Home Love: Her Nursery

I've been reading Thoreau's Walden off and on over the past few months, lack of time and energy has made leisurely reading difficult, so I took advantage of our Thanksgiving travels this week. I bought this book over the summer and felt connected to his thoughts almost instantly: simplicity, contentedness, and wisdom in not having. His ideas on "home" struck a chord with me; an interest and honest need for simplicity resonated with my own desires which often times feel out of reach. Yet his belief that beauty in ones home is unnecessary contradicts my desire for beauty within my own. As things have been changing in my personal and work life, I have come to realize that my need to create a beautiful home comes from three significant places. First, that as a child my mother always made sure our home was cozy and welcoming, and now, as a mother myself, I am in that phase of my life. Second, I am an artist; the core of my being is visual. And a recent realization brought me to the third reason; that I have never had a job that has required me to work outside the home on a consistent basis, something I have longed for. Since I have been home more often than not over the past five years, I made sure it was a place I wanted to be. If I was going to be unhappy with my job situation, then why not make the most of what I do have, a house. While I appreciate Thoreau's call for simplicity, I also understand that the desire to nest, to fill our dwellings with artwork, trinkets, furniture, mirrors, and windows is out of necessity to feel comforted and loved by and within our spaces.

Since becoming a mother, I have found myself thinking about our home more often, and not just in the sense that it needs cleaned, organized, and kept, but as a place where our daughter will find comfort. Her nursery has been just as important to me as it has been for her. This room has taken many forms over the past few years. It originally was the guest room, then the dog's room, a quiet yoga space, my studio, and finally, her nursery. I've loved that room for so long because I always knew it was a space for our child. So when we found out we were pregnant, I began nesting almost instantly. And in all honesty, I had been nesting for years.

It was important to me that her room fit well with the rest of our home. Curating our space has always been important to me, but decorating and bringing love to this room felt different. Years ago I painted a black accent wall, knowing full well that pink or blue was out of the question for our future baby. I have never been interested in traditional baby norms, and while I love our girl in a pink shirt or bow from time to time, I wanted a neutral space for her to grow into. The black and white walls and reddish hardwood floors became the canvas for everything that would fill the interior. Each object, each artwork, each linen carefully selected to create the most loving environment for her.

It was actually last winter when I started to really feel like her room was coming together. My parents bought her crib as an early baby gift and Zach and I spent one evening putting it together. I picked out a black and white rug and we moved my old 1940s dresser into her room. We added a vintage mirror and hung an old drawing that my parents bought during their time abroad in Germany, a drawing that once hung in my childhood bedroom. Then in March, a pipe from the old baseboard water heater system in her room exploded. I was about seven and a half months pregnant and there was black, steaming water everywhere. I was heartbroken. I was home alone when it burst and we had just started practicing zero waste, so I only had towels to clean up the mess. I had no idea how to shut off the water either, so the room was completely flooded. It was a disaster. Luckily, our insurance covered a large portion of the damages, but the floors were bowed, the rug was now grey, the walls needed to be repainted, and the dresser was faded because of the steam. The room I had fallen in love with was ruined.

Over the course of the next month or so, and right before the baby arrived, the hardwood floors were replaced, the walls were repainted black and white, and I found a new rug. We put the crib back together, washed the sheets, rehung the drawing, and welcomed new gifts from friends and family. The water damage was definitely a disaster, but it left that room better than it had ever been. I am incredibly thankful for this space, this space that has been carved out for our daughter. I spend every evening in this room, nursing and rocking her as she drifts to sleep. This room has become a space of love, of comfort, of laughter, and of care, and for those very reasons, it is also a space of simplicity.