Manolo for the Home

Looking for ideas for your little chick’s room? Meg of WHATEVER created this tented bed set-up for her wee ones using blankets and ribbons and flowers, oh my. The best part? It’s in a corner, so behind the pillows is what might be a secret princess sanctuary with ample seating and space to play in a pink-tinted atmosphere.

Nice, right? I would have killed, figuratively speaking, for a bed such as this when I was about seven or so. Alas, my mom was never the girly type so my dreams of having a canopy bed or something similar will have to be passed on to my own daughter, who will no doubt want a racebar bed, much to the delight of her papa.

My daughter, for whatever reason, has been the recipient of rocking horses suitable for infancy, toddlerhood, and beyond, yet I would give them all up if she could have a rocking Vespa instead. Unfortunately, these are not available en masse for any amount of money, as this, the sole specimen, was created by a loving (and decidedly skilled) Italian grandfather for one very lucky little boy. Gorgeous, no? I’m jealous beyond description!

(Via Motoblog.it)

Fact: Kids like the write in furniture. Fact: Getting ink out of upholstery or crayon off walls is tough. One simple solution is providing children with furniture that they can write on without fear of punishment. That might mean a play table in a daughter’s room or son’s room that gets graffitoed to within an inch of its life. A better solution, however, is a write-on/wipe-off chalkboard table that will look as sweet in the nursery as it will in a big kid’s room.

This neat chalkboard table from Mod Mom Furniture fits the bill, though it is unfortunately only available to residents of Los Angeles. The rest of us can go the DIY route with a kids play table from somewhere like Craiglist or the naked furniture store, a can of chalkboard paint, and a lazy Susan. Slap on the paint, affix the lazy Susan with screws, and *voila!* you have a custom chalkboard table that might just save your walls. Or a flat surface on which you can write a grocery list… since there’s no reason a chalkboard table should only be for children.

(Via Droolicious)

Going overboard when you’re decorating a nursery is so easy. You naturally want what’s best for baby, and there’s a societal expectation that says that what is expensive is usually the best. While smart people like you and me know that’s true in the logical part of our brains, there’s also the part of the brain that slyly suggests that budgets don’t matter when it comes to buying for baby.

I’m thinking about this specifically because The Beard and I recently went crib shopping at a store that carries higher end baby gear in addition to more moderately priced offerings. We dropped a wad on a convertible crib because our own crib might have been part of that giant Storkcraft crib recall, but we were still shocked by some of the prices on things like strollers and crib sets and nursery decorations. With that in mind, I was wondering how much you think these nursery sets cost.

Here’s a hint: The price I’m looking for is for the four-piece set that includes a quilt (which according to baby safety experts you can’t even use), a crib sheet, a crib bumper, and a dust ruffle. What’s not included is the diaper holder, the mobile, the wall art, the lamps, and all the other accessories. So just the nursery bedding.

Give me your guesses in the comments and, after a bit, I’ll share the answer. You could cheat by clicking on the pics to see compatible nursery bedding sets, but I want to know what you think is a reasonable price for a crib set off the top of your head. If you’re wondering how much I think one should spend on nursery bedding, the best answer would probably be “Not all that much.” It’s not something you’re going to be using for a very long time, so why go overboard?

Those of us with babies, who are expecting babies, or just have a baby-like sensibility when it comes to decorating have probably spent at least some time contemplating what exactly makes a beautiful nursery. Is it chic and modern nursery furniture? Adorable themes, like circus animals or life under the sea? Or is it the decorations themselves? I like to think you can do a lot with accent decor in the nursery, particularly seeing as how in five or seven or nine year’s time that bouncing baby is going to think of themselves as way too mature for cartoon representations of marine life.

What can you do, right? I suppose you can try to lean as much as possible toward timelessness by choosing nursery decor that isn’t too babyish. Think vintage drawings rather than modern cartoon characters. Right now I’m loving nursery cards from Traditional Toys — they’re perfect for baby’s room but classic enough to make it easy to find a place for them when Little Johnny and Jenny decide they’re just too grown up for that sort of thing.

The cards, which come ready to hang with coordinating organza ribbons feature the artwork of Jessie Willcox Smith, who enlarged the appreciation of children in American popular culture by her enormously sympathetic representations, Maud Humphrey, one of the most popular Victorian illustrators in America and an early suffragette, and Johnny Gruelle, creator of Raggedy Ann.

Like them? They could be yours! To win a set of these very pretty cards for your nursery (or hallway or bathroom or bedroom) leave a comment on this post describing either 1) the origins of your name and why your parents chose it or 2) the origins of your child’s name and why you chose it. On Monday, November 23 at noon EST, I’ll use the trusty random number generator to pick a winner. Good luck!

Commitment-phobic decorators can still get their fun on, sans nails or paint or anything else that will leave a lasting impression. Decals are the order of the day for those who can’t fathom keeping the same decor for more than six months and apartment-dwellers whose landlords have given them a clear thumbs down when it comes to changing anything more than the window treatments. Stick ‘em, unstick ‘em, stash ‘em when maman comes to visit, whatever.

Old chairs become new again!

Low ceilings no longer mean having to forgo pendant lighting!

Why spend a lot on a headboard that doesn’t actually do anything?

No fireplace? No problem.

The chair backs, socket lights, and headboard decals come from Blik, while the mantle decal comes from Urban Lola and the chandelier decal comes from Single Stone Studios.

The humble daybed was my dream bed as a girl, which is why I’d like my daughter’s first big-girl bed to be a daybed. I’m sure she’ll despise it because the grass is always greener, meaning she’ll dream of a lovely wooden platform bed or a sleigh bed or perhaps even a round hanging bed if she peruses the Manolo for the Home archives. A daybed can be thought of as a cross between chaise lounge, couch, and a bed, and may come with a trundle bed that stows away underneath so two can find a night’s rest.

I still love them, I’ll readily admit, which is why I went looking for pictorial daybed inspiration. Here are five daybeds done five ways…

For the sunroom, where guests can sit on it year round or sleep on it in the summertime:

For the home office, where one can lounge between frantic sessions of productivity:

For the living room, where it doubles as the couch:

For kids’ rooms, whether it is a seating space or a bed for sleepovers or both:

For a cozy, out-of-the-way guest bedroom (otherwise known as the room your dog thinks of as his own):

If we had a nursery for our little one and I could have any crib I wanted, I think I’d choose this one.

This Kenridge Crib looks great in its various incarnations, which means no having to buy toddler beds — sorry, racecar bed fans — or twin beds later on. White pine, poplar, and other hard woods mean its durable, too. And the finish? Think white pine and hardwood veneers that are lightly distressed.

Because twin beds? Sure, they’re less expensive in the short one, but they’re not particularly useful later on. You can’t use them as a guest bed unless you exclusively host singles, and I’ve never known a young adult to want them for long once they move out of the house.

Unfortunately, at $1,127 (plus shipping) for the crib plus both conversion kits, this crib isn’t what I’d call economically-priced, especially since the most expensive part of any bed is the mattress. But it is certainly pretty, and it comes in a huge range of colors, from the above surf blue to flamingo to chili pepper to sour apple, and all the usual boring colors like white, black, and the pastels. Nursery-matching is not a problem here. Love it!

It’s hard to resist hugging Ross Menuez’s Fauna Animal Pico Pillow, which are made from organic cotton. I mean especially now with the baby in the house, as these have no ribbons or button eyes or any of the other embellishments that wee ones are apt to swallow when you’ve got your back turned.

Aren’t they just the sweetest? What else can I say — they’re printed by hand and stuffed with hypoallergenic fill that won’t irritate noses or skin. Plus, they’re made in Brooklyn, NY, my very own post-university hometown.

I like the rabbit, the terrier, the gorilla… and the rest of them. So what if I’m a sucker for animals and pillows and plushies? Call me a girl, if you must. Or maybe a mom. On that note, you should check out the Fauna onesies and baby tees!

I have a love/hate relationship with depictions of human innards, particularly the skull. Hate because I’m a total wuss when it comes to things like horror movies and gore, and love because stylized depictions of skulls tend to end up on my consumer purchases (think shoes, hoodies, artwork) with a surprising frequency. In other words, I am afraid of skulls that look like skulls and enamored with skulls that look like, well, pirate emblems or cartoon monkey heads.

That’s why I’ve fallen hard for this uber cute bed-in-a-bag from Domestications. Sure, it’s still, and yes, it is sold in the section of the shop meant to appeal to a demographic rather far removed from my own, but I don’t care. Some skulls are scary and some skulls… they watch over you in your sleep, bwahahaha!