It’s no wonder the lovely Lisa from sister blog Rock My Style loves hanging out with her daughter Lyra in her grey and pastel nursery as it’s so calming and pretty.
Wait until you see the grey cloud and pastel raindrop decal covered wall. Not only does it look immense but when you find out how much it costs to create you’ll be down to your local DIY store before you can say Rock My Family. Obviously that is after you’ve finished poring over this nursery tour, and finding out how else Lisa created this gorgeous room. Not to mention pinning all the pictures within an inch of your life.
I’ll hand you over to Lisa now so she can share all her creative genius…
Lisa: Lyra’s nursery was a real labour of love and it has paid off – I think it may be our favourite room in the house. We spend hours in there reading, drawing, and prancing around acting out Frozen (I’m always Anna and she’s always Elsa). I wanted it to be calm and soothing, my theory was that it might encourage her to sleep through the night. It has kind of worked, she only usually wakes up once (at about 3am, argh) and then goes back to sleep pretty much straight away, when she has been reassured that we are in the next bedroom. I also wanted her room to be pretty and colourful so I went for a grey-and-pastels colour scheme.
The Walls
I love the iconic Farg Form cloud design and thought I would try my hand at recreating it using paint. Cue several evenings spent meticulously drawing little cloud shapes onto one wall then filling them in with grey paint. I then moved on to the two adjoining walls. I cut out a raindrop stencil and used this to pencil the raindrops onto the walls, then filled them in with different shades of pastel paint.
I had originally also planned to paint half a rainbow going from the top of the fourth wall to the bottom, but once I had finished the clouds and the raindrops I thought a rainbow in addition to all that pattern and colour might be one step too far and Lyra would be overstimulated and never go to sleep.
I loved every second that I spent painting these walls – it was so much fun. I’m tempted to have a go at a different painted design in another room but I’m not sure I can get away with it in a room that’s not a kid’s bedroom!
The best thing about the walls? The fact that decorating them cost me just £8.68 in total – because I only needed a small amount of paint I just bought seven tester pots at the bargainous price of £1.24 a pop. And I even had enough left over to paint some of the furniture…
The Furniture
I fell in love with this chest of drawers after spotting it on Charlotte Love’s website. So I was tickled pink when I found out that it was from Ikea. Off we popped to Ikea and when we got home I painted the facing part of the drawers in different pastel colours using my tester pot leftovers from the walls, then assembled the drawers. Voila! A bespoke piece of furniture.
I kept the rest of the furniture neutral – the cotbed was from John Lewis, the chair is a Jerry dining chair from Habitat, and the pebble grey changing table and wardrobe were from Mothercare.
The Pretty Bits
There are so many gorgeous prints and nick nacks out there for kids’ rooms that I’m tempted to put up a couple more Ikea ribba picture ledges to display them on. I picked up the ‘I love to ride my bicycle’ print from a little homewares shop in Brighton, the clouds print was from The Yellowstone Art Boutique and the cactus postcard was from This Modern Life. The pink duvet cover was also from This Modern Life and as someone who hasn’t yet mastered a sewing machine I am proud to say that I hand-stitched the cloud cushion myself.
The Hector Owl table lamp was from Urban Outfitters and they don’t seem to stock it any more, but it’s also available from Purple Holly. Urban Outfitters do however have these lovely elephant lamps in grey or mint which I think I like almost as much as Hector.
Not strictly a ‘pretty’ one but an essential in any small child’s room – the blackout curtains. These were from Dunelm in ‘solar grey’ and I’ve noticed that the lovely Lauren from Rock My Style has the same pair in her master bedroom.
The bunnies on the picture ledge are Jellycat (lucky Lyra was bought so many rabbit soft toys when she was born. Is this a generation thing? I don’t remember having any bunnies when I was little), Ted was from John Lewis and I bought the doll’s house through a local Facebook Moms Buy and Sell page. I have picked up a LOT of bargains thanks to that page.
So that’s Lyra’s room. I would love to hear about your little one’s nurseries. Do let me know if you have any questions. Or if you need someone to paint some clouds on your walls. And if you’re interested, pop over to Rock My Style today where you can see more of my humble abode.
Photography by Adam Crohill
Pinning like crazy! Weve pretty much decorated the nursery, it just needs accessorising and furniture. The last owners had grey woodwork and through laziness we decided to keep it, but it does give it a less girly feel and I’m looking for ways to change that.
The first accessory I bought was the Little Lovely Cloud lamp which led me to a weather theme. So as you can imagine Lisa I’m pinning Lyra’s room to within an inch of its life!!
Also is that the ‘Rachel’ cotbed? I have that on my list. Lovely to see it in real life before I buy xx
Hee hee pin away Karen! I love the weather theme. If you’re looking for blankets I spotted a lovely grey and white one with clouds on in Tesco yesterday.
Yes it’s the Rachel cotbed, I would recommend it. It looked even cuter when it was a cot. You are more than welcome to pop in and check it out x
Such a doll. And you’re so clever painting those decals yourself!
Will keep my eye out for that blanket ??xx
We have the Rachel cotbed, it’s been great but time for a big girl bed now as Alice is growing too fast. Seriously Karen, you need a van to come and collect all my stuff!! xx
Lottie don’t tempt me, I’ll rock up in a pick-up truck demanding cake and Baby goods! ??
I spied the cotbed in the JL sale a few weeks ago but got told off by Lee as it was ‘too soon’ …blah blah blah! It’s back up to full price now, I’ve told him he can foot the bill. xx
Love love love this! I’m still in the planning stages of my wee boy’s room but was thinking of doing some wall decoration like the raindrops (though I was going to do circles) so great to read you did them yourself with tester pots as it looks fab! Love the calming colour scheme and the drawers look great. Lots of great ideas. I love the interior posts! X
I am in LOVE with the drawers too M-J xxx
Ah thanks M-J! The interiors posts are my favourite.
Yup the tester pots are definitely the way forward. The circles idea sounds brill. Which colour scheme are you going to go for? x
Bright and colourful! I’ve got navy accessories so far but my friends made me colourful bunting with his name on it and another friend knitted an amazing rainbow blanket so I thought rainbow dots on the walls would tie it all together. X
Where is the dolls house from and any good? I’m debating the ASDA £35 one but its a bit….pink AND butterflies.
Also, stair gate on the door or on the stairs itself? Am a bit worried about keeping her in the bedroom itself as I keep reading about all the Ikea furniture (which we have) and am a bit “on edge” about it. What has everyone else done?
We went a bit overboard and put a stairgate on the door AND on the stairs. The one to the door was added recently when we made the transition from cot to bed as it was the only way to keep her in her room after bedtime!
With the Ikea stuff we’ve just made sure everything is secured to the wall x
Rebecca I would say secure your furniture back to the wall regardless of the gate situation – we have the ikea malm drawers and one day my little girl (only 1 at the time) opened all 3 drawers and then just held on to one to pull herself up and the whole unit started falling over. Luckily I was stood right there so I stopped it but it all happened within a few seconds and it was terrifying. We fastened it back to the wall pretty sharpish after that!! I think it can happen with pretty much any furniture not just ikea, and it can happen so fast. Very scary! X
Yikes Sarah how terrifying. Thank God you were there at the time x
It’s lovely. I think it’s originally from Mothercare but I’m not 100% sure because there’s no label and I bought it through my local Facebook moms buy and sell page. I do rate the Asda stuff, it’s so reasonably priced – could you paint it? x
I was about to suggest the same. My OH, who is known for bringing home random “bargains” from work, got a dolls house for P last year. We’re saving it for her Christmas present this year and I’m tempted to give it a paint job before I assemble.
Its not that I’m against pink at all, just sometimes there is too much pink!
Great minds Lou 🙂 x
Anabelle’s Grandparent’s bought her the Asda dolls house for Christmas and she loves it. It’s very reasonably priced and so well made. We’ve also had a few drawing accidents on it and the marks just wash off with a baby wipe!
Rebecca, we have the ASDA one. Such a bargain. I was looking at ones that were over £100 and really not that different. If you are after something a bit less pink have a look at the HAPE ones (you can get them on Amazon). More pricey but the Hape toys are my absolute favourite. We have the kitchen from them and it’s great. xx
We have the Rachel cotbed too … still a cot in our house at the moment, but I’m on red alert to go up to the loft and retrieve the bed ends any time now!! If you’re considering it I would say DON’T get the changing mat that goes across it – we got that instead of a changing table but we hardly ever used it, it was probably our least used purchase!!!!
In preparation for Orla’s ‘big girl bed’ we have a gate on the door of her bedroom (we live in a Victorian terrace and there’s steps down to the bathroom and to get to our room) and we’ve attached all the furniture to the walls – the last thing to do is move anything she could destroy out of reach!!!! Not so bothered if she takes all her clothes out of the drawers but she can’t always be trusted with lovely books!!!
And yes Lisa, Orla has so many bunnies, including two Jellycats! I love the bird garland hanging on the shelves! x
We also had the matching changing mat and actually used it quite a lot! This was in our last house though, where Lyra’s room was TINY. Good luck with moving Orla to her big girl bed x
Beautiful nursery. Love the drawers which are the actual perfect width for a funny recess in the soon-to-be nursey (just a shame there is no IKEA here, it loses it affordability factor when you have to fork out the same again for delivery ?)
Can I ask if people used a comfy armchair in nursery? I’m debating whether I need one, and as much as I would love any excuse to buy a new chair – I don’t want to waste money on something which won’t get much use….thanks x
Sarah, we have an IKEA armchair in my son’s nursery. He’s 19 months now and we have used it every evening since he was about 5-6 months for story time before bed, and on my day off I read to him when I get him up too (he’s OBSESSED with books). The room is quite small, so I’d love to move it out to create more space for him to play, but I’d miss having somewhere to snuggle up when we read to him.
Beautiful room, Lisa! I’ve got my eye on the elephant lamp for when I do a mini makeover in my son’s room later in the year in preparation for the arrival of our second early next year. We’re going to move the changing table out to use for the new baby and replace with a chest of drawers, those IKEA ones are definitely going on the list of ideas, especially if they can be customised so easily!
Lyra is the same Tanne – a proper little book worm! I love it!
Yup the drawers were really easy. From what I remember, the front bit of the drawers only needed two coats of paint.
Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy 🙂 x
Thanks Sarah O 🙂 what a shame there is no Ikea near you.
When Lyra was born we were still in our last house and there was no room for a chair in her nursery. If there had have been I would have definitely put one in there, it would have been so useful for late night feeds. We use the chair that’s in her current nursery every night for bedtime stories. x
Thanks. I was picturing a chair in a corner for nighttime feeds, graduating to having a bookcase behind for bedtime stories when peanut is a little older but wasn’t sure if space/cost premium was justifiable. Definitely is.
I love it! We are expecting baby number 2 so going to make a new ‘big girls bedroom’ for my little girl for when she moves into a bed and I’m planning on neutral walls / curtains but then pops of pastel colours so this is perfect inspiration! Where did you get the birds from that are hanging from the shelf?? X
How lovely Sarah 🙂
The birds were from a gift shop in Brighton but I’ve just spotted them here:
http://www.fredaldous.co.uk/pretty-birdies-mini-garland.html?gclid=CJDW5I-6ls4CFSYz0wodSDAHUA
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