The kids' big kid rooms

So this post is a little late since the kids moved to twin beds a year and a half ago.  Oh well... (fyi, their rooms never look like this in real life)

I used butterfly/flower/bird prints from an old Cavallini (flora and fauna) calendar and IKEA frames to create the montage over Mari's bed. We got her shams and bolster cover on our last trip to India two years ago (from Fabindia), which started the room in raspberry and marigold.  I then added a pink throw and pom pom pillow (far left) from last spring's Lilly Pulitzer for Target collection and my mom made another pillow cover (with a different animal on each side) from this amazing John Robshaw Mahout fabric (discovered here).  Her bed is the Astoria gold metal bed from Land of Nod (we are lucky to have their only outlet store nearby).  Rug is Garnet Hill and art is by my aunt, Michelle Montjoy.  She decided she's ready to try a high bed, so we're adding the box spring (which was too high when we bought it) back soon.

I found some cute bedding for him at Garnet Hill (which had a great pop-up store in Bridgehampton, NY this summer), including these Bainbridge shams and their coordinating car cases and navy dot flannel sheets that you can't see here.  The Ikat pillows (another on bench) are from the Jayson Home & Garden flea market.  The pair of oar pillows were impulse buys from Joanns.  Bed knobs from Anthropologie (similar ones now at Homegoods). His daybed is a Hemnes from IKEA.  His rug is from Dash & Albert and madras quilt from PBK, both carry overs from his nursery.  Mural map is from Nat Geo. Both of their bed covers are from Homegoods (M:Artisan De luxe and A: Cynthia Rowley). Some items not mentioned were noted here, here, here, and here.  I've been collecting more vintage wooden tennis racquets, so I'm ready for a larger installation when/if we ever move and he has more wall space.

New Sarah Jane Be/Virtue Prints and Enjoying Fall

Remember the adorable be/virtue prints I got for the Twins' nursery way back in the day (almost exactly three yrs ago)?  Well Sarah Jane has added two more to the line (be patient and be friendly) and they are so sweet!  You can see/buy them here. (She also has amazing new wallpaper.)

I know I've been scarce around these parts.  With the kids in school four mornings/12 hrs a week, I've been busy doing everything but blogging.

We are enjoying fall so much this year, the kids are getting big.  Last weekend was ponies and pumpkins et al at Goebberts.

Early last month, we went back up to Harvard for apple picking (train rides, animals, etc.)

In the barn

On the train

Back home, watching the apple crisp baking

And the week before that, we went back to school, which they are rocking

Happy Fall! :)

If we had another baby...

Which is so not happening...  But if it were, there are some new beauties out there.

It's hard to believe it has been three (or maybe thirteen, but who's counting?  ;)) years since I was buying baby stuff.  I think I would wait to find out (could I deal?  highly questionable...) and just go neutral.  When you already have a boy and girl, all pressure would be off, so why not just wait?

The new Gonatt convertible crib from IKEA...  Love the grey color, the drawers, and would definitely go convertible again.

If I was feeling extra spendy, the Honest Company Collective/Babyletto cribs are cute too.  Now in white as well as grey.  And when you buy one, they give one to charity, which is cool.


Not new, but I've always loved the Dylan line of bedding from Serena and Lily.  Sadly, the prettiest part is the bumper, and who even buys these anymore?  They are actually illegal to sell in Chicago, which seems a little extreme.

In that same vein, I just love the French Stripe line from Skip Hop.  So simple (preppy) and pretty.

I found myself using bags I already had more than not with the twins, so I'd likely skip the Duo special edition bag and just go for the Soho clutch.

Also love the special Duo bag in Aztek, super cute.

Do you have favorites? (whether you are actually in the market or not...)

Toddler room mini makeovers

So with my love of textiles, it's pretty much a given that moving from babies to toddlers is a big enough reason to give the kids' soft goods a make over.  I loved their baby sheets (Boppy organic in star dot white and pinstripe tan), but it was time to move from subtle baby stuff to something with a little more color.

I also ended up disappointed with the rug I got for Mari's room from W-S home (it got pilly quickly) and I've found that even though I love Dash and Albert's designs, like I got for Alistair's room, thin cotton rugs are also not my thing, so I got her a new 7' round wool rug (the fair isle) from Garnet Hill (available colors)

As usual, please excuse my awesome photog skills...

The kids seem to like the extra padding, as her room doubles as a playroom, though they have free roam of the first floor. It recalls my love for candy stripes, which I wrote about back in the day, and was always kind of an underlying look I liked as I acquired several of the components of her decor.  Her new toddler sheet set (from the Princess and the Pea collection) from LON evokes the same idea, but the smaller scale hopefully works.

 

I also got them some gingham bins from The Container Store to hold all their Jellycats.

 

I also got her new knobs for her wardrobe, the Marmara (or as I call them, Marmari) from Anthro (of course) that I should have just bought in the first place.

For Alistair, I also wanted something a little bolder, darker, and his new sheets are also from LON, and coordinate with his curtains.  His new madras toddler quilt is from PB kids.

 

I haven't decided yet when to move them to toddler beds. I guess I'm subscribing to the idea that they'll let me know and that there is really little need to dismantle their cribs until we have to. Our cribs do convert to toddler beds, they just drop a side, so I'd need to get rails of some kind.  My sister has offered me use of her toddler beds, since her three bigger kids are now in bunk beds she has in jack and jill kids rooms, though I haven't seen them recently enough to know if I'd want to use them.  We'll see if I can help from buying them some of the cute tiny beds they have out there.

The twins' (a bit) bigger kid rooms

We separated the kids into their own rooms last spring when Alistair's noise making was interfering with Marielle's sleep. They both sleep much better now, but I joke it was his way of getting his bigger boy room as soon as he could, since the room we had them in was destined to be hers.

Like their shared nursery, I didn't have an overarching design mission in mind, though I certainly have a look that I tend to gravitate to and just buy (sometimes too many) things I like and they all end up all kind of going together.  I like and went with natural, happy, Indian/int'l, beachy/nautical/preppy, etc., with a focus on art and textiles.  No kiddie kitsch or themes, nothing branded, nothing that hurts your eyes to look at, no sets or otherwise too matchy matchy or anything completely impractical.  I tend to like higher end things (who doesn't, right?), but honestly the amount that some people spend on what is decidedly a temporary room is in my opinion completely ridiculous.  If my journey to a mom of two taught me anything it is the beauty of simplicity and voluntarily scaling back.

The twins' nursery/Mari's room is 11x10, and while that is on the smallish side for even a secondary bedroom, once we removed the second crib it opened it up, a lot. We've since added a wardrobe, since I got sick of dealing with having all of her hang up clothes in his closet across the hall, and wasn't in the mood for a demo into the guest closet. I've rearranged the furniture several times (as I tend to do), but the jr. high line up is where I settled since there were so many doors and drawers to accommodate it was just easier (and now everything is bolted to the walls, so there is no changing of minds).

I replaced the ticking stripe (which I love way too much) curtains from Land of Nod with the previous ones we had custom made in India (her room was previously our den, though I'd always planned for it to be a kid's room), since she liked to pull on them since they went to the floor. These are short as I'd always planned window seats under our very large and low windows in both the kids' rooms (hers will come later). She doesn't mess with these, though she loves to stand and look out the window.

The curtains' raised garland pattern

This recliner/glider is crazy comfy

The "new" old map of Bermuda

The wardrobe knobs

A wider shot

The rugs

The hall to List's room, from the chair you can see the map... :)

Her garland, chair, and round pillow are from LON. The wardrobe and throw are from IKEA, and I replaced the original knobs with bunnies from Anthropologie (where her fabric "m" is also from). The wardrobe art are gifts from her cousins and friends.  The berber wool carpet is Karastan (one of several remnants from our stair recarpet), which was previously in our office, where the wool roundie ended up. The new striped rug is from Williams-Sonoma Home. The map of Bermuda is from our trip in '09 (love that place) and needed a home when I put up a white board calendar in the kitchen. I feel bad that her map is so puny, given the mural we ended up putting in his room, but these will be well traveled children regardless.

Alistair's room was always meant to be a nursery, back when we thought we'd have one baby at a time. I thought it perfect for this since it is so tiny, only 10x9 (and that's rounding up!). Back when we first moved in and the whole house had white walls and beige carpet like a boring rental (ugh!), one of the very first things we did was paint it "Lamb" (back when Martha had colors at SW) and then got custom silk curtains made in India.  I didn't feel like repainting and it works, so that is what it still is.  There are a dozen names for the curtain color, I call it persimmon. While it is a challenge to do curtains for a new house that is not yet fully decorated, I figured orange, while not usually one of my faves, is one of the colors that could segway either to girl (w/pink) or boy (w/blue).  I was going for a complementary Aegean blue here, until the cushion conundrum introduced the navy.

The map is the most recent addition and looks like it was made for the room (it fits the length perfectly).  I have loved studying maps since I can remember, and given the kids' multicultural heritage, I figured with this they can see where their parents/families are from (it even has Nasik, India on it, where DH was born and his family now lives. :) ).

I thought this little room needed a statement piece and this fit the bill.  DH is not so secretly hoping it earns at least one of them a place in the geography bee and I'm sure it'll be one thing we replicate in our next house.  I was not looking forward to installing it when I realized it was like wallpaper (it is three huge slightly overlapping panels), but it didn't end up being that bad to put up (just prep/wash, tape, prime and paste up).  DH and I spent one (long) evening after they went to bed getting it up, with List in a PNP in the guest room next door.

I know these chairs are popular nursery items, but DH and I didn't end up finding it very comfortable (maybe because we are so tall, I don't know).

The closet

Over the dresser

More art from the nursery

His executive map mural is from National Geographic (now half off!) and the rug was in the twins' nursery and is from Dash & Albert. His room also has an IKEA Malm four drawer dresser (his in birch, hers in ivory), and an Expedit shelf (the window seat) with their baskets. The closet curtains (from several yrs ago, replacing giant old doors that were coming off their hinges and were therefore a hazard) are also IKEA, I just trimmed off the tab tops and used the enclosed hem tape to shorten up the top. The window seat cushions are from Company Kids.  The monogrammed pillow we had already is from L.L. Bean and the "a" from Anthro. His garland (now half off as well) and chair are also from LON. All other sources are listed in their shared nursery post.

The Nuggets' nursery, part two - the story and pics

I started this post nearly a year ago before the bottom (literally) fell out of our twin pregnancy.  Even though the nursery quickly became a low priority back then, it was past time to get my act together and finally take and post pics of what came of the twins' nursery.  And now it is fortunately very "lived in" and we have already planned to dismantle it and officially separate them when DH returns from India next week.

This room, our "new" twins' nursery (vs. the original one across the hall which is to be Alistair's room), was created from our previous den nook via a new wall and door installed by DH and my dad the first weekend of my bed rest in late August. It ended up being 11' x 10' when finished, which is definitely on the smallish side for two babies and all their stuff, but is slightly larger than our other nursery, though that room already has a closet.  Fortunately this space had everything else it needed: a window, doorway, light switch, outlets, vent, etc. so it was a relatively easy build out via a simple insulated wall and pre-hung door.

We may eventually add/create a closet here, on the shelf wall, as the guest master on the other side of that wall has a 15' closet that could be divided and finished out, but more likely we'll just use an armoire here.  We knew the kids would likely not be sharing this room for very long (he's actually already been banished moved to sleeping in a PNP in the other nursery), so between the two rooms, one closet works fine for now.

DH ended up picking out the specific wall color, once we decided on green.  I wanted something fresh and happy and the color is near the lightest of the three greens in the crib skirt fabric.  Once we went with green (and I ended up on BR), I ended up bagging my idea of making new custom curtains from the Serena & Lily fabric I had and bought some ready made instead.  I'm still deciding whether to use that fabric (a tiny homage to DH's love of horses) for the other nursery or not, which is currently painted cream (specifically Lamb, by MSL for SW) and already has custom curtains (like the rest of the house) that we had made on our honeymoon in India.

Speaking of green, we tried to make the nursery as eco-friendly as feasible (as we have all our house renos), for the obviously reasons (better for babies and the planet), without spending a small fortune.  With non-VOC wall, ceiling and trim paint, bamboo floors and shade, cotton rug and curtains, organic bedding, and the MDF furniture that was from Ikea aired out for years.

I didn't have a theme in mind (or want one) or care for matchy matchy packaged sets, so I when I found the crib skirt fabric I kind of just built the decor around that, highlighting its fun colors and art that I loved.  There did end up, somewhat coincidentally, being a relatively coherent, if varied, color scheme and lot of pops of elephants and monkeys (common for American nurseries, but also very Indian), though I hope I was able to keep them in check to avoid becoming too themey.

I ended up with lots of art for one room, but instead of storing it until they were separated, I thought what the hell, let's hang it all... ;)

Please excuse the poor photography and lack of styling.

So without further ado...

View from the door, facing the new wall: Mari's to the left

I wanted the original art, by my aunt Michelle, to be the focal point of the room, which is one of the reasons why it is arranged this way.  When we picked it from her collection as one of our wedding gifts over five years ago, I knew it would eventually go in our future nursery.

 The room has eastern exposure, so it gets filled with the morning sunshine.  Our enormous windows also made furniture placement decisions for us.

We added breathable bumpers a few months ago, as I was tired of him flinging his now retired pacis out of the crib, but we've left them up since DH is worried the kids will get stuck in the slats, but I miss not being able to see them from across the room.

 The knitted blankets hung over their crib ends were made by their great grandma BB.

All their changing supplies get tucked away in the top drawers of the dresser, along with their most popular outfits, which I am constantly switching out.

The names in wallpaper...

We hung these prints based on their color scheme (elephant for her, monkey for him, lion is on hiatus), but it turned out they really fit their personalities.  She is an old soul and he is our little crazy busy guy.

I didn't think about it at the time, but hello Scottish name spelled out in Scotch plaid letters...

The Virtues... <3

I loved this boy and girl frog fairy sconce so much, I had to get a second one that we put in the other nursery.  Our house has the bizarre (if more flattering) feature of no overhead lighting in any of the bedrooms, but instead the wall switches are connected to an outlet, so we need a lamp/sconce/something to plug in for lighting. (echos of the light green curtain stripes, though again not planned)

These monogrammed onesies I ordered before the kids were born were an epic debacle (wrong size, wrong color, took months to come), but they ended up kind of matching and looking cute under these adorable sweaters my aunt knitted and sent us for the twins that they will grow into in no time.

Since I couldn't sit up to sew, my mom made the crib skirts.  They are simple fabric panels on each side (we skimped and only did four total) tied to the springs with bias tape, so that they can be adjusted to the correct height as we move down the kids' mattresses, as I wanted them to always hang just above the floor, hiding under crib storage.

The sleeping reading corner, though nearly all our books are out in the living and family rooms where we usually read to the kids.  Getting a high backed glider that reclines is honestly one of the best decisions we made for this room.

The future closet would be built along this wall.  Oh that clutter photographs well, no? ;)

 I've had this "S" for ages...

 My mom bought me this collection of Madeline stories when I was a teenager and when I was loading up the bookshelf I discovered it was just the right size to cover the ugly top of this end table.  The colors (greens, yellows, blues, pinks) are also what ended up filling the room.

Sources:
Walls/Windows:
Non-VOC paint: Tenderness by Olympic
Sconce light: Ikea
Curtains: Green ticking lined panels from The Land of Nod
Bamboo roman shade: O.co
Art:
Over dresser: "Flyer on a Hill"-wedding gift from my SoCal artist aunt and uncle,
Over chair: "Enchanted Tales" by Anna Howarth: Ikea,
Over shelf: Shaker Alphabet by Melissa Sweet: Land of Nod,
Wallpaper names and Bonjour Elephant: Land of Nod,
"The Virtues" from Sarah Jane Studio via Etsy,
Hindi Animal prints: My Little Pakora
Fabric S: Anthropologie
Print frames: Target

Furniture/Textiles:
Eames rocker: Hautelook.com
Cribs: Graco Lauren classic convertible cribs in natural
Crib Mattresses: Soy foam dual sided by L.A. Baby
Crib Bedding: custom skirts in Uzbek Jewel fabric,
organic sheets: Boppy (tan pinstripe and star dot white)
Dresser: Ikea Malm four drawer in cream (discontinued color)
Changer/topper: Land of Nod (color matched to dresser)
Changing pad/cover: Organic cocoon changing set by L.A. Baby
Cotton Rug: Staffordshire stripe from Dash and Albert
Glider/Recliner: Jayden by Dutailier/Newco in buckwheat velvet
Blanket: Taj by Rikshaw Design
Ottoman/pouf: John Robshaw
Side table: unfinished (Boston circa 1997), color matched to dresser
Pillow/Lamp/shade: Target
Stuffed Elephant: Melissa & Doug
Book display case: Home Goods

Shelves: Ikea Expedit in birch
Fan: Classic table fan by Hunter
Bali Baskets/peacock market sling: Serena & Lily
Mattelasse frame: Pottery Barn Kids