Le Salon de Coco: Baby Chloe's Nursery Reveal

It’s been exactly two years since I started the renovation of my daughter Chloe’s nursery. It’s taken me this long to write up every single detail that went into this room, so here’s the final reveal!

I have always been fascinated with anything French, a self-professed Francophile, I guess you could say. I had been to France as a little girl and then again when my husband and I had been dating for 9 months. We traveled there together with his parents, and I remember one day we walked passed a place called Laduree… the love was instant!… Fast forward a few years, and my husband and I returned to Paris when I was about 4 months pregnant with my first son, Levi. I didn’t know at the time if I was having a girl or a boy, but I was 100% convinced that it was a girl… I mean, of course it was! It had to be a girl! I had already invisioned my baby girl, the outfits, the accessories, the games, and especially the room that I would create for her. I knew right then and there that her nursery would be inspired by my favorite place, Laduree. On that trip to Paris, I collected everything for my future girl’s room. I photographed interior and exterior shots of the cafe, I collected their menus in that beautiful pistachio color, I collected all the boxes and the ribbons I could get my hands on. When we took walks around Paris, I collected artifacts that I could incorporate into her room, like vintage postcards from the book shops along the Seine.

Shortly after we returned home from our trip, I found out we were in fact having a boy. Well, I put all my Laduree memorabilia away into storage and there it sat for years until I was pregnant with my second baby. Yes! Now I’d be able to make that nursery I had always wanted. Nope! The second was also a boy, and therefore, the Laduree pieces never came out of storage.

Five years went by, and I guess the 3rd time was the charm! We found out I was pregnant with a girl and finally, finally I could create this room I had wanted for so many years!

When we bought our home, it went through a massive renovation and this future baby room was a decent size, but in order to create another full bath on the second floor, we had to borrow space from this room, which meant taking away its closet. For years, it was a room with no closet. Now that we were putting in a true bedroom, we had to recreate a closet, plus, how could I have a girl’s bedroom without a closet?!

We had a closet built in and once that was completed, it was time for the fun stuff!

A photo of the nook we had to work with… the closet was built into this space.

I can’t seem to find the photos of the building process which is a bummer, but I designed the interior of the closet specifically to fit the needs of a little girl. Two bars for hanging clothes and shelving underneath big enough for baskets for extra storage.

One of the other details that I put a lot of thought into was the door for the closet. Because I wanted this otherwise simple space to look more like a French salon, I thought the outside of this closet door would be the perfect place to really zhuzh up the space. I found a mirror adorned with beautiful millwork at my local Home Goods store and had the builder affix the mirror to a simple closet door. I wish I could find the before photos of this project in progress, but here are a few photos of the how it turned out…

Can you kind of see where the mirror is and where the door is? I painted it in such a way that it would look like one whole piece, instead of just a mirror sitting on top of a door.

Aren’t these details in the millwork so dainty and pretty?

You can picture the flat of the door, where my hand is, and then everything that’s protruding is the mirror…

Another fun detail that I added to this closet was the surprise on the inside!

I found this gorgeous wallpaper of garden roses and although not Laduree themed per se, how could I resist a beautiful garden rose? And the colors worked with the rest of the room, so I went with it!

I had been waiting for this moment for so long! To hang up all of this little fashionista’s outfits in her new closet. This photo was taken right before she was born, with all of her newborn outfits ready to be worn.

Loved these clear boxes that hold all of Coco’s most precious accessories, like her little baby shoes, her sunglasses, and the most special, the handkerchief I had made with the initials CG when I thought my second baby was going to be a girl (oops!), and Coco’s astrological sign necklace my husband bought for me when we were in Palm Beach right before she was born.

I was clearly ready to pop in this photo… I just couldn’t wait to show this room off to baby Coco!

The color of the room was harder to find than I had thought. I mean, could it really be that hard to find a pale pink? Yes! I finally narrowed it down to these 4, one more peachy, one more mauve-y. And finally settled on the color with the most perfect name, Ballet Slippers.

The next detailing that was added to the room was the moulding. If you’ve ever looked for moulding, you know there are hundreds of different designs and thicknesses and profiles. What was important for this room was that the design had to be reminiscent of French style and also a thickness that wouldn’t dominate the rest of the room. Something dainty, something pretty, and something that I hoped my husband and I could put up together!

The Furnishings:

In keeping with the French theme, I went with this light gray nursery collection from Pottery Barn. The changing table came with handles that I didn’t love, so I ordered these brass pulls and knobs that complimented the furniture and the room so much better.

The photo below shows the original pulls, and the drawers that are pulled out already have the new knobs installed…

The tufted upholstery on this crib was so adorable, it was the perfect piece for this room!

Oh my gosh, I couldn’t even tell you how long I’ve had this little side table for. I think I bought it for my office before my first son was born…. and I think these gold and gray hat boxes were from around the same time too!

And of course, la pièce de résistance, my balloon chair. We’ve had this chair for almost 10 years… of all the furniture I’ve ever bought, this has to be my most prized piece! It’s traveled from house to house with us, and how perfectly it has fit into this little room!

For the crib’s bedding, I went with a dreamy bird and flower print sheet set, and a light pink bumper from Pottery Barn. And for the crib skirt, well, I thought it’d be fun to make my own!

I decided on this pale silky fabric and then laid a pink tulle over it to create an almost ethereal look. And then I found a gorgeous French lace, cut out these pretty segments of the fabric, and sewed them onto the skirt at intervals so they could be seen through the slats of the crib.

For the windows, I went back and forth about the kind of window treatments I wanted. Because this room is rather small, I didn’t want the window details to take over the space. Although it would have been so pretty, heavy velvet curtains would have just overwhelmed the space, so that was crossed off the list. Instead, I decided to make window valances and mimic the shape of Laduree’s signature awnings into the design. I drew a few different variations of the shape on paper first, and then decided which one would look better on a window, and at what scale.

These are a couple of shots of the Laduree awnings… aren't they just the prettiest?!

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I picked out a thick pink velvet and chose an accompanying trim to really play up the elegance of the space. If you only knew the amount of trims I went through! They were all just so pretty, I wanted to take them all home!

The Details:

When it comes to designing a space, for me, the details make the space really come to life! This is the part of designing that I love the most because it’s almost like compiling a bunch of artifacts, but has to be done with a very specific eye. It can’t be too much, it can’t be too sparse, and for me personally, the pieces cannot be too literal to the design. This was a little mood box I created with the collection of pieces I had before I started the whole project. I wanted to get a sense of the colors I was working with, the textures, and just the overall feeling I wanted in the room. The pinks, the pistachio green, you can see the French postcards I had held onto for so long finally made their appearance, the incorporation of black and white into the design (although non-existent in Laduree’s color palette)… The details are the collective pieces that speak to you, they’re the pieces that create the mood which you want to portray in the space, not the absolute literal copy of what your inspiration might be.

In the corner of the room, I wanted to create Coco’s “fashion salon” … In theme with Laduree? Not at all… but it’s a detail I thought Chloe would love when she was a bit older and started playing dress-up. But I kept within the color palette and the overall French style to bring the two themes together… Laduree + French dressing room!

2020 ~ The current photo… the ever evolving collection of dresses and hats

Another detail I added to the space above the changing table were these pretty clothing hooks. I always believe that a space should not only be beautiful but also functional whenever possible, and from experience, I know that having extra space for clothing around the changing table is a game changer! Since I didn’t have more space for a bigger bureau or extra tables, I hung these hooks to hold Coco’s dresses and tops. It not only creates a pretty vignette, but when I get her dressed, if the clothes are in sight, I’m more likely to reach for them when they’re right there!

And what would Laduree be without its famous macaron towers?! One of the projects that I had my son help me with was making our own macaron tower. Made from plastic macarons stacked on top of one another, this was a photo of the tower right after we completed our masterpiece.. now to figure out what to do with the Laduree ribbons!

And what’s more beautiful than the Laduree windows? That’s a trick question… nothing! There were several ideas I had about how I was going to incorporate this aspect of a cafe onto the walls of a tiny bedroom. One thought I had was to paint a mural, but that’s been done before and I thought it to be too literal. Then I had this crazy idea of installing glass pastry shelves, which would be suspended from the ceiling and hold all of my Laduree paraphernalia, but that would be quite the undertaking and quite frankly, not worth the effort. I finally decided on a more traditional route and searched high and low for a pair of display shelves. I went with these because I thought they were the perfect amount of fancy, their millwork style matched the trim almost perfectly, and I loved the scale of it… they’re rather large, but for its purpose, I thought they were a great fit! As you can imagine, over the 8 years that I had waited to design this room, I had collected dozens of Laduree boxes. I spent hours figuring out how to arrange them in such a way that the shelves didn’t look too cluttered, and that I could still add other elements to the design, like the books my sister gifted to Coco, the flowers, the goose and the croissants.

Right before Coco was born, my husband and I took a trip to Palm Beach. We’re not much of a sit-by-the-pool type of people, so we do a lot of walking and exploring when we travel to new places. I came upon the cutest little shop and found this white goose. I thought it was so precious and would be such a great piece to add to Coco’s nursery. I tied one of my Laduree ribbons around its neck, and it just looks so cute up on display!

Since this is a French bakery after all, how could I not incorporate the French pastry? I loved these fabric croissants that I found at Pottery Barn, and then just put one of my pastry domes over them for a more “authentic” look. Délicieux!

How incredible are these Laduree hat boxes? My best friend got them for me… a special gift from NYC!

And of course, my most treasured detail in this room are the little vintage postcards that I bought in Paris at the book shops along the River Seine, almost 10 years ago… These are probably the most inexpensive objects in this room, but to me, they’re worth more than anything! I’m so grateful that I held onto them for so long and as silly as it sounds, never gave up the idea that one day I’d get to create this little Laduree dream room for my baby girl!