READER REDESIGN: A baby boy's room

My close friend from college Jen has managed to have babies 3 months before me both with Bryan and with Lucy. Sadly, she lives on the west coast so we have yet to arrange a meetup of our spawn, but can't wait to do so at some point.  Her new son Rory commandeered what was the former guest room in her house. Similar to with Bryan's room in our old LA house, Jen wanted to keep the wall color and drapes the same but punch up the color scheme and make it cuter for a little boy.  Keeping a paint swatch of the wall color next to her computer monitor, Jen hunted through all sorts of options and agonized about color pairing until she found the perfect rug online and then it all came together.

After sending me an email with her selections and refresher photos of the existing room, I suggested adding orange ribbon on the leading edge of her drapes and on the bottom of her bed skirt to help them tie together with the rug.  She also kept the project on-budget by purchasing the big pieces of furniture from IKEA. Here is a panorama of the new room:

Jen's big project was knitting the chevron blanket on the crib to tie everything together. I love how it brings all the colors up onto the crib and has a totally Missoni feel.

The chair is from Pottery Barn and the ottoman was a Craigslist find that Jen recovered in a matching fabric. At the eleventh hour, Jen also decided that she wanted to knit the striped pillow on the chair which was completed just before heading to the hospital!  She also sewed the other pillows on the chair and her husband Patrick's aunt made the quilt.

The two side tables next to the chair are from a little antique store in Healdsburg.  Jen spray-painted them white. One is actually a magazine rack.

The photos are pictures she took in Africa and then framed in cheap IKEA gallery frames.

I know that hanging artwork above a crib can be a safety issue, but I think a nice mobile (maybe one of those twigs wrapped in yarn ones to tie in with the blanket) would be the icing on the cake.

Thanks Jen for showing us your space. Rory is one lucky guy!