Bobby Meyer
With a baby girl on the way, they decided to relocate their 7-year-old son to their guest bedroom—a double-height space with plenty of room to play. “The boy had always wanted a slide, so we thought we could use that loft area as a playing space,” explains Shannon Wollack, founder-partner of Studio Life.Style, the firm behind the overhaul.
“She wanted one that he could get excited about, so he wouldn’t feel sad about his new sister taking over his old room.” Here, we asked Wollack to share her top tips on how to decorate fun but functional kids’ rooms (and en suite bathrooms to match).
Adding to the elevated sleeping quarters, she used netting typically found on catamarans to create a hammock-like reading nook.
She decided to add electrical wiring to the custom bed frame for sconces and drilled the lights straight through the headboard. To do this, she called on the help of local artist Laura Stewart, who designed a canopy made from colorful strings, which hangs in front of a wall mural inspired by the California mountains.
So instead, she asked Stewart to cover the lower half of the walls in a landscape in the same shades as the string canopy. Instead of ripping everything out and starting from scratch, the designer decided to simply breathe new life into them with floor-to-ceiling geometric tile.
The girl’s bathroom got a similar facelift in the form of pink tiles stacked vertically, a new floating vanity, and upgraded fixtures. “We wanted it to be cute but a little more elevated and sophisticated than your normal nursery bathroom.” One thing is for sure: Studio Life.Style has set the bar high for decorating children’s rooms.
