INDfamily

VALERIE WOERNER: Color Full

by Robin Hebert

Getting Used to Color

As a designer, I work with tons and tons of different colors for my clients. This has caused me to gravitate to neutrals for my own personal style. I love black, ivory, nude, cream, off-white, grey and maybe a splash of gold.

Enter Babies R Us.

For some reason, I could not find the aisle of all coordinating pieces in my color palette. Sure, I found a few ivory pieces on the gender neutral aisle. But what about the other 50 items I had to purchase for our little lady? Surely they don't expect me to have 50 different color palettes and patterns to subject my home to?

The answer to that question is a resounding 'yes.' Yes, they did.

I found the Pack N' Play we wanted in a gray and burnt orange owl-themed palette, and the best Boppy cover option in soft pink and caramel colors and all bath essentials covered in yellow ducks.

And then there's the whole ivory and white debacle. Not an exaggeration or anything.

Vivi will be bunking with mom and dad for the time being so the plan was for the new girl to get things to match our stuff. We've got seniority after all.

I could not for the life of me find an affordable ivory crib and sheets to match our ivory bed frame and dresser. I did however find a claimed-to-be white white crib that was actually off white and buttery yellow sheets that were posing as ivory. Nothing matches and I'm trying not to develop anxiety over it. I know I'll have plenty of other things to get anxiety over very soon.

To some of you (okay, most) this probably sounds so silly. But my day-to-day is spent making sure pieces coordinate and fit together cohesively.  And although our house never looked like a page out of a home magazine, it at the very least didn't look like a circus.
I know there is no stopping the flood of color that has just recently entered our home, but I have made every attempt to create a peaceful little girl's space that I absolutely love.

Anything that I could design or find not at a big box baby store will be inspired by the inspiration board attached. It bucks every traditional nursery trend and even has ... gasp ... black in it.

Let's hope Vivi doesn't have her mother's taste and will instead love lots of bright colors. If it makes her smile, I can handle the kaleidescope of color. If it doesn't, looks like Mama will have to start a new type of design business.

Now what scares me the most is the idea that we might start to like the rainbow splattered rooms if for no other reason than the practicality of it. When shopping for a recliner, we had two options: a cute, comfortable one and an ugly, comfortable one for half the price. We picked the ugly one.

That's right, the ugly one. Practical living, here we come. We wanted to save our money just in case we had the urge to add more crazy patterns to our already growing collection.