ROOM WE LOVE: Tickled Pink

Traci Zeller designs a soft, feminine nursery with room to grow

Designer Traci Zeller, owner of Traci Zeller Interiors, loves decorating nurseries. “But I’m not into making an investment in things that won’t grow with them,” she says. So when a couple of first-time parents hired her to design their baby girl’s nursery, she was careful to choose colors, fixtures, and furniture that could easily transition to a young girl’s bedroom. The homeowners wanted the room to be soft and feminine with floral accents, but they left the rest up to Zeller. “The biggest challenge with nurseries is that babies come with built-in deadlines,” she says. “And when it’s your first baby, you want everything in place.”—Taylor Bowler

OUT WITH THE OLD 

Before the transformation, the room was set up like a guest room, with heavy gray walls and a TV hanging over a dresser. Zeller replaced the carpet, lacquered the ceiling, and swapped in a new rose gold chandelier from Visual Comfort, then turned her attention to their color palette. “We stuck with golds, off-whites, and pale pinks,” she says. “There’s nothing bubblegum about it.”

AT FIRST BLUSH

The homeowner pulled pictures of a flower wall as inspiration, so Zeller found a pale pink floral Schumacher wallpaper to make the same type of statement. She chose a gold Corsican crib and added a daybed and club chair for Mom and Dad to doze on late nights with the baby. She had pillows upholstered in Schumacher performance velvet and installed custom Loro Piana wool drapes with a pink scalloped Carleton V. trim. “I chose wool to absorb more sound since the nursery faces the front of the house,” she says.

AGELESS ART

Zeller commissioned artist Kelley Ogburn to do the ballerina paintings that hang side by side over the daybed. “They feel appropriate for a child, and they could go over a bedside table eventually,” she says. “This room is so perfectly sweet and soft, but my favorite thing is that it’s going to be long lasting.”