For those who don’t know my backstory, I lived in New York City for 10 years before I moved out to Cali in 2015. I went to school for design there at Parsons, worked at a few design firms, and started my own business there. The last job I completed in New York before I moved was a west village apartment that we had so much fun doing. After I moved west, my client bought a house in Southampton and we have been working on it together long-distance for the last 15 months. Its not easy to have a client on the other side of the country, so I spend a lot of time creating design concept boards that we share via email so that she can understand my visions without having to actually be in the same place.
Today I am going to share with you the concept designs I put together for her son and daughter’s rooms. They are both young – 2 and 4, so we wanted them to feel fun & youthful, but still keeping to the sophisticated aesthetic of the rest of the house.
Here is the design concept board for the little boy’s room:
This room revolved around the accent wall, using one of my favorite Sissy + Marley wallpapers. The little elephants on the paper are sweet but not too “baby” where it will feel too young for him over the next several years. In contrast to the wallpaper, we painted the remaining walls Benjamin Moore’s Old Navy – its one of my go to colors for a boy’s room – I even used it in Brady’s nursery 🙂 I wanted to ground the room with a bold rug, and nothing is more sophisticated for a young boy’s room than the Stockholm rug from IKEA:
That’s right, $200 for this beauty! It’s constructed of flatwoven wool and is extremely durable for the price.
The dresser is the Malone Campaign dresser from West Elm, and is another bargain! The brass accents make it look expensive and it has plenty of storage:
I also sourced this grey rocking chair from West Elm, but unfortunately it was discontinued shortly after and we are still searching for the perfect replacement:
The final touch is the Nolan pendant from Arteriors. We needed something to bring the space together but with ceilings only 8′ high (and this boy’s father is over 6′ tall!), we needed something without a lot of height. Arteriors is definitely one of my go-to lighting sources, they have endless options at reasonable prices:
Next up is the girl’s room:
She is 4 and not a typical girly-girl. We wanted to make it feel feminine but without a lot of pink or frills. We decided to paint all the walls halfway up using Benjamin Moore’s Flamingo’s Dream, which is a pink-ish coral, and it gave the space a contemporary, cool vibe. Everything else in the room is bright and neutral to off-set the bold walls.
The Perch bunk beds from Oeuf are so chic for a kid’s room- they are made of solid wood and can easily transition from little girl’s room to teen room:
Bookshelves are tricky in a kid’s room – you really want something that can be mounted to the wall so there is no fear of it being pulled down. These stairway bookshelves from CB2 were the perfect solution for a narrow part of the room. They only take up 12″ of depth and leave the space feeling really open:
This little girl personally requested a teepee tent for her room. There are so many fun options out there for kid’s teepees, but when I found this silver metallic one from Land of Nod, I knew it was perfect for the space:
Finding a neutral but not boring rug for this space wasn’t easy. But I dug into my archives and found some photos of a rug I had taken at Las Vegas Market in August of 2016 and couldn’t believe I found something so perfect. This rug is by Jaipur and is 100% flatweave cotton AND is reversible, perfect for a kid’s space:
These modern, gray-washed nightstands from Room & Board flank the bunk beds, and I added one more pop of color with these awesome mint-green task lamps from Y Lighting:
No girl’s room is complete without a pretty chandelier. Again, we had to pay attention to height and we wanted it to feel feminine without an overload of crystals. This silverleaf Hampton Pendant (what a fitting name) by Aerin fits the bill:
Of course, things inevitable change when you go from a concept to an actual installed space. Modifications will be made along the way, but this serves as a really good starting point when creating a vision for a space that the client can understand. I am starting to do these boards more and more as it gives my clients comfort in having an understanding of how things will look all together. Can’t wait to get finished pictures of these rooms soon to compare to the original designs. Will share them soon! xo, AE
