Designing and decorating your first home is a thrilling experience, but also overwhelming. A lot of effort goes into ensuring you have an inviting kitchen, warm living room, serene dining room and comfortable bedrooms. Once you’ve completed all the major design and decor elements in your home and you have it just the way you like it, it’s satisfying and a little sad at the same time. Sad because the act of creating your living spaces is a pleasurable one and something you miss. Until one special day you find out you’re having a baby and along with all the excitement, you’re forced to put your design hat back on and plan a nursery design project.
Having a baby is an exciting time involving a wide range of emotions, which can cause you to miss some key aspects of nursery design. A lot of the focus goes into the aesthetics, creating a serene looking environment for baby. But there are other factors to consider, child rearing is not easy, are you using design elements to your full advantage?
Follow these simple design concepts and maximize your time with your baby, while they’re still a baby:
1) Colorful Ceilings
Babies spend a lot of time laying in their crib and staring at the ceiling, hence the mobiles hanging above their heads. Add another element with an interesting pattern on the ceiling to stimulate your child, think of your ceiling as an accent wall with stimulating patterns, like stripes, stars or anything with good contrast. This is often the difference between a baby crying in their crib or being stimulated.
2) Extra Storage
A big mistake first time parents often make is to not account for the proper amount of storage. Babies grow quickly, as they do their belongings increase exponentially. Aside from regularly re-organizing their clothes and discarding everything they’ve grown out of, you need to prepare for a net gain in belongings. Allow at least 25% more storage for your child to grow into. You will be needing items you’ve never even thought of.
3) Comfortable Chair
When focussing on creating a visibly pleasant atmosphere in your nursery design concept, the visual beauty of the chair can often supercede its usefulness or can be neglected altogether. Many first time parents don’t realize how much time they will be spending in that nursery when the baby is having restless nights, is teething or sick. Prioritizing a comfortable chair is vital. It’s also important to take into account that rocking soothes most babies, look into rocking chairs and sliders, see what suits your comfort better.
4) Lighting
A lamp is necessary for those times that you need light immediately and without getting up to go to the lightswitch; when the baby is sleeping in your arms, for example. When shopping for a chic lighting fixture, ensure you purchase a dimmable led bulb and install a dimmer as well. There are going to be several instances that you will need light and not want to expose your baby to bright lights in the middle of the night.
Original article found at: http://dreamcasa.org/living/design-and-decorate/nursery-design-elements-not-overlooked/