A Baby’s Nursery Gets an Extreme Home Makeover

Tracy Hutson made a name for herself on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and as an author of Feathering the Nest: Tracy Hutson’s Earth-Friendly Guide to Decorating Your Baby’s Room. For this project of overhauling a deserving family’s home, Hutson teamed up with Redbook and turned her attention to Teresa Humr of Twentynin Palms, CA.

Teresa is a full-time mom to Caleb, 4, Noah, 2, and was expecting her first daughter, Zoe Elizabeth. Her husband Scott is an officer in the Marine Corps, was deployed to Iraq in March and won’t return home until October after the birth of his first daughter. Teresa was looking to jazz up the nursery her two boys once shared into a feminine haven.

For her unborn daughter Teresa decided on traditional furnishings. Tracy chose decor pieces with graceful shapes and a shabby-chic feel and dolled up the room with cute details. A pastel-pink crib and cozy glider were selected as furniture pieces, and a dragonfly appliqué added to a simple white Roman shade added some color pops. Adding subtle touches like replacing the old brass doorknob with the rosy glass one made a huge difference to the room.

Tracy imagined a vintage garden when designing baby Zoe’s room. The tree silhoutte on the wall brought in a variety of colors and lended a whimsical feel to it. Tracy fashioned it out of patterned wallpapers from the ’60s and 70′s. Instead of buying a perfect set of coordinated crib linens, Tracy plays with patterns and textures that don’t have to have exactly mataching colors, but a similar tone.

She also suggests playing around with items that already exist in your home and to get creative with the ideas you have to achieve the look you want. Because she couldn’t find a birdcage light fixture she wanted at an affordable price, she bought a cage at a yard sale, added some spray paint and electrical wire and boom, a beautiful chandelier. Teresa had a round mirror she didn’t know where to put, so it hung in her hallway. Tracy found a way to make it into a nursery accessory by fashioning bejeweled ribbon with safety pins and screwed it into the baby’s room wall with a posy-shaped pink knob as the anchor.

When designing a nursery for a baby girl, it’s normal to have your first instinct be to paint the room pink. But instead of using one shade of pink, Tracy contrasted borders on the ceiling, baseboards, and door frame in hot pink. The look gives the illusion of expensive crown moolding work and adds depth to the room.

While most redesigned are witnessed for the first time in front of a street full of neighbors and friends shouting ‘Move that bus,’ Teresa saw her nursery makeover alone. After seeing it for the first time, she started to cry. “This is better than anything I ever dreamed of,” she said.

You can get the items Tracy used to makeover Teresa’s nursery room below:

Harpswell table, $680, Buckingham glider, $1,240, Bratt Decor Jane Crib, $714, braided rug, $60; Embroidered Flowers Crib Bedding Set; Marcella wardrobe, $1,249; Blankets (in cubbies), $44 each; Pink Twiggy changing pad cover, $24; Elizabeth diaper bag, $325, Bratt Decor Jane Dresser with changing tray, $1,367.

Purchase Tracy’s book! Feathering the Nest: Tracy Hutson’s Earth-Friendly Guide to Decorating Your Baby’s Room