Oh, Baby!

The following is a day by day photo journal to record the process of creating a jungle nursery.

Please scroll down for the photos

 

Music Credits

Clips taken from the wonderful new release Appalachia Waltz by YoYoMa, Mark O'Connor, & Edgar Meyer

The movie clips require Quicktime 3.0 or higher

(The Room Movie Clip is 5.3mg and the Bath Movie Clip is 1.6mg)

Nursery- Butterfly's Day Out

Bath - Appalachia Waltz

Murals can transform a plain room into another world. Using simple tools, mostly rags, sponges and flat latex wall paint, and taking a step at a time, even those who feel they are "creatively challenged" can take the art of making home and turn it into a personal triumph.

Expecting their first child, my daughter Holly and son-in-law, Bill,were eager to do something out of the ordinary for the nursery. Tired of the typical "baby" themes and desiring something more sophisticated, they asked for a jungle. When you stop and think about it, nursery design is more for the parent than the infant, anyway. So, with this in mind, I bought paint colors, 11 quarts in all, that reflected a true jungle palette. Olives and deep plums predominately, then I used highlights of shades of lime and sienna. The misty background is pale lavender.

I agreed to create more realistic animals rather than cartoons, which would have been more typical of a nursery, but too "cute" for my thinker-out-of-the box daughter. Once the painting was finished, I added the fabric work. Here again, the bed skirt and bumper fabrics were chosen, by my daughter with complete disregard for tradition, using rich jungle tapestry, instead.

Holly chose the furniture, in keeping with the non-traditional perspective, including a hand-carved safari chest and a round baby bed. The shape of the bed and the extended posts begged to be converted to a "hut", so instead of a normal canape of sheer fabric, we purchased a grass umbrella from a mail order catalog and converted it to mount to the top of the posts. The window treatment is simply inexpensive 2-1/2" PVC pipe covered with a tube of scrunched up jungle fabric. The ball finials are made from deck railing posts painted a rich mahogany. A swagged length of leopard sheer and a few cavorting monkeys swinging like monkeys do, complete the look.

I constructed the BTW Cargo Box primarily from 1X4 pine. The "old" finish was created by priming then painting with a gloss mahogany spray paint. Then a layer of black crackle top coat from a kit. Then a final coat of polyurethane.

As the room evolves, a Monkey Shines puppet theatre (which will stand in the left corner under the tree, replacing the changing table) and a small table and two chairs will be added. Eventually, the baby bed will be replaced with a junior bed, then a full twin.

His parents intend to name this lucky little boy, Parker. But I'm gonna call him Mowgli. If the ultrasound was wrong, I guess we'll have to call her "Jane".

Start with an empty wall....

End of Day 1

Lay in your background using rags and sponge brushes

End of Day 2

Next add some larger detail plants in the foreground

Gotta have a couple palms too (artistic license allowed)

a monkey and a giraffe

End of Day 3

Every jungle needs a lion (who seems to know a secret)

Balance the window wall with another tree

End of Day 4

Finish the tree and add a friendly elephant

Fill in the tall grass

and maybe a vine that the giraffe is interested in

to round out all four walls

 

A round baby bed can instantly become a hut. Instead of

the usual canape, use the top of a "grass" umbrella

available from Solutions Catalog

 

The window treatment is inexpensive pvc pipe covered

with a scrunched up tube of fabric.

The finials are deck railing ball caps.

Add a swag of leopard sheer.

Don't forget the monkeys.

 

Make a Banana Tree Light from a $20

incandescent floor lamp. The leaves are

cut from canvas and painted on both sides.

The trunk is a tube of felt tied to

the base with plastic electric ties.

Then add a monkey (of course).

 

Build a "BTW" Cargo Box

(Bookcase/ToyBox/Windowseat)

Made almost completely from dimensional lumber, mostly 1X4s

The finish on this was made to look like old mahogany

51"X25"X18"

Now all you need is a baby

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UPDATE! April 2003

And then, when the baby outgrows his hut, build him a CargoBox bed

The sides drop down out of the way after he doesn't need them anymore