The sweetest modern vintage baby nursery

Set the scene for quality time with your little one with this modern take on a nostalgic nursery. 

Art direction + Styling Vanessa Nouwens
Photography Wendy Fenwick

When it comes to designing and creating an interior scheme for a room, it’s great to have a starting point. In this case we took this cute traditional-style alphabet wallpaper and created a sweet nursery by mixing traditional and modern styles.

When mixing looks from different eras, your goal is to create a space that the eyes and the mind view as a whole. Choosing a limited colour palette and a unified shape are both great ways to mix styles effortlessly and create a room that appears cohesive and unified. Too many colours can detract and make each piece in your room feel like it stands alone, so sticking to a limited colour palette is essential. In our scheme we have picked out a few of the colours that are more dominant in the wallpaper – the soft greens and pinks.

Ribbed Wall – Laminex Surround Demi Round 20 Panel painted in Resene Pale Leaf. Floor in Resene Quarter Pearl Lusta. Bookshelf in Resene Paper Doll. Books painted in Resene Quarter Pearl Lusta, Resene Paper Doll, Resene Pale Leaf and Resene Norway. Painted flower stacked toy in Resene Pale leaf, Resene Quarter Pearl Lusta, Resene Paper Doll and Resene Solitare. Stacker toy in Resene Soliatre, Resene Paper Doll, Resene Pearl Lusta and Resene Norway. Plant pot in Resene Paper Doll. Storage box in Resene Wafer, resene.co.nz/colorshops. Olli Ella Casa Clutch in rose, $99, teapea.co.nz; all other items and those without credits, stylist's own. DIY scallop wallpaper garland, see instructions. 

A good mantra to remember about colour is to “spread the wealth”, meaning that you should repeat the same colours throughout the space to bring items (and the room) together. You will see this at play in our space where we have teamed our traditional alphabet wallpaper from Resene with a modern element such as the textured ribbed wall panels in Resene’s Pale Leaf. The chest of drawers, pendant lights, cot and coat rack are quite modern in style and are all painted in either Resene Norway, Resene Paper Doll or Resene Pale Leaf.

Another way to bring consistency to this mixed style is to pick up on the shape and repeat throughout the space. A round circle is a very dominant shape appearing in the room in the form of cushions, rug, lights and basket. Even the canopy, chair and DIY scallop bunting all have a rounded form.

Book ledge and wooden box (on floor) in Resene Norway, resene.co.nz/colorshops. Linen Look Canopy in blush pink, $99.99, mocka.co.nz; Gerroa Boucle Cushion, $49.95, freedomfurniture.co.nz, and Kids Boucle Ball cushion in soft mint (both in canopy), $32.99, adairs.co.nz; Cuddle and Kind Baby Lamb Toy (in green box), $60, Astrup Dolls Retro Rattan Pram in cream, $415, and Hevea Upcycled Star Ball in pink, $39.95, all from littlewhimsy.co.nz; vintage Peter Rabbit books, stylist's own.

When it comes to accessories within the room, the modern style is more dominant while the old style pram, basket and knitted toys are dotted around the space to tie in with the traditional style of the wallpaper. There are lots of projects you can do with leftover wallpaper, so get creative! We gave a white lamp shade a new look with wallpaper and also made a cute scallop bunting, both quick and easy projects to add to the space.

 Background wallpaper - Jack N Rose 2 Wallpaper LL3110; Cam Cam Scallop Knit Blanket in blossom pink, $104.95, littlewhimsy.co.nz; Drawcards in Resene Rodeo Drive, Resene Soliatre, Resene Quarter Pearl Lusta, Resene Norway, Resene Pale Leaf, Resene Paper Doll and Resene Wafer. Other credits previously listed.

SCALLOP WALLPAPER GARLAND

To coordinate with the room, we made our own scallop wallpaper banner using leftover wallpaper. To make the 3-metre-long garland we took a small round side plate and drew around it on the wallpaper. We drew 20 circles then cut them out and folded them in half. We then took some 2 cm wide white bias binding and folded it in half using a hot iron. Then using a sewing machine we inserted the wallpaper scallops in between the folded bias binding and sewed them in place leaving a 3-4 cm gap in between each one.

WALLPAPER LAMPSHADE

If you have some leftover wallpaper why not add some to a simple white lampshade? We simply cut the wallpaper to size and pattern-matched (we needed two pieces to get around the lamp shade). We then glued the wallpaper to the shade and popped on our painted lamp base which we painted in Resene Norway.

 BEAD TOPPER STORAGE BOXES

These bead topper round storage boxes are great for storing little bits and pieces and can be painted to match your scheme. To make these, we took two round kraft boxes from Look Sharp and painted the base and lid in different colours (Resene Paper Doll and Resene Quarter Pearl Lusta) and then painted two large wooden beads (from Spotlight) in Resene Pale Leaf. We then screwed the beads onto the lid of the box.

BEAD COATRACK

Coatracks can be expensive but are a great item to have in a nursery/kids room. To make ours we took a piece of pine which was 60 cm long, 9 cm wide and 1 cm thick. We painted the wood in Resene Paper Doll and the large wooden beads in Resene Pale Leaf. We then spaced the beads out evenly on the wood and screwed the beads to the wood from the back. This is a quick, easy and cheap project.

Very top image: Back wall Resene Jack N Rose 2 Wallpaper (LL3110). Ribbed Wall – Laminex Surround Demi Round 20 Panel painted in Resene Pale Leaf. Floor and side wall in Resene Quarter Pearl Lusta. Pendant lights in Resene Norway and Resene Paper Doll. Plant pot in Resene Paper Doll, resene.co.nz/colorshops. Jolt Six Slim Drawers painted in Resene Norway, $319.99, and Aspen Cot painted in Resene Paper Doll, $429.99, mocka.co.nz; Pretty Brave Moc Shoes in dusky pink (on drawers), $55, and Kip and Co Velvet Pea Cushion in Dusty Rose (in cot), $105, teapea.co.nz; Green Waffle Throw (on cot), $49, and Baby Dress and Top Set (hanging on coat rack), $34.99, H&M; Milan Armchair, $1,499, danskemobler.co.nz; Rattan White Scallop Basket, $12, and Luxe Round Rug in blush, $60, kmart.co.nz; Kids Boucle Ball Cushion (on chair) in soft mint, $32.99, adairs.co.nz; Patti Oslo Snuggle Lili Lamb in primrose (on chair), $68.70, littlewhimsy.co.nz.