Getting a room ready for a new baby can be as simple as adding a crib, a changing table and perhaps a fresh coat of paint.
But many new parents want much more: a warm, unique nursery as carefully decorated – and sometimes as expensive – as any room in the home.
Two local families shared how they created their pie-in-the-sky nurseries.
In Keegan Gaffney’s world, the sky is always blue, a baseball diamond is nearby and a tree can stretch to the top of the clouds and cradle his stuffed animals.
The Everett toddler isn’t daydreaming. His parents created a field of dreams theme room for their son that knocks most nurseries out of the ballpark.
“People will come over and he’ll drag them down the hall to see his room,” said Keegan’s mom, Ashley Gaffney, 24.
Gaffney and her husband, Joe, 25, wanted to create something original and special for 2-year-old Keegan, their first child.
They’ve succeeded.
Homemade touches make this room special, including a recessed wood cutout of rolling farm fields with a barn, trees and a white picket fence that stretches across the walls.
A knotted tree, so lovingly hand-carved its surface feels rough like bark, sprouts from the corner of the room. The tree’s curving, layered foliage stretches across the ceiling. The branches make a convenient home for Keegan’s stuffed animals.
Joe Gaffney toiled nights and weekends for several months before his son arrived building the tree, cutouts and furniture. He also did all the painting, including the farm scene and the realistic white puffy clouds floating on the walls.
“It something I love to do,” he said. “I love woodworking, and I love thinking of ideas in my real job and during my hobby time. I’ve always had an artistic side to me, I guess.”
Employed as a project manager in the family business, Gaffney Construction Inc., Joe Gaffney comes naturally by his carpentry skills. At age 11, he crafted elegant painted birdhouses and sold them.
He’s built much of the family’s furniture. He applied the same care to his son’s bed, which has real baseball bats for posts and an antique blue finish he sanded to give a distressed look.
“He could have this room until he’s 12 and it will still be cool,” Joe Gaffney said.
Ashley Gaffney created baseball pennants that spell Keegan’s name and strung them above the bed.
Numerous small touches tie the room together, including a cabinet that looks like a row of lockers from Pottery Barn, baseball bedding from Land of Nod and a baseball bat ceiling fan from Lowe’s. Special touches that didn’t cost anything are Ashley Gaffney’s favorite part of the room such as the baseballs and bat that used to belong to Joe.
The couple advised other parents to choose a theme that will grow with their child.
“You spend all this money on decorations and bedding and then all of the sudden, they’re 2 and they can’t use it because they’ve grown out of it,” Ashley Gaffney said.
Furniture, bedding, window treatments and other accessories cost about $1,500. The lumber and paint was $1,800.
The couple has an infant daughter and their mulling over ideas on what to create for her.
Before Herald employee Nichole Berkenhoff became pregnant, she’d decided there would be no pink, frilly nursery for any future daughter.
But now that she’s expecting a girl things have changed, and there’s a small sign near the nursery door to prove it: “The Princess is In” is scrolled across a pastel background.
“She’s not even born yet, but we already know she’s a princess,” Berkenhoff, 25, joked.
“Once we began shopping and planning, well, the girly stuff is just so darn cute,” husband Brian Berkenhoff, 28, admitted.
The two turned a plain-Jane room in their Marysville home into a sweet retreat for their new baby, due in January.
The couple bought their home two years ago and left one room empty, the walls white, in anticipation of their first baby.
“It was a little overwhelming to start from nothing, but it also gave us free reign to do almost anything we wanted,” she said. “Now it’s my favorite room in the house.”
Both threw themselves into the project.
They wanted a Noah’s ark theme but were turned off by bedding that was too “cartoonish.”
After struggling for weeks to find the perfect bedding they struck gold with a pastel butterfly and flower pattern on an online site. The print is feminine, but they avoided covering the room in pink.
They bought coordinating pieces including a wallpaper border, nightlight, hamper, diaper storage bag, valance and rug.
Using the pastel purple and banana yellow in the bedding as inspiration, Brian Berkenhoff painted the room in two tones. The couple separated the colors with a coordinating wallpaper border.
The couple personalized the room by building a shelf, hand stenciling flowers and butterflies on the walls, and jazzing up a plain white bookcase with acrylic paints.
They also hung a display cabinet that used to hold some of Nichole Berkenhoff’s treasured baby items.
The entire project cost about $1,000 for the decorations and $2,000 for a crib, dresser and recliner. They purchased matching decorations and accessories at www.dreamtimebaby.com.
“It’s a fun place,” she said. “If she wants to put more things on the walls later, we can do that together.”
Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
