant fun in a little boys space.

I usually steer clear of sentiment when blogging but we really have been very lucky to be so engulfed in love by our friends and family over our new arrival. People have bought treasured and unexpected gifts (including homemade dinners – hats off Kathryn!) and Ted has had so many things made from him. From toys to blankets and quilts, hand drawn cards and of course Teds marvellous teepee, Ted’s gifts have added a real homespun feel to the room. Of all the wonderful and charming things people have made for our Ted bear I am most over the moon with the teepee (below) that Teds grandma very kindly made him for Christmas. I really wanted a wigwam that could be used as a story-den for him when he’s a bit older, it looks so effective in the space by the window and the fact that it was made with love makes me smile each time I pass it in the hallway, I just can’t wait to start accessorising it!

The area around the cot where the walls are all white are a mixture of monochrome (great for babies developing sight and lack of colour differentiation) and bright geometric prints. The geometrics come mainly from American textiles I purchased on Etsy that my mother in law then kindly turned into a cot bumper and some amazing cushions some of which are quite tribal and tie in well with the Native American wallpaper samples in fabric above the cot.

The walls that were most damaged by screws were the ones where the cot was to go and absolutely no glass could be hung above. I love the minimal effort wall arrangements (pictured both above and below) and was pretty smug when the Ferm Living triangle wall decals (which look like crazy confetti) opposite the postcards and fabric hoops on the other side of the cot obscure the ugly holes beautifully.

These vintage tin animal and plastic figurines on the radiator make me smile and this joyful original zoetrope design from the Pollock Toy Museum archive looks wonderful framed against the white expanse of the walls and was a cheap find as it’s actually a sheet of wrapping paper. The vintage rocking horse was also an absolute steal at £20 and adds to the preloved charm of the room.

Forever lazy with craft, I have had fun styling toy animals in hats and bells including the superb over-sized stuffed lion and elephant (end of article) again wonderful presents from friends and family. The toy soldier pictured is living in an old Turkish delight box painted in tester pot shades. I was also disproportionally proud of a rather fun Nanoblock lion I put together (I was 9 months pregnant, you’ve got to take your kicks where you can!) but it was destroyed by the cat before it could even be photographed let alone played with!

I really love all of Teds bric-a-brac on top of his bookcase and the Ham-Made piggy silhouette print I had my eye on for ages. Being both a book lover and a design geek I have been unable to stop myself from accumulating a rather huge collection of books (which overflows his first bookcase) they range from the pretentious (Pantone colour board books for the baby aesthete anyone?!) to classics I read over and over in my  own childhood.

I am utterly charmed by the vogue for clouds in kids paraphenalia at the moment and nowhere more so than in this Noodoll cloud cushion which sits perfectly in the reproduction Eames rocker.

Assorted items from around the nursery with circus or vintage themes: