This Woodland-Inspired 5-Year-Old's Bedroom Proves You Don't Have to Hide Your Kid's Toys
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“Nothing feels more calming to me than coziness,” says Amanda Knorr, owner of Knosen Antiques, an online shop in Waltham, Massachusetts, that specializes in hardworking old English pine furniture. “And coziness to me is plaids, color, a nice squishy carpet, warmth. I will stop short of doing wall-to-wall carpet, but honestly, I can understand the sentiment behind it. Cozy is king.”
When it came time to transform the white walls of her five-year-old son’s bedroom, Knorr thought back to an image she saved on Instagram—a small bathroom wrapped in green clover wallpaper, complete with painted blue trim and a striped sink skirt. It stopped Knorr, and she thought: “This is my person.” She reached out to the designer, Meta Coleman, some two thousand miles away in Provo, Utah. “I thought, if my whole house looked like this bathroom, I’d be in heaven,” recalls Knorr.
To get started, Coleman honed in on Knorr’s son, Isaac's, most fervent interests—nature and race cars, obviously. “I wanted a room that would really capture his essence and feel magical,” says Knorr, noting his appreciation for the gentle coo of a morning dove and simultaneously, the purr of a sweet hotrod. But how do you find harmony in conflicting curiosities?
For Coleman, it is second nature. “He’s like a little squirrel, the way he collects, so it made me think of St. Jude’s Squirrel and Sunflower wallpaper,” says Coleman. Then she warmed the mossy green print with a bright but earthy yellow, Farrow and Ball’s Babouche.
Covering the walls and the sloped, low ceilings in wallpaper was essential to making those New England colonial oddities feel like plusses. “Sometimes you have to lean into a home’s quirk,” says Coleman. “Wallpapering the whole room makes the angles feel less pronounced.” Finally, for movement, she layered on vintage racing posters among sets of botanical prints, which altogether hum against the flora and fauna paper.
The pine furniture throughout the space, but particularly the sweet antique sleigh bed, was the impetus for Knorr’s business. After a tireless search in the states for a storybook European bed, she looked to the source and now regularly taps makers overseas for her cult-like clientèle. “I really wanted to be able to bring a piece of that charm and beauty here to the U.S., for myself and for others looking for similar pieces,” says Knorr, who also sells roomy pine chests, dressers set on bun feet, spindle stools, woven baskets and more.
To help showcase the unique silhouette and warm patina of the bed frame, Coleman added contrast to the picture, placing a modern Componibili Storage Unit from Design Within Reach. To switch up the scale, she topped it with a gleaming brass pleated lampshade and coordinating base from Matilda Goad. Above the bed, a vintage sconce adds a graphic touch while a framed train print checks the box for Isaac's wheel requirement.
At the opposite end of the room, Coleman sourced a shelf from Rejuvenation to add storage while simultaneously framing the home’s original octagon window. The open shelves house books and toys and let the wallpaper shine, too. For herding of diecast cars, blocks, wooden animals, and the like, the unit is dotted with a mix of Hay’s Recycled Color Crates among roomier vintage baskets
Covering the walls and the sloped, low ceilings in wallpaper was essential to making those New England colonial oddities feel like plusses. “Sometimes you have to lean into a home’s quirk,” says Coleman. “Wallpapering the whole room makes the angles feel less pronounced.” Finally, for movement, she layered on vintage racing posters among sets of botanical prints, which altogether hum against the flora and fauna paper.
Now, says Knorr, Isaac's room “is a place where that natural world and monster trucks can live in perfect harmony, if only within these walls. I love that so much.”
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