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Presented by Pabbot and THE BABY GEAR GAME PLAN

Shownotes

In this episode of BRB, Kevin and Paris dive into the latest nursery design trends and discuss whether the popular "Sad Beige Nursery" trend is fading away. The conversation covers various aspects of nursery aesthetics, including the emergence of dark mode, the importance of color for baby development, and the growing trend of incorporating texture into design.

Key Discussion Points

Dark Mode for Nurseries: Kevin and Paris introduce the concept of "dark mode" for nurseries, drawing a parallel to the dark mode feature on electronic devices. They note that this trend is gaining traction in baby products, offering parents more options and potentially aiding in early visual development by providing high contrast visuals.

Color's Role in Development: Paris emphasizes the developmental need for color in a baby's environment. She explains that while a beige setting might be calming, it lacks the visual stimulation necessary for a baby's growth. The discussion highlights how the first colors babies can see include black, white, and red, which is why many infant books and toys feature these high-contrast colors.

Pops of Color: Kevin and Paris discuss the exciting new trend of incorporating pops of bright colors into nursery designs. These bursts of color, such as neon greens, pinks, reds, and blues, can provide a much-needed serotonin boost for both babies and parents. They suggest that even in predominantly beige environments, adding colorful elements can enhance the overall aesthetic and mood.

The Trend Toward Texture: The hosts explore the increasing use of texture in nursery design. Texture, or the "haptic sense," plays a significant role in creating a visually interesting and tactilely engaging environment. They discuss how different materials interact with light and how textures can add depth and variation to a room, even in a monochromatic setting.

Avoiding Overly Themed Nurseries: Kevin and Paris caution against feeling pressured to adhere to specific themes or trends. They advocate for creating a nursery that is personal and meaningful, incorporating elements that resonate with the family's heritage and personal story. They also touch on the impracticality and potential negative impact of overly gendered or circus-themed nurseries.

Personal Touches and Eclectic Design: The episode encourages parents to infuse their nursery with personal items and eclectic design choices. Kevin and Paris suggest that unique, personal items can make the space more special and meaningful, far beyond the constraints of current trends or themes.

Recommendations for Nursery Design

1. Prioritize Safety: Always ensure the nursery is a safe environment for the baby.

2. Make It Personal: Incorporate elements that are meaningful to your family and heritage.

3. Embrace Eclecticism: Don’t be afraid to mix different styles and personal items to create a unique space.

4. Balance Color and Calm: While calming colors like beige can be soothing, adding pops of bright color can provide necessary visual stimulation.

5. Consider Texture: Use different textures to add depth and interest to the nursery, enhancing both visual appeal and tactile engagement.

Conclusion

Kevin and Paris provide insightful commentary on the evolving trends in nursery design, emphasizing the importance of balancing aesthetics with developmental needs. They encourage parents to create a space that feels good and is safe, personal, and stimulating for their babies. Tune in to hear more about their thoughts on nursery design and upcoming trends in baby products.

Highlights

• [00:09:00] - "Postpartum can be tough, really tough."

• [00:10:00] - "My first take, unless it was specifically requested by a client, would not be to do a very gendered pink room."

• [00:11:00] - "Pattern. Is like... Texture like the patterns. Texture."

• [00:12:00] - "Using that texture, you actually start to get some, like change in value depending on what the lighting scenario is in the room."

• [00:13:00] - "If you want a sad beige nursery, maybe seek inspiration from like a sunset."

• [00:14:00] - "You could actually either paint or put up like cellophane... on what we know to look like stained glass."

• [00:15:00] - "Think about your own heritage and ways that you can bring that in."

• [00:16:00] - "Your eco nursery. Is it. Eco as you might think."

• [00:17:00] - "It's kind of starting with the beige baby where, you know, people are getting, you know, pops of color."

• [00:18:00] - "Just look for things that look good in... sunset lighting."

• [00:19:00] - "For a long time, there's been like the trend of like the canopy."

• [00:20:00] - "There's other things you can do, like avoid this."

• [00:21:00] - "I thought the world was moving in a different direction. Away from circus animals."

• [00:22:00] - "Instead of going for a theme or a motif, keep it personal to you."

• [00:23:00] - "Make it eclectic. And sometimes even if you are a designer, that's sort of a better way to do it."

• [00:24:00] - "Sad beige baby, probably not over, but man, there's some weird things coming down the line that are trying to eclipse it."

Transcript

Intro

Kevin: is sad beige baby finally over, that's what we're talking about today, but it might be getting replaced with something that's even worse watch out. So today we're going to talk a little bit about the history of sad beige baby, what's coming next, the good in it and the bad, today I'm joined once again by Paris.

Paris: Do you guys know what sad beige baby is? Have you seen the beige baby? The beige nursery trend. That's happening. Where everything is beige or like very neutral, like the rainbows are all like, if you took, if you zapped the color out of them, if you just like put beige over the rainbow and that's all you have variations of gray. All right. greige.

Kevin: Honestly, I think.

If there's any point where sad beige could be any sadder it's when you take the color out of a rainbow.

Paris: Yeah.

I mean, I do [00:01:00] think that that is. There's one thing that leave

Kevin: alone. Oh, my God.

Paris: It's going away.

How Sad Beige Baby Started

Kevin: What's replacing it. There's some crazy stuff. So first of all, let's just talk, I'll give you a brief overview on how this said beige baby maybe came about. Certainly the term, at least I read in a Yahoo article day, it came about from a post. That was commenting on, uh, a beige furniture ad. And the creator Haley Deroche used the sad beige reference. She called it, the Werner Hertzog baby furniture line, which is hilarious. Paris and I, we can't even watch Werner Hertzog documentaries.

They're like to they're. They're too slow, depressing, but, um, Very funny video. And she coined this term, apparently you sad beige baby in that video. And then she started an account that was called, said, beige baby. And then. Obviously that was used as a funny commentary on the, this trend that was happening towards all the sad beige stuff.

Someone who's been a long-term design nerd. [00:02:00] I have my own sort of theory about how this came about and yes, part of it was that. That whole, you know, sepia. Photo trend into Instagram. I understand that part, but I think there's another part that comes from just consumer goods in general.

I think you had a really good point cause you talked about parents wanting to put the nursery together in a way that's more gender neutral.

Paris: A lot of us. Presumably millennials, um, have waited a while longer than our parents did a lot of us, to have children. So a lot of us have already developed our style and a lot of us are trying to kinda fit our babies into our existing style. Right. Which I think is, where the baby goes, like not willing to give up your style for the baby and wanting the baby to adhere to the style. And then also the push to be gender neutral. You don't know if you're having a boy or girl for a little while, so it's easier to make [00:03:00] decisions on something that's beige.

Kevin: If you're, if you're starting to do your, your nursery decor earlier.

You only have so many options when you're buying from certain retailers, you have the same things being suggested, even on the registry websites and they're all starting you out, starting to fit you into this aesthetic. And you actually have to make an active choice to try to go away from it. And your options will be very limited once you try to do that.

Paris: Have you actually looked up. Um, nursery ideas like baby nursery ideas.

Yes. On a Google

Kevin: or Pinterest.

Paris: You will see. I mean, you don't even have to type in sad beige, baby. You'll see it. It's all type in baby nursery ideas. 2024. It's all sad beige baby. This is what we're talking about. There there's a very few and far between ideas that are not sad beige baby.

Kevin: Right. So even though it starts out. You know, maybe as an artifact of both. , social media and, , consumer goods choices. Then ultimately [00:04:00] it becomes fueled by. The obviously the influencer. Baby blogs. And, and things like that that are, you know, sort of setting the style for everybody else.

And that's how we ended up here where we've had this sort of long run of sad beige baby.

Dark Mode Alternative

Kevin: I think there's there's a lot more focus on products outside of the house, they've always had a, like a darker, like a gray, black aesthetic. That's gotten more modern and it also like ties into like a really strong, like bold, modern look. And I think you're starting to see some of that aesthetic transfer over into some of the other product lines

You could build out a pretty good, like, black and gray nursery, like just in terms of baby products now Like there's dark mode.

Paris: Yes. Yep.

I think, it definitely does make sense. Considering that people are more concerned, I think, than ever about, um, their baby's milestones at a very early age. [00:05:00] So I'm making sure that their baby has high contrast images and high contrast things to look at. Um, The dark mode would play into that.

Kevin: When I say dark mode, what I mean is, you know, like on, on our computers, on our phones, a lot of the applications and operating systems now they allow you to like hit the button and switch over into dark mode. Yes. And I think some of the same things are happening with products and especially baby products. Yeah.

We're starting to get more choices. In terms of the products. There's more, there's more places to buy products. I feel like universal registries in general might be playing a big role in this because you're not just being funneled to those same three places. Yeah.

Beige or Color for Development

Paris: babies, they need color, they need that kind of stimulation. So, um, The sad beach baby. Could be.

Well, Not very good.

Not great for, um, [00:06:00] babies development, the, I mean, just the stimulation they need. They need color. Children. need color.

Do they need bright artificial colors? Are these like colors that are found in nature? You know, there's, I think there's those kinds of questions. Certainly one of the positive aspects with the, with any sort of beige environment is just kind of this spa. In the calming aspect of it, which I think is why a lot of people gravitate towards it as well.

Paris: There's certainly ways to go about,

Compromising between the beige baby and color.

And places to do that as well if color, isn't your thing, you know, bright pops of color, isn't your thing. Well, one place you may not want it is in your main living space or in your kitchen which you could try and figure that out.

When I was in, Design school and color class, we were taught that the first color that a baby [00:07:00] sees is red.

Kevin: So I think that's, that's another interesting thing.

Paris: Yeah. Yeah. At first, they can only see black and white. Very very early on they can see red.

That a lot of little infant books or cards have pops of red in it and that's why.

Kevin: Yeah.

Paris: Black and white and red.

Kevin: Do you remember just how fascinated the babies were with those black and white lovevery cards Yes.

Paris: I got

Kevin: entranced. And this was, this was in the first week. I mean, it was pretty incredible. Like they were working on them.

Paris: Yep.

Pops of Color Trend

Kevin: Let's talk a little bit about what we're seeing now. What have you started noticing coming into products?

Paris: Oh, pops of color pops of bright colors, which is really exciting. And, just gives you a little burst of serotonin just to see them just, pops of. Bright colors.

I like the neon colors, but, um, you know, even like the greens and pinks and reds [00:08:00] and blues and TEALS and things like that. It's just, um, it's really, really nice to see. Especially in combination, I would say with the, with the beige baby.

Kevin: Yeah. Like if you think about like our rookie human sheets, which are like bright and colorful, it's kind of nice because there's no other decor, obviously anymore in the crib.

It's just the sheet. Just keep it that way. Keep all the other stuff out, even if it makes you feel good, keep them keep the, mobiles away keep obviously any blankets and pillows away, away, away from that. Um, so it's nice just to be able to have a bright pop of color there. Yeah.

Paris: Yep. We, we definitely enjoyed those sheets. They're definitely fun.

I love them. Baby products. I mean, once you go down that road, it's so easy to find things that would be cohesive and honestly, at a better price point because the sad beige baby has gotten worse. Expensive. It's good for you, especially for mothers.

Like [00:09:00] postpartum can be tough, really tough. Um, so just that little boost of color, is it makes you feel good. It's just a good feeling to.

Kevin: I think everyone's going to be maybe a little bit different in that regard.

Like what do you want in your environment? But I think one thing to think about is that. You know, Even if, uh, even if there's a trend and if, whether it's color, whether it sad beige baby just understanding that everybody's not the same and you need to go with what makes you happy. What feels good for you.

Gendered Nursery

Paris: And I would say also, I think it's really important to not feel pressured, to make things, gender neutral, We waited a long time to have babies and, um, You know, you might. Have a daughter and just really want to give her, you know, like a girly room. Do it. Do that, that, that. Or not, or not. You don't have to, I was going to say.

Kevin: Uh, just ask,

Paris: do you.

Kevin: As an interior designer.

My, [00:10:00] my. Pretty much my first take, unless it was specifically requested by a client would not be to do a very gendered pink room. I just maybe, maybe some other point, but I mean, there's.

Paris: I mean, let's say you want to do like daisies all over.

Kevin: Yeah.

Paris: Like paint the wall pink and like put days that that would be adorable. Like, that's not, I mean, that's technically, it's gendered and probably super gendered, but it'd be so cute.

Eventually they'll be able to choose their own thing.

Kevin: Yeah. I mean, I think whether boy or girl, I think very interesting style would be to do like an ultra masculine nursery that had like really dark blue, like walls and like deep red accents.

That'd be pretty sweet. A lot of change in texture and like do some like really high gloss lacquers on, on some surfaces and things like that.

Yeah. Oh,

Paris: yeah. We didn't talk about that trend at all.

The Trend Toward Texture

Kevin: Is there a, what's a, what trend? Which one?

Paris: Pattern. Is like. [00:11:00] Texture like the patterns. Texture. Yeah. It's not a different color. That is the pattern. It's the texture is the pattern. And it's like,

Kevin: yeah.

In design.

We would call that your, your haptic sense. You know, Th that you can see something, but like part of that. Even if you can't touch it, you have like a feeling of what that, what that surface is.

Paris: Yeah.

Kevin: In the nursery space, that haptic aspect the texture, the touch, the feel, even if it isn't something you're touching all the time has become very important.

Paris: Yeah. Yeah. Even, even the way that, um, things interact with light. Like the translucency. Of, um, materials. Um, It's also plays, it, plays into it and it makes it interesting. For sure. Kind of like stained glass or things like that. Um, or sheer sheer fabrics.

Kevin: Well in, in one thing. That just a lot of people don't really realize too, is [00:12:00] when you, when you have certain, when you use certain materials, um, and this can happen, it's going to really happen with aluminum and you see like more and more aluminum in products. Yeah. And. But with. What as well, and some other types of fabric. Or other types of textures is that the, the what's called the value.

The light to dark of that color can change dramatically depending on which way the light hits it.

Paris: Yeah,

Kevin: so. In, um, you know, even in these more like monochromatic environments like, uh, like the sad beige nursery. Yeah. Using that texture, you actually start to get some, like change in value depending on what the lighting scenario is in the room.

Paris: Yep.

Well, I mean, Yeah, there's a way to do it.

Okay. Okay. So if you want a sad beige nursery, maybe look, maybe seek inspiration from like a sunset.

You know, look for it. Look for things that look good in. [00:13:00] Sunset lighting.

Kevin: Okay. So what do you say you don't want say you don't want to do a sad beige.

Paris: Yeah.

Kevin: Nursery, but you want to incorporate more texture and you want to make that work. So w what, what can that start to look like?

Paris: Okay, well, let's, let's say you, uh, you have a blank slate. You have just a blank room. Um, Whitish, you know, like off white, like what they usually paint them. Um,

Plain. I'm normal. Room. That's going to be your nursery. You could do a lot of things. Well, since it is a nursery, you're probably going to have a blackout curtain. You'll want to get a blackout curtain and so decide like what that would look like to you. And then if you do want to play with light, you could actually either paint or, put up like cellophane. Or something of that type. On what we know to look like stained glass with different colors in certain [00:14:00] areas. That would be really cool to just add like bits of color or even if you live close, you. If you want some privacy and be able to like open up the window there are some really cool privacy. Frosted window. Glass. That.

It looks like jewels like gem gems, kind of, um, it's rainbows when it comes through.

So like all the light around the room would give off like rainbow light. Like rainbows all over. Yeah, which would be amazing.

It'd be amazing.

Kevin: I'm like. I don't know. I don't know.

What I would like to see a lot more in nurseries. Is think about your own heritage and like ways that you can bring that in.

We had some of that, for you with the Dala horses and stuff, but there might be like different accessories and decor that you can put on that high shelf or something that, that become a part of [00:15:00] that. Obviously the first thing you want to think about with your nursery is safety.

Yeah. And, and go to the nth degree, like you think you got everything covered, take another step through it. Look up the expert information on making your nursery safe. We're not giving extensive safety advice. Definitely go, go seek out those resources. It's very important to keep that first, but then beyond that, like, Think about bringing in some personality and bring, bringing in some things that are personal to you because you know, that'll feel good.

And also like we noticed, like over the, over those first couple years. Yeah. You're you start explaining those stories to, to, to your baby or in our case, our babies, and telling them where these things come from and that that's fun for parents and for kids.

Paris: Yes. They're interested in it. It's the first time they're hearing about it. So. It's fun.

Kevin: Okay, should we have this discussion on natural materials and why they're [00:16:00] not. Things that are advertised as better are always when it comes to all natural. That's a big discussion.

Paris: Oh, yeah. I mean,

Kevin: Your eco nursery. Is it. Eco as you might think.

Paris: Yeah. Yeah. I think we should touch on that later because like, at like to. Point out things that.

Kevin: Just subscribe because we'll, we'll have an episode.

Paris is a fibers arts. That's her background.

Paris: Majored in fibers. Yeah.

Kevin: We'll have a full episode on that and talk about some of the greenwashing in the baby product space. And also , some of the health claims that may not be all, all that they're all, all that they claim to be.

Paris: Yes. Yeah.

Kevin: So that's the trend. We're seeing dark mode. We're seeing texture. We're seeing pops of color. But. We're also seeing a, take a really weird turn in some place. And some of this stuff you see, and you know, some of it is like, you don't have to go very far because it's, it's even at Ikea.

Where it is starting to go wrong.

Paris: It's kind of starting with the beige [00:17:00] baby where, you know, people are getting, you know, pops of color. In the form of stripes. And they've already got like the tent kind of looking thing, and they're like, Hey, let's incorporate a few animals. And then. The company is, or like, Hmm.

Kevin: Yeah. It's gone.

They're having that next, the next revelation.

Paris: They're starting to push it.

Kevin: Actually, this was a thing that was big when I was a baby.

Paris: The same and it weirded me out.

Kevin: This was the thing when I was a baby.

And, but it wasn't stripes as much. There was stripes, but it was polka dots too.

Paris: I feel like that's probably that's next.

Oh, no, don't say it.

Kevin: Yeah, like colorful polka dots,

Paris: I think we just need to put a lid on it. They think it's going in this direction and guys let's, let's make sure it doesn't. I don't think anyone wants this.

Kevin: Okay. Stripes are one thing where's this leading.

Paris: All [00:18:00] right. Should we just. Get out there.

Kevin: So polka dots, stripes, pops of color Where's all this headed?

Paris: Tents And guess what? There's pom poms and there are, uh, Um, animals. Are

Kevin: you getting the idea?

Paris: Well, there's a circus. It's a circus and guess what? You can get mounted heads with circus animals.

Kevin: No, no, no. Where are you finding this stuff? Just look.

Just

please tell me the answer to sad beige baby. Isn't. isn't circus taxidermy?

Paris: Well, Some places.

Hi, keeah

is trying to do.

Kevin: No.

Paris: Yes. So, um, guys just don't buy it. Don't buy into it. Let's not do this. Let's not go this way.

For a long time. There's been like the trend of like the canopy. It's like a [00:19:00] canopy thing. It's like a bug net. A bug net

Kevin: oh, yeah.

Paris: It kind of looks like a cast.

Kevin: Malaria.

Paris: Yeah, but it kind of like, some people think, oh, it kind of looks like castle.

So they're like, oh, they put it in like a little girl's room and whatever. And like, you wouldn't like have like tassels. Yeah. Well, That has started take weird directions. Go into carnival. So bad.

Yeah.

So, I mean, Guys, this is not the answer. No jugglers, please. No clowns. We don't need like bears with like floofy collars.

Kevin: Obviously there was none of that for a while in clowns were like really scary because you had like the, that you had it. It too. You had a American horror story, had like a circus theme.

So I feel like with that, like that was pretty much. There was no clowns, goosebumps. No.

Paris: And then there was a thing. But long ago, there was the clowns that were like scaring people on [00:20:00] playgr-. But on playgrounds. Scaring kids. I forgot about this. Like in real life,

Kevin: that's awful.

Paris: Yeah, no, it's terrible. Um, but I guess people just forgot and now we're going to go like straight up carnival for children's bedrooms.

I don't think so. Let's not.

Please.

Kevin: There's other things you can do, like avoid this. No, if you can,

Paris: I mean, you can love animals. You can have animals, you can even put a tent. Later on, you could potentially put a tent when they're like older, but, um, yeah, you can like decorate with like animals or whatever.

However you want to, um, incorporate like animals and there's a billion ways to do that. Bright colors, things like that. Just carnival.

Kevin: Like looking at like, just. Art and design and circus, like there's cool stuff.

Like for sure. But. The animal thing confuses me because I thought, like I thought the world was moving in a different direction. Away from circus [00:21:00] animals and like animals in captivity. I think there's a

Paris: misunderstanding, um, by. I think a few, a couple, few influencers probably. And then a few, uh, corporations. Um, and hopefully it just dies quickly cause, um, this is not going to happen.

Yeah. I can't see this possibly going anywhere. I mean, the amount of people who are actually terrified of clowns is large.

It's not that cute.

I thought it was creepy when I was a kid and I still think it's creepy. There's so many directions to go. It's not the one.

Kevin: It's one that you might, like you might think is like safe from a narrative standpoint, but really when you dig into it, it's not all that safe.

What I would do instead. Is if that's the way you want to go. I would think more along the lines of story, like building, like, think of, think of your room in terms of, in terms of a story. And that could be one that's something that's like special to you. Whether that's coming from a favorite book that you had as a child, whether that's coming [00:22:00] out of your own heritage, whether that's coming from a different place, instead of building that, you know, That Barnum and Bailey. Ringling brothers thing.

Themes are Over rated

Paris: Yeah, I do think that it's important to say. You really, you don't have to have a theme. If you don't want to have a theme, you don't have to. Um, I know no. No birthday parties.

That's been a thing too. For children's birthday parties. It's been, there's been large pushes for themes, having everything be themed. You don't have to do that. You can. Do what you want to do. Design your nursery in the way that makes you feel good.

Eclectic and Personal

Kevin: I think the fun thing in terms of, um, nursery design, if, if, if you're not a designer and you want to do something is just feel free to, to make it eclectic. And sometimes even if you are a designer, that's sort of a better way to do it. Um, we definitely did that pulling in more personal items, you know, the kids had , a special rocks. Yeah.

And their tassels. [00:23:00] And, you know, things that were unique to them that are way more important than any instagram photo that you could get out of like pointing to a certain corner in the nursery.

Recommendations on How to Approach the Nursery Design

Kevin: Instead of going for a theme instead of going for a motif or even a trend. I want to encourage, keep it personal to you. Obviously safety first.

Paris: Yes. Safety.

Kevin: The second one would be to make it a place that makes you happy and that you feel good in and if that goes outside of a trend, God bless you. The third thing would be to go into a concept or going to a, um, even if you want to go into a theme, make it something that's personal to you. And that you're going to appreciate.

Even if you want to share , that on social media, it's going to mean a lot more because it's an expression of yourself and not just a, not just an expression of how much better, how much worse you are able to do a variation on a trend versus someone else on the internet.

Sad beige [00:24:00] baby, probably not over, but man, there's some weird things coming down the line that are trying to eclipse it. Thank you so much. We'll see you next time.

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