Our Serene Safari Nursery Decor

June 14, 2016
Home Decor, Lifestyle, Mister Forever June, Products We Love

So, I know this won’t qualify as one of my usual sweet or sassy posts but I am absolutely obsessed with my daughter’s nursery and I am just dying to share it with you! I’ve received so many compliments on it and it is a room in my house that I simply cannot get enough of. So, if you are an interior design nut like I am, feel free to indulge. If not, fear not. More sass to come! 😉

One of my favorite things about anxiously awaiting Isla’s arrival was dreaming up her nursery design. And believe me, 18 weeks of morning sickness doesn’t leave a girl much else to do! I spent hours contemplating the precise mood that I wanted her room to embody when I walked into it. Because really, it’s a room for me to enjoy first.. When little lady is ready to enlighten us with her interior design savvy we’ll reevaluate, right? But I know she’s going to love it!
I obviously wanted the room to be a reflection of us, her parents. I also wanted it to be serene and mellow, with a bit of an earthy feel to it, and just a touch of femininity. I decided we would start with a safari “theme” of sorts and go from there, since my husband and I honeymooned in Africa. (More to come on that!) Taking it a step further, we both are pretty well-traveled so I opted to add that in as inspiration as well. With this in mind, I began piecing the room together little by little throughout my pregnancy. Really, we didn’t have it completed until I was nearly 34 weeks along! I’m picky and a bit of a perfectionist. But it was so worth it.

I knew I wanted gray walls and white furniture. It’s a classic look that doesn’t scream “I’m a girls room!” And let’s be honest, I love gray and white everything. Predictable? Maybe. So we had the walls painted Graystone by Benjamin Moore. I was super nervous it was going to be too dark, but it turned out just right! Next up was Isla’s furniture set. It wasn’t something we wanted to cheap out on, but it wasn’t something we wanted to spend a ton on either. I seem to remember painting hot pink nail polish on my dresser (and all over myself) as the young beauty guru I once was. So, I wanted to save future me the heartache of seeing some beautiful [and pricey] furniture destroyed at the hands of a young creative! After some research I found the Ti Amo Catania 3 Piece Set on Wayfair and deemed it worthy of a place in our little girl’s life for the foreseeable future. It’s a pretty snow white, and the crib is a 5-in-1 convertible with clean lines and a subtle curved headboard. Just feminine enough, but not over the top. Gorg!
I knew from day 1 that I wanted a gallery wall above the crib, so I hit Pinterest in a hurry for some layout inspo. Truth: this gallery wall is what I absolutely spent THE most time toiling over. It was going to be the centerpiece of the space and it needed to tie together all the elements of the room’s overall appeal in one glance. I wanted it to have a wide variety of shapes and textures, too. The very first piece I bought was the rhino bust. Homegoods. Shocked? Me neither. The rhino is one of Africa’s Big 5 and a perfect exotic homage to our serene safari escape!

After that the search was on for ways of tying this in with baby. Hello, Etsy! I think I could have covered all the walls in Isla’s room with Etsy prints I fell in love with, to be honest. But alas, I ended up with “Stay Wild My Child” and “I Love You from Here to South Africa” — I know, I know. Perfection. During one of my Pinterest binges I found these gorgeous floral letters and I immediately knew that this was going to be one of my select few über-feminine touches. I requested my letter “I” be crafted with the palest of blushy pinks, whites, and creams. Yum!

A few more big box shops and my wall was finally complete. Literally a 20+ week search had come to an end so that I could spend the next 2 months stressing over the layout. I traced each item onto brown paper so that I could hang it on the wall and play with the design. The prego neurotic struggle was real. Finally, I enlisted the help of Mister Forever June to hang it all up and it turned out beautiful.

In the meantime my search continued for perfect little pieces to complement the overall sentiment of the space. I found this amazing white monochrome textured atlas of the world. It came in 3 identically sized pieces and I knew right away that it needed to hang above the changing table. What a cool and understated way to include the worldly vibe!

And then there was my ultimate hang up: the glider, a nursery staple. If you know me, you know I sat on every white couch in our zip code before we bought one for our new home last year. I treated this glider purchase with the same, if not more… gusto. Hey, I was pregnant and perpetually uncomfortable! Ensuring that my nursery glider was damn near the most comfortable chair my butt had ever met became my ultimate endgame. Initially I had my heart set on the Pottery Barn Kids Comfort Swivel. Ugh, heaven. But I could not justify spending over $1,000 to have that chair exactly the way I wanted it. Believe me, I tried. So my search for the most comparably comfortable, yet stylish alternative began. The long and short of that story [which could be a post all its own!] is that I fell in love with the Best Chairs brand. Of course I hated what they sold at Buy Buy Baby, so I ventured out to find other retailers so I could sit in all their chairs. And sit in their chairs I did. I went all Goldilocks on that shit. Too big. Too hard. Too small. Jusssssst right. And to that I give you, the Quinn. MAH GIRRRRL. She sits perfectly in the corner beneath one of my other favorite touches: the coffee filter mobile, another hand-crafted Etsy find!

Now that I’ve been incredibly wordy about the details of my nursery decorating adventure, I’ll tell you that I polished off the look with the amazing Safavieh Sheepskin Rug and a variety of other little items like this precious Chambray Elephant from Restoration Hardware and the sweetest Gold Scripted ‘Isla’ pillow to tie everything together. I could not love it more now that I have my little lady here to enjoy it with!