Mina Starsiak Hawk Used the Same Room for Both Her Son and Daughter’s Nursery By Making These Simple Edits
Throughout the last five seasons of HGTV's Good Bones, we've watched Mina Starsiak Hawk create meaningful and gorgeous spaces on TV for her clients. However, the mom-of-two also brings her design talents into her own home. In August 2018, she styled a chic nursery for her son Jack, now two. Then, when she became pregnant with Charlotte (who goes by Charlie), now six months old, she reworked that same space to accommodate her baby girl. The TV host, store owner, and most recently children's book author chatted with House Beautiful about how she was able to quickly convert her son's nursery into one for her daughter. As it turns out, she and husband Steve Hawk had this all planned out—before either of their kids were born.
When Starsiak Hawk started to plan Jack's nursery back in 2018, she kept the design concept simple. "I knew I wanted more than one [child]," she told us, "and I'm not super like 'paint it pink or blue' anyways." For the walls, she opted for a soft blueish teal. She also picked out a gorgeous chandelier "that was just pretty whether we had a boy or a girl," she said. Truthfully, if it weren't for those constants, one might not realize that Jack's nursery and Charlie's nursery are indeed the same room with just a few tweaks.
"I think the biggest difference was we flipped the crib wall and the changing table," the Indianapolis-based designer explained, adding that a few edits to the room's arrangement made the 9 x 10 room look bigger. Starsiak Hawk also changed up the cribs. An all-white wooden crib, which she pegged as "a little bit more modern," was swapped in for Jack's gray crib (the 2-year-old needed more time in his crib, which was been relocated to his new bedroom along with his stuffed animals).
The original rug in Jack's nursery was also upgraded to a new one from Starsiak Hawk's store Two Chicks District Co. As she learned from baby number one, having a heavy-duty rug is a must. "It's crazy how high of a traffic area I feel like the nursery is," she explained, adding that because of all the constant moving in the room, her first rug got pilly and dirty fast.
Sharing more lessons learned from caring for her firstborn, Starsiak Hawk also emphasized the importance of a rocking chair. "I tried to go cheap on it to begin with," she revealed, but after spending hours trying to sleep in it, she made a cozy upgrade that stayed put in the nursery during the switch.
She also noted that while tending to Jack, she really wanted to have a side table within reach of the chair to place a bottle or her cell phone while her hands were occupied holding her little one. "There's no space in the room for a table next to that chair," she explained, leading her to come up with a creative solution for Charlie's nursery: The quick-thinking mom attached a shelf made for a bathroom wall just inches away from the chair, allowing her a little spot to place her things on.
The nursery curtains were replaced, too. Starsiak Hawk opted for another set of Anthropologie Pom Tassel Curtains, which she also has in her living room. "I get asked about them all the time," she shared.
In terms of the decor that stayed the same, both nurseries had a fiddle leaf fig tree and the same white tiered shelves. They also each had decorative wall hooks; however, Starsiak Hawk revealed, she was unable to get a set of personalized name wall hooks for Charlie as she did for Jack and instead settled on a golden floral hook.
As for some of the smaller items and the stuffed animals, Starsiak Hawk explained that many were gifts. In total, transforming Jack's nursery into Charlie's only took a few hours—a project made easy by Starsiak's smart thinking when it came to initially setting up the room.
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