So many of us have a house with a ‘box room’ which often ends up as the nursery. In my experience people shy away from bright colours or patterns as they think it will overpower the room but Louis’ Mama Ruth shows us how it can work.

As the room is small I didn’t see the point in trying to make an impression of space. I always wanted a patterned wallpaper on all four walls to create a fun, cosy nursery. The Circus print was my choice from the Cath Kidston wallpapers – it is so beautifully designed and doesn’t ever get boring to look at. As I worked at Cath Kidston, I wanted to have at least one room in the house decorated with her lovely wallpaper, and my husband wouldn’t let me loose anywhere else! Louis has just turned one and he is just starting to speak, so loves pointing at all the circus animals on the wall and making roaring noises! I often go in there in the morning and find him chatting away to the wallpaper.

The cot is from John Lewis and we had the chair and chest of drawers from before (hand-me-downs from parents in law). The chest of drawers was going to be freecycled actually, as it wasn’t very nice. I insisted we try a bit of furniture paint on it first – I got a couple of sample pots (only about £3 each) from the Cath Kidston range at Craig & Rose. They turned out great, that was a tip I got from Cath – always try painting a tired old piece of furniture before chucking it out.

Where is the blanket in the cot from?

When I was off on maternity leave some of the Cath Kidston girls got together and knitted this blanket for me using the colours of the wallpaper. It was such a lovely gesture – yes, there really is a knitting circle at Cath Kidston!

The boxes are a cheap storage solution. We are using re-useable nappies, so they all go in the top box for easy access. We have used the rest for blankets, muslins etc. The stickers are from all over the place – my husband and I buy a lot of vinyl and often get stickers from the record labels, also my friend Ian runs the kids company Nippaz With Attitude so I got a load from him. Whenever we get a sticker from somewhere it goes on – I love them as they are really colourful and stop it looking too cutesy!

Were there any limitations?

Money! We knew we had limited budget so spent it on the wallpaper & IKEA storage (not shown), luckily my father-in-law is a bit of a whizz at decorating so helped us out there.

Thank you so much to Ruth and Louis for sharing this lovely room with us.