Room of the Day: Child Safety at Play in a Nautical-Themed Nursery

After working with interior designer Beth Bourque on the rest of their home, the Hingham, Massachusetts, these new parents were ready for her to transform son Finn’s nursery. The two main objectives for the 12- by 14-foot room were to make it a safe place to play in and to create an aesthetic that could grow with him. The couple wanted space for a crib and a dresser–changing table, a play area for Finn and a cozy spot for snuggling with him. Bourque came up with a nautical-inspired scheme that recalls their Cape Cod roots and can make the transition from nursery to big-boy room.

Photos by Jessica Delancey

Bourque worked with baby concierge company Your Family to make Finn’s room safe. The team bolted the furniture to the walls with brackets so he couldn’t knock anything over, added corner bumpers, placed safety locks on the drawers and windows, used cord cleats on the wood blinds and hung drapes with wooden rings instead of a continuous cord system. Bourque also had her carpenter design a cover for the radiator, which can get very hot.

She began with the biggest splurge, the wood accent wall. To keep it safe and smooth, Bourque had it made with new rift-white-oak veneers pressed onto a plywood substrate instead of reclaimed boards. She chose three hues from Benjamin Moore’s zero-VOC Natura line, diluted by 50 percent, to finish the boards, arranged in a pattern she laid out on an AutoCAD drawing. The wall would work well in a bedroom for a person of any age. The growing family may want to move within about five years, so Bourque also considered how the room would work as a den or an office for resale purposes.

The existing hardwood floors were in bad shape and already painted, so she had no qualms about fixing them up and painting them white with a flat floor finish. A rug composed of Flor tiles cut on the bias created a chevron pattern. “I ordered a bunch of extras so that if any of the tiles are ever damaged, they can easily swap in a replacement,” Bourque says.

Though she wanted artwork over the crib and changing table, the concierge recommended not hanging framed works over these pieces, for safety reasons. To give the area dimension, Bourque instead found mobiles made of driftwood and paper whales. They are hung more than 36 inches from the top of the changing table so they are out of Finn’s reach.

“Sometimes themes are tricky, because you don’t want it to seem too contrived,” Bourque says. She also wanted to make sure the design was versatile enough to grow with him.

Though most of the nautical elements can be switched out as Finn grows up, the ship’s wheel will probably stay. It came from a boat his grandfather once had. Bourque had a fabricator extend it and bolt it into a stud. “Finn loves it,” Bourque says. “It spins, and he loves to ‘drive the wall’ with it.” The nautical flag pillow is one that his parents grew up with — Bourque swiped it from another room in the house.


Getting the room safe and organized was Bourque’s biggest challenge. “His parents already had the rocking chair and ottoman but could not figure out how to fit them into the room, so they had been sitting out in their living room,” Bourque says.

She needed to lay out the furniture in a way that was pleasing and comfortable and left room so Finn could play. “I added details through the finishes instead of items that would take up floor space,” Bourque says. She used picture rails instead of freestanding bookshelves to display Finn’s favorite books, for example.

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The wooden crib plays off the accent wall. In avoiding framed art over the crib, Bourque got creative. She sent a PDF of an antique map of Cape Cod to Wallmonkeys, which turned it into a vinyl decal. “It was printed on a very high-quality textured vinyl that feels like antique paper,” she says.

Ceiling paint: Naval; wall paint: Accessible Beige, both by Sherwin-Williams; crab wall decor: HomeGoods; crib, bench, changing table: Pottery Barn; chair, ottoman, bedding: Land of Nod; picture rails: Ikea; light fixtures: Barnlight Electric Company; lobster pillow: vintage, eBay

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