Before & After: This Nursery Has Fruit All Over the Walls (and It’s Not Wallpaper!)
It’s considered lucky to be in love with your job, so what’s a way to describe someone who loves their work so much that they’d incorporate it into their child’s nursery? Bliss. Photojournalist and food stylist Katie Currid is one of those enviable folks.
When Katie learned she was pregnant with June Pearl, they needed to create a nursery. The family, including her husband and two other children, had lived in their home near Kansas City, Missouri, for six years. The room had seen several iterations (even a “makeshift photo studio”!).
Because her other two children are boys, Katie was excited to lean into a different style when designing June Pearl’s room. She looked to her work with food.
“I’m always drawn to fruit prints, and, initially, was going to keep it confined to one fruit (like lemons or oranges) and started looking at wallpaper as a jumping-off point,” Katie explains. “But I couldn’t confine myself to just one fruit, so I decided to just incorporate it all!”
However, the fruit theme was also born out of wanting to avoid projects that Katie didn’t want to do. It was later in her pregnancy when she started refreshing the space, and the thought of painting the 10-foot walls didn’t sound enticing.
“So, I opted for keeping the walls the existing white [Benjamin Moore’s “Swiss Coffee”] and using the trim and doors (which were previously white) as the pop of color,” Katie shares. “While I was initially looking for wallpaper, I found these fruit decals on Etsy, which proved to be a lot more economical and incredibly easy to install.”
Benjamin Moore’s “Dusty Mauve” was added to the trim to complement the colors of the fruit, and then she began thrifting. However, the room soon became a community effort, as family members and friends would deliver fruit-themed decor. A close friend loved Katie’s vision for the nursery and crafted a fruit-inspired quilt that was so beautiful it needed to be hung on the wall.
That same friend also helped Katie solve a design faux pas. She accidentally misread the dimensions of the gingham curtains from IKEA, and they were 10 feet wide instead of long. “So my quilting friend helped me cut the curtains in half and hem them, and then I just turned them sideways and hung them with curtain clips,” she explains. “She really helped make this room happen!”
The happy space took around three days to decorate and approximately $800 to design. However, keeping with the community theme, it’s a place for the whole family to hang out.
“The room gets light from the northeast, and with the curtains, the room always has a warm glow,” Katie shares. “We often walk past it thinking the lights were left on! The whole family loves lying on the carpet and just hanging out in this room — it feels like a warm hug. June loves looking at all the art while we’re changing her.”
Product List
- Fruit decals — Etsy
- Curtains — IKEA
- Crib — IKEA
- Cube shelf — IKEA
- Cubes — Amazon
- Rug — Wayfair
- Mobile — Handmade by a friend
- Mobile stand — Amazon
- Dresser — Thrifted
- Art — Thrifted
- Quilt — Handmade by Kimberly of K. Lily Quilts
- Wingback armchair — Thrifted
- Crib sheets — Target
- Changing table basket — Thrifted
- Scalloped shelves — TJ Maxx
- Wooden hooks for baby wraps — Amazon
- Baby wraps — Wildbird and Solly Baby
- Flower footstool — TJ Maxx
- Hamper — Target