Nursery Inspiration For Our Baby Boy

 

Once I found out we were expecting and let that set in for a while, my creative juices were flowing big time… for a little girl’s nursery.  I had SO many ideas on what I wanted to do, but ZERO ideas for a little boy’s room.  I’m not even exaggerating about that.  Seriously, girl’s room… no problem.  Boy’s room… what in the world would I ever design for it?!  I just couldn’t imagine designing something boyish since I tend to decorate in a quite feminine/elegant way.  I’m just not good with boy stuff.

Pretty early on I suspected we were having a boy.  I’m not exactly sure why, but I just had that feeling.  I did all of the old wive’s tales to try to “figure it out” but it was very mixed.  By the time we made it to the ultrasound to find out the gender, I just knew it was a boy.  Like 99% knew it was a boy, but I was still holding out a little hope that maybe I was wrong.  That hope was dashed in about 0.2 seconds as soon as the tech started looking at him.  It was clear as day we were having a boy, and the tech didn’t even have to say it was a boy.  I could see it on the screen!  It was CLEAR. AS. DAY.  Baby B was a boy.

It took me a few days to get used to the idea (I just never envisioned being a boy mom for some reason), but I’m really excited about this little guy!  I scoured the internet for inspiration for his room, but I couldn’t decide on a theme.  I thought about airplanes, animals, travel, fish and more, but nothing really struck me.  I searched and searched for hours and hours just to try to gather any ideas/inspiration or at least point me in the direction of where I wanted to go with the theme.

After no such luck while researching, I started thinking about what Jacob and I like to do together.  We like to fish, but we LOVE Colorado.  It’s seriously our favorite place to go (besides Italy).

About 9 years ago, my mom took me to Colorado to see the mountains for the very first time, and I absolutely loved it.  I’ve been so many times since then and finally last year, Jacob and I were able to go together.  I was so incredibly nervous that he wouldn’t enjoy it, but thankfully, he loves it there too!  What a relief!!

Estes Park, Colorado is such a nice escape from reality.  Cell phones barely work in town, and when you enter the Rocky Mountain National Park, you definitely do not have much (if any) cell service, which means you’re not glued to your phone the entire time you’re visiting Colorado.  It’s a nice way to de-stress, relax and refuel before heading back home.

I started thinking about Colorado and all of the animals we’ve seen and all of the hikes we’ve done, and alas, there was the theme for our little boy’s room!  Because I’m such a visual person, I had to put my thoughts together in Photoshop, so that I could see the big picture and develop the colors/theme, etc for the room.

Just as a review, here’s what the room looked like before we found out we were expecting.

It was quite a bit girly, and I was actually planning on changing up this room just a bit, and then BAM.. we found out we were having a baby! So, the mini makeover was no more, and it was time to start planning for a nursery for a boy.  Eeeeek!

Once I decided on a Colorado themed room, I got to work creating my vision in Photoshop.  Of course, I had to create three walls to help me visualize the entire room.  The fourth wall is basically a huge window, so it wasn’t really something I was focusing on initially.

The main thing I had to decide was the color scheme.  I wanted to use black, white, gray and a tiny bit of metallics, so that it would tie in with the rest of our home, but I also needed a pop of color.  I thought about using blue, but it seems like almost everyone uses blue for a boy, so I decided to go with green.  Plus, green would fit my mountain/woodsy theme better than blue.

So here we go!  The main wall in the room is the wall that the crib is on, and this was what I was envisioning at first:

Of course, we need a rocker.  I really wanted to find one that was black and that would rock and glide, so that was my goal when I was looking up chairs.  I had some white animal heads that I wanted to incorporate into the space.  Plus the one on the right would actually cover up our electrical panel… which is painted yellow by the previous homeowners.  The green behind the animal heads was going to be some kind of framed wallpaper.  I wasn’t sure what type of pattern I wanted though, but I was thinking maybe something green for it.

I knew I wanted to do something with black as an accent wall, but I didn’t have inspiration just yet, so I set that aside to start thinking about other things.  Also, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to hang behind the crib either, so I just put an E in its place until I made a decision.  I wanted the green to be a pop of color, so I thought the rug would play a large part in that, and then I could use green as accents here and there like behind the animal heads.

When you are looking at the crib, there’s a wall to the right that has a door enter to the closet.  The wall is actually kind of long, so I knew I wanted to do some kind of artwork there.  Once I nailed down the animals idea, I created my photoshop vision.

I also envisioned having some kind of extra seating in the room.  I really wanted a little daybed or something small like that to use as a couch and a bed if necessary, but I wasn’t sure if it would just make the room too crowded.  This is the settee I really wanted to use if we decided to add more seating in the room.  It’s small, but cute and black tufted velvet.

You can also see the moulding behind the settee.  I wanted to install moulding in the nursery just to make it have a more upscale/classic feeling.  The plan was to install the moulding around the entire room and paint it a nice white color, and the upper walls would be gray like the rest of the gray in our home.

The third wall I had to consider was the dresser wall.  I knew I wanted to use animals on one wall, so I thought footprints would be a nice way to tie that in to the decor.  My main goal was to create something simple and clean, so it wouldn’t look too busy in his room but would still go with the theme.  Here’s what I was envisioning:

Four footprints: moose, elk, deer, and sheep in a black or white frame with a mat, and then a mirror in the middle.  I already had the mirror, so I knew that would be a small little metallic addition to the room, and I just wanted a simple white dresser.  Nothing too fancy, but white would brighten up the room, so that was the plan.

The last wall to create is just a huge window wall.  There’s a little space on the left and right side of the window, but I didn’t really have much inspiration at the time.  I thought about just hanging a couple of adventure or hiking quotes or maybe some of my photos from Colorado.  This wall actually gave me more grief than anything else because I just didn’t know what I wanted to do!  All I knew was that I wanted floor to ceiling black curtains.  I decided not to create a vision for this wall because there just wasn’t much to it, so I figured if there was time or if the right idea came along, then I would just go with it while I was decorating.

So that’s basically my vision for our little boy’s nursery.  Next week, I’ll be sharing his entire room with tons of details on where I picked up things, why I chose what I chose, and the meaning behind some of the things in his room.  It actually looks a bit different than my inspiration, but we love how it turned out!  It’s comfortable and boyish but also masculine, and it can be light and bright or dark and cozy depending on whether or not the curtains are open.  Once I get the photos taken, I’ll have a huge post about how it all came together, so stay tuned!  It’s coming very soon!