I have to say that I am all at once inspired and mortified by this amazing girls’ room put together by Christina of Full House – inspired because oh em gee she did everything for less than $250 and mortified because I’d started to feel like my daughter’s room was coming together just a little bit and good lord it certainly is not in comparison.

I cry that I was not born with the gene that lets some people do amazing things on a tiny budget. But to all of you I say if you’ve got it, flaunt it! You can see how Christina did it here at Little Green Notebook!

Aren’t these just yummy? I love baby furniture that doesn’t look like babyish, and these beautiful changing tables from The New Traditionalists definitely fit the bill. Their elegant changing table designs are crafted to work in the nursery and then (with the help of removable changing trays) become part of a kid’s room or even move into mama and papa’s bedroom or the dining room.

Did I mention you can choose custom finishes and color combos? My fave is the first shown, in the walnut with ‘hot lips’ lacquer, but all of The New Traditionalist changing tables (along with the cribs and grownup furniture) are worth a look!

I’m not really sure how owls became a thing, but here I sit on a couch decorated with owl throw pillows. Maybe I’m getting a little zany in my old age – please look away from my sock monkey kitchen chair pillows – but I can’t help but love animal inspired decor. Once upon a time that would have meant a leopard print chair, but now it’s more likely to mean a framed quilt patch featuring stylized songbirds or a pint glass with an elephant on it.

So how cute is all this?

Owl throw pillows in a living room via Dwell

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How awesome is this room from lakbdesign?

Love their design philosophy:

every child needs a special place at home, a place where they can learn to be alone, can have “away” space from the rest of the family, but children also need comfortable gathering spaces, where they can play board games or video games with friends, or where siblings come together to create a lego village. lakbdesign children’s spaces. easy.fun.perfect.done.

It’s the little details that really make this room for me – the elephant wallpaper… the disco ball in the corner… the zither (which is both pretty and fun).

When I was growing up, money was extra tight and my immediate family had no real eye for design, so my room was what I could make of it, which wasn’t much. Sure, there are those amazing seven year olds who manage to out-decorate the pros, but I was not one of them. That’s part of why I’ve been spending lots of time on my daughter’s room – I want her to have fond, happy memories of her childhood space.

So do like me and DIY it:

The wonderful and lovely Tiffany wrote with this query:

Um, Miss NTB? Do you take requests? If so, may I request a home entry on incorporating kids toy storage into your living room? I mean like, serious storage. Not just one or two cute baskets for decor. We have the world’s smallest living room, which is now also the world’s worst decorated (thanks, kid-proofing). I have been TRYING to come up with something somewhat stylish and utilitarian, but I end up with dumpy and cluttered. I WOULD LOVE YOU FOR A BAZILLION YEARS.

A bazillion years? I like the sound of that. Of course, before I could effectively answer Tiffany’s question I needed to know just how small the world’s smallest living room actually is. The answer? About 14′x12′, which I think is about the size of my own, so I can definitely sympathize with the very real fact that a tiny space plus childproofing plus toys can equal a major bummer of a room. The good news is that you don’t need to be all LOOKIT MAH TOYBOX!

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Who else wants a Hare mat? Because I can’t be the only one! The Hare mat, designed by Ed Annink for Droog, makes use of the fact that Gerd Arntz‘s amazing statistic pictograms are free of copyright and re-purposes the image of the hare and of the hippo.

Oddly, those two animals have appeared together before here at Manolo for the Home, which makes me wonder what their relationship really is.

Can we just admit that most glider rockers are unbearably hokey? Nursery furniture has come so far in terms of design – right now I’m loving the Nurseryworks American Collection and the shop fawn&forest – that it seems a shame to insert a glider rocker that looks like something grandma bought way back in the day. And not your hip grandma, either! The good news is that things are changing, and glider rockers are starting to catch up to cribs and dressers and mobiles.

Here are two faves: the Empire Rocker from Nurseryworks and the Monte Luca Glider. What I like best about them is that they’ll look amazing somewhere in your house when the baby isn’t a baby anymore, which I think should be the goal of almost all nursery furniture.

A matryoshka, for those who don’t know, is a set of dolls of decreasing sizes placed one inside the other. Also known as a Russian nesting doll or, somewhat incorrectly, a babushka doll, the outermost layer is traditionally a woman wearing a sarafan, though it might also be an animal, a dinosaur, a sick… something, a robot, or a set of measuring cups. For months now, I’ve been noticing the matryoshka motif everywhere, but it might just be confirmation bias. I grew up with the things, so I tend to see them around. Here are some I found for you:

(via)

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Imagine you could pull any room from any house or flat and replace the same room in your house or flat with a snap of your fingers or the flip of a switch. Too bad life doesn’t work that way, but it sure is fun to design a whole new house in your head! My current dream house boasts a lot of white, bright colors, and a baby pink clawfoot tub, mmmm.

(via – a way too cute blog!)

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(via – which is my new fave blog)

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Now, if you have a minute or two to spare for little ol’ me, post a link to a pic of your dream rooms!

I’m not a huge fan of nature art, but I’m loving these photo prints from Moon Angel Art. Of course it might just be that I have a bit of a stiffy for the couches in the display rooms rather than the prints themselves, even though they are very pretty. One does, after all, need somewhere to sit to admire the art for any length of time!

Just goes to show you how important the room is in showcasing your art, whether that means photo prints, handpainted ceramic owls from Mexico, Murano glass sculptures, or African masks interspersed with family portraits. And if it just so happens that the art you want to admire is in your kids’ rooms, there are a surprising number of companies that have you covered. See?

Shame they’re all sized for wee ones (though they’re nonetheless clickable)!