Inspiration: Travel Themed Baby Room

When I found out I was pregnant, I knew I wanted a travel themed baby room. However, room decor or DIY are not my forte. Given that we travel quite a bit, we had limited time for DIY projects. We wanted a stylish room with minimum effort. Hence, our decor options were quite limited. However, I enlisted my friend (and awesome interior designer) Mariella Cruzado of Splendor Styling to give us design advice. She came over, took a look at our room dimensions, and gave us some great suggestions on how to create our dream nursery with our limited space.

The Theme:

Our baby Dining Traveler is half Dutch, half Puerto Rican, and born in Washington, DC. We wanted to reflect every element of her roots in her travel themed baby room. The first thing I envisioned was having lots of maps in her room. We both love geography and are hoping to pass that love to her. I found custom made maps of our hometowns through a website called Mapiful. The great thing about Mapiful is that you can pick literally any place in the world. Even if you’re from a super obscure small town in Puerto Rico called Guayama, they got you covered. Use my code TRAVELER15 for a 15% discount.

The Color:

We knew early on that we were having a girl but I HATE the color pink. The objective was to strike a good color balance when it came to her room decor. We liked the combination of coral and blue. It’s much more subtle than pink and it indirectly reminded us of the Dutch colors: orange and blue. Mariella initially suggested for us to paint the ceiling. We loved the idea but it was a bit labor intensive, therefore we decided to paint two walls in Behr Watermelon Slice paint. We then added navy blue accents in different areas such as the rocking chair fabric, sheets, and rug.

The Furniture:

In picking furniture we considered space and budget. Trust me, I wanted to go crazy at Pottery Barn but I contained myself. Given the limited space and budget, we got creative with our furniture choices. The room had enough space for a crib, dresser, and rocking chair. I already had a dresser from our guest room that I repurposed into a changing table/dresser combo. We went for an IKEA rocking chair because it was compact and versatile. We went with a 4-in-1  crib from Babyletto that will transition to a full-sized bed as she grows older.

The Details:

We received so many gifts from friends, family, and clients. It’s amazing to experience all this love from so many people from every corner of the world. We wanted to add those gifts into the little details around the room. She received many books in English, Spanish, and Dutch that we added to a floating bookshelf that the Dutchman installed into the wall. I also received a beautiful DC map pillow from Modern Map Art. At $39.99, it makes a very unique baby shower gift. They have hundreds of cities to choose from!

Another little detail I love is the Koala teddy bear from Lone Pine Koala Farm. The Dutchman bought it for me when we went on our first big trip together to Austrailia. I wanted to pass that on to her since it has so many memories for us. The plush clogs the Dutchman got from his co-workers back in Amsterdam. The colorful map above her crib was a gift from one of my dearest friends, Carla from Spicy Candy DC.

Travel Themed Baby Room: The Verdict

Is this the most Pinterest worthy travel themed baby room? Probably not but I am happy with the results given my busy schedule and budget. The most important part is that it was designed with lots of love! I have never put this much effort into any decor project at my home! I’m always on the road, therefore home decor is not something I have a lot of time for. Big thanks to Mariella from Splendor Styling for her consultation, it made the process less daunting!

Disclaimer: I received items from Mapiful and Modern Map Art, but as always, opinions are my own.