Welcome! If you’re finding me through the One Room Challenge, thanks for visiting! I’m an interior designer living in Alexandria, Virginia and my husband and I have spent the last two years slowly fixing up our house not far from George Washington’s Mount Vernon. I’m currently pregnant with our first child and using this spring’s One Room Challenge as an opportunity to finish the nursery.

Last week I shared some before photos some inspiration for the nursery, and today I’m sharing the design plan that I’ve been using to help guide my purchases for the space.

Over the weekend designer Alison Giese posted a quote on instagram by David Hicks who said, “The best rooms have something to say about the people who live in them.” I couldn’t agree more, and it got me thinking about that philosophy in the context of designing a nursery. Although I’m designing this space for our family to enjoy together, I’m also I’m designing a space that says something about someone I haven’t even met yet. My design says both a lot about our family, but also who I want this child to be, how I hope he feels in the space, and the things I hope are important to him as he grows up.

As I mentioned in my post last week, I knew even before I was pregnant that I wanted to paint the room a cozy dark green and I wanted it to be loosely dog-themed. We have two hounds, one of whom is a tri-color treeing walker hound who looks like the foxhounds you see in antique paintings. I initially envisioned the color palette loosely based on one of those paintings, and as I sourced different items the design plan kind of evolved from there.

While I’m not currently planning to include any of the bright reds, I do see the space having plenty of warm caramel and brass tones to play off of the blues and greens.

After sampling a bunch of green options in the space, I decided on Isle of Pines by Sherwin Williams. It was dark but not too dark, and was slightly warmer and more saturated than a few of the other options I tested. In terms of furnishings, I am trying to include pieces in the space that we can use over time and that are relatively gender neutral so that this room could eventually become a second child’s nursery.

My parents generously purchased the Crate & Barrel Jenny Lind crib that I’ve been eyeing for a while, a piece that has classic lines and will work for a boy or girl in the future. I opted not to go with a crib that would convert into a headboard because I suspect my tastes will have changed by that point and I won’t want to feel locked into the bed. Plus, we’ll (hopefully) be using this crib for a second child when the first is old enough to sleep in a big boy bed.

We’ve been using my grandfather’s old pine dresser in this bedroom since we moved in, and we’re opting to keep it in the space because it fits it well and I like the wood tone and patina in the room. We plan to use it as the changing table as well and since it’s on the slightly taller side I think it will actually make changing diapers a little easier on our backs.

Because the room is small, sourcing a rocker/glider was somewhat challenging. I’ve also become very picky about upholstery fabrics in our house and have pretty much stopped using anything with much of an open weave after five years with two big, shedding dogs, so that eliminated a lot of options from places like Buy Buy Baby and Wayfair. Kyle is also pretty tall, so I we needed something that has a tall enough back but isn’t too deep to fit in the space. We ultimately decided on a leather convertible wing-back rocking chair from Pottery Barn Kids, which Kyle’s parents generously bought for us. Once we’re done with the chair in the nursery we can take the rocker rails off and put stationary feet on, allowing us to use the chair somewhere else in the house.

The room has hardwood so I ordered a vintage wool rug from Etsy. As I posted in my instastories a few weeks ago, we are 100% in on vintage wool rugs because they vacuum up so easily and the vintage wear is forgiving. Both windows are a little challenging because the frames hit directly against adjacent walls, so I ordered cordless woven bamboo blackout shades instead of curtains. I really like the texture they add to the room and they will grow well with the space. To soften the look of the shades and add more pattern to the room, I plan to DIY valances out of an adorable woodland toile from Calico that gives a nod to the trees outside the windows.

I have a loose plan for lighting and accessories, but I’ll honestly end up layering most of it in as I find it over the next month. I’m particularly excited for the artwork we’ve already purchased–two custom water color portraits of our dogs that I ordered on Etsy! I’m having them framed by Framebridge and haven’t quite determined where we’ll hang them in the room yet. I also purchased a perfect mobile to play up our dog “theme” and help build our color scheme.

So that’s the plan! Painting is nearly done and we’re hoping to get the crib put together this weekend. It’s so exciting to see the room come together and makes everything feel more real. I’ll be spending plenty of time this weekend working in the space. Follow me on instagram to get real-time updates as well as tips and tricks and I’m sharing along the way!

And make sure that you visit the One Room Challenge guest blog and check out some of the gorgeous spaces that people are working on for the next month! Every time I look through the different spaces I’m insanely impressed by what people are able to accomplish in their homes!