Friday, November 6, 2009

Girly But Not Cutesy

I certainly don’t consider myself an interior designer, but I sure have fun trying out my hand at it at home. I recently switched the kids’ rooms around. I moved my son into the old guest bedroom and my daughter into my son’s old room. The first order of business was painting. I do enjoy the end product, but, boy, I hate the hassle of preparing a room for painting. But that’s another story - I seem to have a lot of “other stories.”


Anyhow...Ava will be three in a few months and moved out of a crib and into a “big girl” bed this summer. So it was the perfect time to switch rooms and redecorate. Ooh, redecorate! Ava told me that she wanted a princess room. Pretty typical for a two year old. But I just can’t stand the thought of too many frills and Disney princesses. Since I have an obsession with fabric, I figured I could satisfy her taste for girly while keeping it sophisticated for my taste. And since she’s not really old enough to object to my ideas...I win!


I decided that pink walls were OK. Not too pink though. I chose a Benjamin Moore Natura paint (No VOCs) in super light pink (forgive me, I forgot the exact color name). It’s light enough that it almost looks white in bright sunlight which I find to be very nice.


My hubby and I have always like to collect original artwork so when it came to art for the kids’ rooms, I had some great pieces to choose from. I really like the idea of instilling appreciation for art into the kids from an early age.


Side note: I took the kids to the the Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts this past summer and was so thrilled when Emerson, who is 6, decided he wanted to spend some of his money on art for his bedroom. Granted, he only had about $15, but he looked around and chose some cards and postcards to buy from artists that he liked. I let him make all the decisions and pay the artists. It was neat to see what art struck him.


So in Ava’s room, I decided to hang a painting we bought back in 1999 in Minneapolis. I think it was at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design student art sale at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. It was a long time ago. But we loved a piece called “oh poo poo” by Kurt Halsey. Who can resist a flying bunny pooing? Again, the bunnies - I just love them! It’s such a great painting. Whenever we show it to someone new, they don’t even notice the trail of rabbit poo until we tell them the painting name. The artist now lives in Portland, Oregon, I just learned. He’s showing some of his work at a place in Portland called Sweetpea Baking Co. - I’m going to have to go check it out.


Another piece I have in Ava’s room is a hand-embroidered wall hanging by a woman I met at the Craft-In in Newberg, Oregon, this past August. She and I were vendor neighbors. Her company is called bo betsy and she makes the cutest hand embroidered art. I was thrilled to get a wall hanging from her, and it looks great in Ava’s room now.



I’ve also tried to put some special knickknacks in her room to counter the plethora of plastic toys and general junk kids accumulate. On the dress, she’s got a wooden Pinocchio we bought in Italy in 2000, an antique book my mom gave her, a pair of wooden Dutch shoes from my great uncle, and a milk glass chicken from my grandmother. And though, the lamp isn’t a family heirloom, my husband picked it up in an antique store many years ago and it definitely goes with the aesthetic I’m going for.


The room’s not quite done yet. I’m waiting for Ava to finish potty training so I can get the huge changing table out and move in a toy chest I got for a steal at a garage sale this past summer (the hubby is anxiously waiting getting the “prime real estate” in the garage back).


I hope you enjoyed my little tour. Have a great weekend!

1 comment:

  1. alyse! such fun to see the wall hanging in ava's room! what an adorable room she has - you've done an amazing job!! i want to live there!!!

    just for the record - the embroidery and color choices are mine, but the design is aimee ray's. i fell in love with it and had to embroider it for myself... wasn't intending to sell it at the time, but such a happy swap couldn't have been imagined! i hope ava always loves it.

    also for the record: "chronically well-adjusted" has NEVER been said about me! ;) can we still be friends?

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