As my little family grew, we moved from an apartment to a small house to a larger house. In each home I set up another nursery. It was always so much fun imagining a new infant in the room and selecting just the right color scheme, bedding, changing table, and toys.Since I’m no designing expert, I was curious to know what the professionals say about decorating a baby girl’s nursery, so I contacted interior designer Mark Langos of Mark Langos Interior Design in Los Angeles, California. He is also the merchandising and design producer for Area, a home makeover show on Style network. Langos has just recently finished creating a nursery for his own infant daughter, which was featured in Child magazine. My nurseries never looked quite like the ones in magazines, so I asked Langos to tell us how he approached the task. “Rather than choosing any specific theme, like a cartoon character or nursery rhyme,” says Langos, “I chose to use color as the theme. I painted the walls and the ceiling a soft shade of pink, and then painted all the trim in the room a glossy white. I tend to like muted, washed-out colors that contain a lot of white and convey a feeling of peace and tranquillity. I felt the pink would have a calming and soothing effect on the baby.” Although Langos thinks that baby girl rooms look great in pink, yellow, or green, he says you can use any color, as long as it’s not too bold. “The bolder colors energize children,” he offers. “I wanted the nursery to be a place for quiet sleep.” And before committing to a color, Langos suggests you experiment a bit. “Buy a quart of the color you like,” he says, “and paint a 2×2-foot square patch on the wall. Examine that color in morning, noon, and nighttime light. You’ll be surprised how much the color changes through the course of the day.” Once you’ve picked out your color scheme, it’s time to choose the furniture and accessories. “Everything else we brought into the space (such as the crib, dresser, bookcase, shag rug, and toy chest) stuck to a very strict color regime of white,” says Langos. “This allowed for a clean, calming backdrop. Limiting the furniture and accessories to the color white allowed us to mix a variety of different styles with color as the cohesive element. Our daughter’s room has a great mix of both traditional and contemporary styles, which I think gives it a sophisticated, modern feeling. I know our daughter will easily grow into a little girl in this space, as we add color and vibrancy with different colors in pillows, rugs, or other accessories as she grows.” Speaking of “as she grows,” keep in mind that your baby girl will grow. “When setting up your nursery,” says Langos, “it’s really important to remember that this baby is not going to be a baby forever and you don’t have to buy all furniture and accessories in baby-supply stores. Too many parents invest a lot of time and money on an infant nursery that doesn’t work for their three-yearold at all and needs to be completely redone by the time the child goes to school.” For example, Langos chose an armoire that he now uses to hang his daughter’s clothes and store her blankets. “But,” he says, “I can imagine that as she grows older, this will be a good place for her computer and the drawers will then hold toys and art supplies. It’s a flexible piece of furniture that can change as she grows.” Langos thinks it is also important to remember that you will also be spending a lot of time in this room (especially in the middle of the night while rocking your hungry or fussy girl back to sleep). So carve out a space for you, too. “An important piece of furniture in our baby’s room is a really comfortable chair. We bought a glider/rocker that has a white, washable slipcover. This is so practical because we can throw the slipcover into the wash with some bleach to clean up all the baby slips and spit-ups.”So there you have it—straight from the designer’s mouth. Go for soft colors with accessories and furniture that will grow with your daughter
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