girly

Of course, kids rooms are fun to design.  More than one person has commented  that rooms we create for children tend to be a little more sophisticated than what is considered typical.  That’s intentional…we believe a kid’s room shhould be fun and lively but that it can also still be beautiful and have fine finishes and nice things.  And we think that a room for a child should still fit in, at least a little bit, with the design scheme of a home overall.

A pair of bedrooms recently completed in a Mountain Brook, Alabama home — for a pair of little girls — illustrate perfectly our idea of what children’s rooms should look like.  At the top of the stairs, a wide opening connects the stair way [which you’ve seen before here] to a hallway that doubles as a Playroom.  Paige selected a fabric that incorporates the grey and white color scheme of the downstairs of this home and adds a  bright fuchsia for a completely unexpected touch.  We figured the girls’ Playroom was the perfect place to use an over the top fabric and by double siding the drapes so that just a little bit of the pattern peeks out when you come to the top of the stairs, the fabric hints that the second floor of this home is definitely kid friendly.

The chimney from the Family Room fireplace comes up through this space.  Doug designed paneling to make the otherwise obtrusive element a design feature in the space.  Wooden pegs provide a spot to hang dress up clothes.  On the walls in the niches created on other side of the chimney, chalkboard paint makes it okay to draw on the walls.

The first bedroom off the Playroom was designed for the family’s 5 year old.  Here we used a classic pink and white color scheme, but updated the idea with sophisticated fabrics and a paint color that’s common to most of the rest of the house.

We used the Candler Bed from Suzanne Kasler’s collection for Hickory Chair in this space.  Painted in a french grey glaze, we specified a pink linen for the bed’s upholstery and slipcover.

Over the painted grey chest Doug discovered at Acquisitions in Atlanta, Paige had the idea to find a vintage baroque-style frame and have it lacquered in, what else?–hot pink!  With a linen panel inserted, the frame becomes the perfect place to hang artwork and school projects.

Down the hall from this bedroom is another for the 10 year old in the family.  We wanted this room to feel a little bit more grown up and to able to grow into teenage years with its occupant.  We usually meet with the younger members of a family just like we do the grown ups in order to determine their likes and dislikes.  In this case, it was decided that this room would be purple, as a more grown up counterpoint to the younger sister’s pink room.

Starting with the same white backdrop, we found a cut velvet and linen fabric that was perfect for roman shades on the treehouse-like room’s eight windows.  Pale grey bedding blends beautifully with the grey green caned bed, which the family had purchased prior to the home’s renovation.  We added a cozy chair from Oly Studio, custom upholstered in a coordinating lilac-colored linen.  On either side of the bed, painted chests are topped withvery  cool glass lamps.  Fun butterfly printed Thomas Paul pillows add a little punch to the chair and bed.

[photos by Colleen Duffley]