The Nursery

To say I got overexcited about decorating Mateo’s nursery would be an understatement. The nursery was one of the first rooms to be finished – bedrooms and kitchen? Ha. They paled into insignificance for this new mama who could only think about stuffed toys, rocking horses and the perfect nursery.

We already had the crib and changing table. The crib was from Giggle, their own Harper design which I liked more than all the others I’d seen. The Sparrow by Oeuf had been the number 1 contender, but when I actually got to test drive it, ie shake the bars, it felt incredibly flimsy. Like a man kicks a car’s tyres, new mamas shake on crib railings. Sometimes they shake too hard and have to exit the shop extremely quickly. Anyway, for that amount of money, I was expecting something an awful lot sturdier. See? I can be sensible when needed. Turns out the Harper was brilliant, construction and price-wise – and it turned into a toddler bed sooo easily.

The changing table was from Oeuf. We got it with the idea of using it as a regular chest of drawers once baby no longer needed changing on a raised surface. Right, so I have to say this…it’s easier and less drama to change one’s baby in the middle of a bed or on a blanket on the floor. I really felt the changing table was just setting me up to spend hours in the ER. One leg move from the fat bairn and it was a big fat mess of panic, pee, pooh and juggling limbs. As for the drama and shitstorm (literally) when my hubby changed the baby on there. Well, let’s just not go there.

I had a rocker chair. Those ads where they have the new mother sitting on the rocker, feeding the baby, feet up, looking serene? Balls, frankly. The one I had was by Grano, the Monte style. To get the chair to recline was easy. Making it stay reclined was nigh on impossible. Push back and then relax…then be thrown forward immediately at such speed that one almost headbutts one’s knees… just make sure you’ve a firm grip on the baby and all will be fine. Ciao, rocker chair.

Paint. The contractors were great, knowing that we’d be moving in with a 7 month baby. What I didn’t know about, ie babysafe paint, they already knew all the info. We went for non-VOC paint. What’s VOC?! “Volatile Organic Compound”. Apparently it can lead to cancer amongst other things. Nice, right? To be honest, I imagine the child would have to ingest several cans of paint to be at risk, but the very serious tone of the contractor’s voice when telling me about this was enough for me not to dare do my usual eye-roll response.

Mateo inherited a vile and very bright pepto bismol pink room. It took several coats of primer to cover it. Honest to god, I do not know how the previous child could sleep in there. During the day, the colour warranted sunglasses, and at night, it gave off a luminous neon glow. To the rescue, Benjamin Moore’s Dior Grey. Divine and gentlemanly in a can. It was dark enough not to be wishy washy, but not so dark it was scary. Several people thought me bonkers but I was adamant. I think my husband thought me announcing “the walls will be Dior Grey”, would result in either a) an homage to John Galliano/Karl Lagerfeld or b) something more suited to my “black/grey/more black and even more grey, actually let’s just go with black” sartorial sensibility. There was a lot of “but the room is FOR A BABY, si?”. Cue enormous eyerolls.

The cupboards were already there – two built-in/reach-in closets. All we did was redesign the interiors (California Closets) and change the doorknobs. I found cricket balls  from a great company in England called Chloe Alberry. I went for white with blue stitching instead of the regular red with white. To match the room’s white trim of course (she says in her best Elsie de Wolfe voice).

On two of the walls, I painted the lower third in black chalkboard paint. Visions of little child doodling away with chalk (a la Restoration Hardware)… Of course that’s also rubbish. Mateo sees chalkboard paint or a whiteboard and his brain tells him, DON’T USE THAT PART, USE THE OFF-LIMIT PARTS! Every. Single. Time. Better still, my little friend, USE PERMANENT MARKER PEN.

The room has three windows and lets in a bucket-load of sunlight. We still (almost three years later) have no window dressings up in his room. Slacker mother. Thankfully, Mateo learnt to sleep in all kinds of bright lighting and noise, so he has always been able to fall asleep literally anywhere. The only reason nowadays that I think I need to put up something, is that he has this habit of standing in front of the windows, shouting “HELLO FRIENDS!” at anyone who passes. He is nearly always naked.

I put up a couple of wall decals – quotes. Two in Spanish. Nod to the father. The rest of the room was ALL MINE. If you’re looking for whimsical, beautifully designed wall decals, look no further than Chispum. They’re a Spanish company with hundreds if not thousands of ideas. Take a gander online, I swear you won’t be disappointed.

I put a long shelf up on one wall that I overloaded with stuffed toys. Knicked that idea from a display in Ikea. Well, in Ikea they have people to clean those displays, and all the toys are actually glued down, so one can smack away with a duster or hoover away and leave everything intact. In real life, not so much. (We lost a few small animals to the hoover. RIP mini zebra and mini elephant.) That lasted all of one week, but it looked bloody marvellous.

Another winner from Ikea was the set of lime green cupboards – you can stack them or put them side by side. Given the child’s superhuman strength and magnetism towards destruction, we didn’t stack a thing. All his books and crap went inside, out of sight, out of mind.

In a pathetic fit of Norman Rockwellesque parenting, the hubby and I bought a train set complete with table. The boy loved playing with the set in the toy store, so we basically replicated it in his room. After three excruciatingly painful hours of putting our version of Trumpton together (including three runs to the toy shop to buy the track pieces to enable bridges, bends and god knows what else), we superglued everything down. Immense smugness and satisfaction from the parents. The next morning, the little bugger had ripped off the ENTIRE thing and was standing naked atop the table doing his Curious George impression and waving bits of train track around. Ciao train set and table.

Over the past year, we lost the decals, changed the crib to toddler bed to twin/single bed. The walls are now a dark blue. The death-defying changing dresser is in a spare room and the green cupboards have recently been replaced by a smart but whimsical book storage “cityscape” thingy by Land of Nod. There’s also a low storage cabinet in the style of the Wild West. I put that together. BY MYSELF. Does it get used? Nope. Charming.

We also bought a vintage Dutch children’s table and chairs. The table is like a giant cotton reel that I can throw his toys inside, and the chair seats also lift off for more hiding places. Vintage furniture in the Destroyer’s bedroom?? Madness, right? Amazingly, Mateo seems to realise that if he damages or breaks the table and chairs, I will chop Winnie the Pooh’s head off.

The only wall decoration these days are some animal heads. Think faux taxidermy ;-) There’s also a 5 foot giraffe that I used to have stand over his crib when he was a baby. One day I realised that he hated it. He would look at it and kiss it. When my back was turned (or he thought it was), he’d punch it quite furiously and push it over. Nowadays, the giraffe stands looking out of the window – to “guard against spiders and stuff”. It still gets the occasional body slam but maintains residence for now. One of these days, I fully expect to come home and find a scene from Out of Africa on the front lawn, with the poor giraffe having been shoved out of the window.

Elaine