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Interiors• June 1, 2016

The Goodnight Moon Room Re-imagined for Real Life.

I’ve taken to reading Henry Goodnight Moon every night before bed.  Most of the time he just gets mad that I won’t let him eat the book/ drench it in his drool, but he also loves to touch and stare at the pictures.  Probably because the famous room in Goodnight Moon is a colorful, violent assault on the eyeballs. A delight for littles, but for adults it leaves one reeling.

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As a designer, every time I look at these pictures I wonder what the illustrator was thinking (beyond making a picture bright enough for tiny developing minds to be intrigued by).  My thoughts go from “oohh, look at the tiger rug by the bed, how Miles Redd!” to “Why is there a roaring fire in this child’s room??” and “How have they not called an exterminator yet?”  Turns out, there is a HILARIOUS post about this  already from the blog The Ugly Volvo. So I won’t try to compete.

But I got to thinking, with so many parents reading this classic to their children, wouldn’t it be great to design a room around the book?  But one with a color palette that doesn’t make you go into violent seizures?  So I took on the challenge- creating a Goodnight Moon influenced room for REAL children!

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  1. So, we can handle green striped drapes, we’ll just make them green and white instead of green and yellow.
  2.  Bold green walls to keep with the illustrations (but we’ll skip the red floor because, WHOA.) But speaking of Miles Redd, this room- and particularly this wall color– has his total vibe.
  3. A ceiling wallpapered in stars like you see out the windows in the book!
  4. An illustration of a cow jumping over the moon, framed in a vintage gilt frame– since that tiny bunny had loads of gilt frames on his walls. Fancy bunny.
  5. Instead of a random red balloon just hanging out and being a nasty choking hazard, how about a framed print of one?
  6. A blue lamp.
  7. Bed pillows done in Hunt Slonem’s bunny print fabric for Lee Jofa. So meta.
  8. A comb and a brush (we’ll skip that whole bowl of mush business because what kid wants mush?)
  9. A pair of upholstered beds- done in navy instead of red to keep things classy. :)
  10. A cool brass bedside table.
  11. Zebra rug in between the beds, fo’ sho’.
  12. Instead of art of “three little bears sitting on chairs” how about three little BEAR CHAIRS. Bam, that just happened, y’all.
  13. An update on the pedestal table- this time a modern play table for those bear chairs :)
  14. Green bordered bedding.
  15. A nice bordered natural rug to replace the red wall-to-wall happening.
  16. Inside a closet or a bathroom would be ideal to use the red Hunt Slonem wallpaper, right? It’s like it was MADE for this project!
  17. A tiny toy house!
  18. Bookshelves full of colorful books.
  19. A vintage Thonet rocking chair for the “old lady” (ahem-would that be me?) saying HUSH…

Since it was a short week I will try to also post on Thursday to make up for missing Monday :)

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