From messy office to artistic nursery

Tatiana and Mario live in a big, beautiful, turn-of-the-century house that has been renovated in a very modern style. Things were very peaceful for the couple until a year ago when they adopted a little girl named Adriana, and their whole world turned upside down.

When they decided to adopt, they thought they would wait for ages, but things happened in only three short weeks! They barely had time to buy diapers and baby bottles, let alone think about decorating a nursery.

So, while their new bundle of joy made the home's guest room her temporary bedroom, Tatiana and Mario enlisted my help to move their office to another part of the house and transform the space into a nursery that Adriana could call her own.

Tatiana and Mario wanted the new room to fit in with the modern decor of the house but be unique and creative for their daughter. And while they wanted the room to be kid-friendly, they also wanted it to have longevity and be able to grow up with Adriana over the years.

So, I cleared out all of the old office clutter and underneath it all discovered a beautiful, bright room with big windows, wood floors and high ceilings.

I also discovered two problems: The room had a fireplace, which, while lovely, was not appropriate for a little girl's room. So the first order of the day was to stuff it full of insulation and seal it off.

I also found out that the room had absolutely no closet or storage space. I solved this problem by designing a whole wall of open and closed storage in a combination of painted white wood and dark brown wood. I put in new drawers to provide toy storage for now (and shoe storage for later), cabinets for hanging clothes and a new built-in desk for arts and crafts (or homework in the years to come).

I hid the existing radiators with a screen to match the rest of the built-ins, and then, for a bit of fun, installed a custom-built high storage tower between the windows with circular cutouts that give all of Adriana's stuffed animals a view of the room.

Once the practicalities were out of the way, I geared up to make this room full of whimsy and wonder. I decided on a neutral color for the walls so they would not be age-specific, but added accents in fun, bright colors that can be removed later on.

I put up modern, circular-patterned drapes for the windows; added funky linens in pinks, greens, yellows and oranges; and threw in a bunch of throw pillows shaped like flowers. In addition, I put up some vibrantly colored peel-and-stick graphics on the wall that can be taken down when Adriana has outgrown them.