A Happy & Bright Big Boy Room + Some Big News!

I'm sooo excited to be able to say that I'm going to be an Auntie again! My sister is pregnant with baby number two (due in December right around Christmas!) and I am over the moon!!! She lives in Australia with my brother-in-law and nephew, Xavier, and even though she's on the other side of the world we're still very close and Skype a few times a week. It can be difficult sometimes because of the extreme time difference, but we make it work.

I remember being worried when I had kids that they might not form the same bond with her as they would with family members who lived close by, but amazingly that didn't seem to be the case. The proof came the first time that they came to visit after Violet was old enough to know what was going on (the first time they visited her she was just a newborn). She is usually very reserved around new people, and even pretty stingy with hugs or affection with close family, but she went absolutely crazy with excitement when they showed up at our house and gave out hugs galore. That makes me even happier now because although we made the twenty-plus hour trip when my sister had her first baby, we won't be able to this time around. It's going to absolutely kill me not to be able to hold my new squishy niece or nephew, but there's really no way around it, so I'm relying completely on video chat until they are able to visit with the new baby.

Another exciting aspect about adding another little bambino to the family is that my sister asked me to help with the design of Xavier's big boy room. They're coming to visit in July (she's so brave - making that long trip with a two-year-old and being pregnant!) and she's hoping to transition him to the new space on their return home. She's crossing her fingers that since he'll be used to sleeping in different spaces at that point from traveling that it will make the transition easier. I have my fingers crossed for her because we had a devil of a time switching Violet to a big girl bed in a new room!

Here's the initial design plan that I came up with for her:

She's really into clean, modern design and bright pops of color. She really wanted a large map in the room because of her ties to both the U.S. and Australia and all of the traveling that they do, so I found this gorgeous mural which was the starting point for the space. It was difficult for me to create this design, as I had to find Australian sources and didn't have my usual go-to sites to visit. Plus everything seems to be ridiculously more expensive there! So if you're in the U.S., a lot of these sources probably won't be that useful for you, although if there's a product that I know you can find in the U.S. I'll try to list that source as well:

Map mural (USA)
Rainbow felt ball garland (USA)
Red industrial pendant lamp (USA)
Nanoblock Statue of Liberty toy (USA)
Elephant chair (USA)
Cubebot toy natural (USA)
Kid-O warm stacking cups toy (USA)
Globe (my sister already owns this)
Bookshelf (my sister already owns this)
Yellow wire basket (USA - similar)
Table lamp
Tin robot toy
Nightstand/shelf
Donna Wilson fox pillow (USA)
Green robot toy
Red Eames style hang-it-all (USA)
Yellow striped bedding (USA)
Toddler bed (USA)
Red alarm clock (USA)
Wooden camera (USA)

I'm still going to make some tweaks to it to suit her budget and things, but it was a pretty good jumping-off point! Excited to see one of my design boards come to life!!! xo, Lauren

P.S. Isn't the above photo of my nephew such a great idea?! My sister snapped a shot of my brother-in-law throwing him up in the air and then edited him out to make it look like Xavier is flying! Sooo cute.

Plus, Violet in Australia and more nursery design inspiration