Julia’s New Room

It just happened one evening in July.  Julia announced that she wanted to sleep in her big girl bed, climbed right into it and never seemed to give her crib another thought.  Last week we gave Julia’s old crib to friends with a beautiful baby boy, and so her new big-girl room in our new apartment was complete. She seems to love it.  After a few minutes of shyness, she’ll sidle up to new visitors, hold out her hand and say “Come see my room!”

As we found it, the room had a lot going for it.  It had high ceilings, a walk-in closet, exposed brick walls, an en suite bathroom (with a large window — rare in New York), and two big windows that flooded the room with daylight.  It also had some issues.  Those great windows weren’t centered on their wall, and the other brick wall was interrupted with a structural column, which made furniture placement difficult.

To deal with the column, we enclosed it in casework –open shelving to the left, enclosed storage on the right and a wall-to-wall headboard across the bottom, with removable upholstered panels.

This shifted the focus of the room away from the window wall, and gave us an opportunity to have some fun with this classic Marimekko fabric. (The striped shade fabric is from our friends at Les Toiles du Soleil.)

We painted the other two walls a cheerful lavender, which seemed like a refined and feminine complement to the rough red brick.

And we brightened up her bathroom with a happy Jonathan Adler wallpaper and some bright orange paint on the vanity.

Fortunately, there was still room for some old favorites –a reading chair from our friend Steven, her pink Moroccan pouf and the giraffe her Aunt Melissa made for her last Christmas.

Julia tried both beds before settling on the left one.  The one on the right, she says, is for her best friend Vivian.