Making Room for Ben

I had such fun decorating Tabby’s nursery before she arrived and honestly, I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t prepare a special place for Ben as well. Partially, the basement remodel allows us to give Ben his own room since Matt will move his study to the basement. And as it has become evident recently that Ben needs his own room, Matt has agreed to temporarily relocate his office to the “retreat” off the master bedroom (where I have my desk) so that we can move Ben sooner rather than later. This will mean, unfortunately, that late-night work (which Matt does on a fairly regular basis) will have to be done from our living room. It is a bit of a sacrifice on Matt’s part to give Ben a (hopefully) better night’s sleep and to give us our bedroom back. I really appreciate it. And of course, as an excellent bonus, I get to design another fun nursery. Yay! The above is my styleboard (so far) for Ben’s Nursery.One of the first things we need to decide is if the built-in cabinets will stay or not. Plus on storage. Minus on space. Plus on usefulness. Minus on looks (not that they look bad, it’s just that I’m not sure if they’d fit in with what I have in mind). Plus on resale of house.

• Are you surprised that GREEN is one of the main colors? Ha. You shouldn’t be. I would like to paint the bottom half of the room the green color that’s marked (or maybe the one just slightly lighter) and then have a orange stripe 4 inches high and leave the “milkweed” color (a nice beige) that is native to the room above that.
• Ben will be using the crib, dresser, and changing Table that are currently in Tabby’s nursery. They are birch in color and the dresser has green accents.
• We have already purchased three owl prints from Etsy that bring in the general color scheme I’m going for and my mom bought Ben a cute owl bank in the same tones when we were in Vail a while back. That is about as far as I wish to go with the whole owl thing, I think.
• We want to do letters for Ben’s room like we did in Tabby’s, from Craftcuts.com … I’m not entirely certain I’m happy with the current font choice.
• Rather than adding another bookcase, I plan to mount some sort of “open” book storage on the walls. I am thinking about something similar to the magazine rack shown in the styleboard (though crafted by talented husband, not bought for $$$ at PB teen) or maybe the aforementioned rain gutter bookshelves (in orange?).
• Since the rocker is going to stay in Tabby’s room (it is upholstered to match her room), I would like to add a seat for Ben as he gets older. I rather like the chair in the styleboard from Oompa Toys. The idea of a swing also appeals to me … we’ll have to see if it will work into the space.
• Lighting is a big question mark. For one I’m not sure where one would go … I don’t currently have any plans for surfaces other than the dresser if we take out the cabinets. With the cabinets, I would probably use a table lamp or two on the counters. Without the cabinets, I’d either need to find some sort of surface (desk, cabinet, end table) to add storage and provide a spot for a lamp, or go with a floor lamp. We may also decide to wire in an overhead light and ceiling fan.
• My mom bought us some really cute bedding (Amy Coe, I want to say) at Christmas time. It has nice greens and browns in it. I think it will work well. If we decide we want more, there appear to be good options out there.
• And of course … window treatments. Gah. Totally boring to me. We currently have up blue curtains that hail from our post-college apartment. They might work into the scheme. But I am not sure they’re enough to block the light that comes from the street light … mini blinds too, maybe?

If you read all this, I’m very impressed. Thoughts? Comments? Criticisms?