Monday, June 30, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

NURSERY DESIGN: Easy on the eyes

Some parents seek peaceful, imaginative themes for infants' rooms

Photos by Clint Karlsen. A forest on the wall complements animal characters on an armoire in a baby bedroom designed and executed by Studio 11. This crib is one of two in a twins' nursery by designer Deborah Sczudlo. She placed the cribs parallel to each other, but diagonal to the room's corner, for more visual interest. Inspired by cheerful vehicles and aircraft on the client's son's bed quilt, Studio 11 repeated the shapes on the bedroom wall. It accented the transportation theme by painting lane dividers on the edges of horizontal decorative shelves. An antique kitchen cupboard that had been used as a baby changing table was recycled again, to become storage for dolls in this doll-themed bedroom designed by Deborah Sczudlo of Barth's Faux Effects Decorative Finishes Studio. Irais Kolesar shows off baby John, his hand-painted crib and hand-painted wall and ceiling. Children's rooms need to be adapted as the child grows. Here, Nikki Watson, 4, plays on custom-painted furniture in her bedroom. Her bed features a textile valance to simulate a headboard. This piece of furniture is not a dollhouse, but a toy-storage unit in a girl's bedroom.

Call it infant cocooning. More and more babies come home from the hospital to elaborate, coordinated bedrooms.

One-month-old John Kolesar's home nursery is so integrated it creates a 3-D effect.

Flat wall murals of squirrels and rabbits and other Beatrix Potter-inspired animals are joined by furniture on which more characters have been painted.

A picket fence brushed on one wall is echoed in a picket fence-style lamppost that is a light for the diaper-changing area.

On a pot shelf over baby John's closet sits a stuffed Peter Rabbit toy, surrounded by decorative garden equipment. Faint clouds against blue create a skyscape on the ceiling.

"This is my favorite room in the whole house," says his proud mother, Irais Kolesar of Las Vegas.

When she commissioned Studio 11 Las Vegas -- owned by local artists Erin Bakke and Diane Giusti -- to create a nursery, Kolesar knew only that she and husband, Bob, wanted "something soft, but not feminine, maybe a park scene. We had to find something that would work for a little boy, and I would still like."

New parents like the Kolesars are increasingly seeking interior designers to achieve a specific effect in their baby's room.

Bakke attributes the trend to contemporary parents' awareness that a sensory environment can enrich the very young.

"They think of it as that imagination stimulation they want to surround their child with," says Bakke, whose first bedroom art projects were those of her own children, now in their teens. "They can have six years of (undecorated) white walls or six years of beautiful images" -- until the child is old enough to formulate his or her own bedroom preferences.

Client Kim Watson of Las Vegas recently commissioned Studio 11 to artistically redo the bedrooms of her children, who are 2 and 4.

Chase Watson, 2, ended up with a transportation theme in bright colors. Big sister Nikki, 4, has a floral motif in light garden colors such as lavender, pink and mint green.

When Kim Watson was young, her own parents never shelled out for design services for kids' bedrooms. Watson attributes the shift to the modern American family's smaller size, compared to several generations ago. Current middle- to upper-class families have fewer children on which to lavish their discretionary dollars.

But a spokeswoman for national retailer Pottery Barn for Kids sees yet another reason for the trend toward well-appointed baby bedrooms.

"We've filled the gap" in the marketplace, says Leigh Oshirak. In 1999, Pottery Barn for Kids issued one of the first comprehensive product catalogs geared to children's lifestyles, from clothing to furnishings.

Consumers can order "that gingham comforter that matches a rug that matches a lamp. It's easy for someone who doesn't have design skills to put together something cohesive," Oshirak explains.

Before that point, decorating sources for parents were limited to usually one small, independently owned baby-themed boutique in each town, according to Oshirak.

In Las Vegas, Dagerman's Just for Kids, 2370 S. Rainbow Blvd., is a longtime merchant for baby decor items. Bellini Baby to Teen, 8800 W. Charleston Blvd., also occupies this niche.

A baby bedroom with a cohesive look can cost, however.

Studio 11 has done baby bedrooms for as little as $200, which usually entails coming up with a color palette for a bedroom as well as one smallish piece of wall art, Giusti reports.

On the high end, the company has done baby bedrooms for $2,000 to $3,000, or occasionally more, according to Giusti, who also got her business start as a mom who decorated her own children's rooms.

Generally, the high-ticket projects involve wall murals, custom-painted furniture and coordinating of bed linens, crib bumpers, area rugs and window treatments.

"Some clients want to do primary colors (incorporating) the hanging mobiles in black and white. But you don't want to overwhelm" a baby, either, warns Deborah Sczudlo, a local designer for Barth's Faux Effects Decorative Finishes Studio, 3520 Coleman St., who does many baby and children's rooms.

Most infants won't play in their rooms; it's a space strictly for resting and sleeping. Sczudlo advises parents to do a baby room in soothing colors, although not necessarily pastels. And then, insert points of bright color into the room via small decorative touches. Keep it soft and traditional, she says.

Sczudlo, Bakke and Giusti all remind parents that a baby room needs to grow. By the time a child is a toddler, the room's function will change as the crib gives way to a conventional bed. Wall art, for example, has to be located strategically so it won't seem off balance once the crib is removed.

Furniture that progresses with a child's age is popular now, say the three. Instead of a dedicated diaper-changing table that quickly loses its usefulness, many consumers opt for regular dressers with an attached, but removable, changing table.

Similarly, many cribs convert. Some use the head and footboards to turn into a smaller toddler-size bed. Some use the side boards to turn into a regular twin or full bed.

Cheryl Hill, one of Sczudlo's clients, did a baby room after the fact. She used furniture that had been in her daughter's baby room -- such as a crib that converts into a day bed and an antique kitchen sideboard that had served as a changing table -- to create a doll-themed play room. It incorporates the collector dolls Hill has bought, one per year since birth, for her daughter, who is now 12.

But creating a personalized nursery isn't exclusive to design pros. Many excited couples plan do-it-yourself projects.

Large corporations are making it easier. Disney, for example, sells baby bedroom packages that include coordinated paints as well as stencils, moldings and trims that can be used on walls or furniture. Themes include "classic Pooh," Pooh, Buzz Lightyear, Mickey Mouse and "princess."