Let’s dream about the sea

We enjoyed a wonderful sunny weekend in Rotterdam and almost decided to drive to the sea, as it is only 30 minutes away by car. Instead we reached the city and got this year's first ice cream outside. The sunny weather get me into a holiday vibe, and that’s why I came into the idea for this post.

Let’s dream about the sea. 

It is such a timeless theme, which you can always use in a children’s room.  It brings a calm and relaxed atmosphere.  I like to see it with soft blue colours to cheer up our mood and hopefully bring good memories.  How we can decorate with the sea theme?  There is plenty of choice on the market, as  brands Ferm Living and Bloomingville are this season offering many accessories dedicated to the sea theme. A wallpaper with boats pattern, pillows, plaids and lovely sea soft animals, to add to child’s bed. You can find a lovely wall stickers, posters, clocks and little accessories, just look around. I will advice to stay close to different tones of blue and grey and contrast them with navy blue or red, mustard colours. Are you ready for summer to come ? I'm so much look forward to it! 

Thank you for inspiration.

 Picture used in this post - credits : 1 - 2 - 3 -4 & 5 - 6 7 8 9 - 10 &11 -12

Sweet dreams with Rafa-kids

I always wanted to create a magic room which would be all about children’s dreams and sleeping time. Unique space filled with dreamy soft colours and textures….

and here we are : new room created by Rafa-kids - we called it Sweet dreams. 

I’m not afraid of dark colours for children’s rooms. I think they give a feeling of cosiness to a room. I decided to create a space, with different dark elements : curtains, wall paint and dark furniture - in this case R toddler bed in dark chocolate. The base of the room was then kept in one atmosphere and calm.  All the accessories, which gave this room a personal character where selected with more present colours in mind: pink, orange and yellow. I wanted to give the room more details and soft girly character. 

For example, dark knitted lamps were personalised by adding little pink metal butterflies. New bedding in Rafa-kids collection ‘Ashes of roses’ was just such a perfect choice for this room. Reach texture of stonewashed linen and the deep and elegant colour of it. Together with grey and pink lavender pillows make all this look so perfect. 

Do you remember animal drawings from our Rafa-kids lookbook? They were designed for us by Asia Gwis / Kavka design. Well, we brought them into real life with us and made wall stickers to decorate. Do you like it?  We think they should be part of Rafa-kids collection very soon. 

What do you think about the wardrobe / storage wall to expose the garments, shoes and toys?  The grey colour is such a good base for these kind of projects….and if you will look very carefully you might discover a new Rafa-kids design already……

Special Thanks to:

Rotterdam kids store - Bonbonontheblock

for all the beautiful clothes 

from Mini Rodini, The Animal Observatory, Kidscase, GreyLabel , Stella McCartney Kids, 

and store in Sliedrecht - Loods5 for furniture and accessories: 

Eames rocking chair, Bloomingville rug, great lamps and baskets. 

NEW A teen bed - wide and comfy

It took us a while, but we did it!  We had plenty of customers asking for designing a wide and comfortable bed for their kids. We tried, we sketched , talked about it and talked even more.  Then we looked at our classic A teen bed which is a part of F&A set combination, and thought, well, why not to try and make a wider version of it. It is such a simple, elegant bed - do we really need something more? Let’s try it. 

Few weeks ago we got first prototype in Rafa-kids studio and we liked it a lot from the first moment we’ve put it together. 

If you have a lot of space in your child’s room and would like to get a bed which will go for years, 

I think we have an answer for you -  A teen bed. 

It is a very slim bed design with a great material efficiency. 

The best of both worlds: very sustainable in production and beautifully minimal in design.

Beautiful products from the collage: 

Rafa-kids NEW A teen bed  120x200 cm

Pantomime - Round pillow

White Stone Washed Linen Set 

White Stone Washed Pillows 

S shelf natural + white metal

White basket 

Colourful blocks - Millergoodman 

NEW Rafa-kids A teen BED

Finally we are ready to show you Rafa-kids NEW A teen bed!  

Following so many requests from our customers to make our classic A teen bed in bigger sizes, we are so happy to introduce A90 and A120 beds. The new sizes are respectively: 200x90cm and 200x120cm wide.  

We created this playful boys space, to show you how nice it is to have a bed in the middle of the room. It’s simple and elegant design makes the biggest piece of furniture in a bedroom almost disappear. The bed is very low, so visually doesn’t take much space and you will have so much pleasure to decorated it. Pillows and plaids, favourite cuddles and personal belongings will definitly take a first place in the room. Since the bed doesn’t have any headboard, it also makes it very flexible to position in a room. 

I can only say- Let’s play with it! 

Cosy corner for siblings

Today we are crawling under Rafa-kids bunk bed ….

 it’s a cosy and comfortable little corner for a little girl or two girls sharing a room …

or friends coming over to play and sleep….try to imagine all the possibilities!  

If children share a single room, putting two - one persons’ beds in it, can be not an easy task if we do not have a lot of space. Rafa-kids thought about it.  That’s why we’ve created F & A beds. Each bed can be set apart in the room or put in different positions together. We have so much fun imagining this little corner with F&A beds in white, to show you how beautiful the sleeping - playing corner for children can be. 

Under the F bunk bed there is enough space to put a night shelf, or table, a few suitcases for personal belongings and little boxes for all the treasuries. We need them all, right?  Rafa-kids M shelf fits also perfectly next to the A teen bed. This will give an extra possibility to hang favourite jewellery, bag or softies, which your child would like to have around his/hers bed. 

Rafa-kids is known for a little yellow obsession, so that’s why you see

 it back in this cheerful and positive room.  We hope you like it as much as we do! 

Products on the pictures : 

F&A bed set Rafa-kids , storage baskets , Apple Pillow - grey , Umbrella bedding , 

S shelf and M shelf from Rafa-kids, Geometric pillows + rug - Ferm Living, Little Boxes - Hey. 

favorite stylist part 5 - Kim van Rossenberg

It is finally Friday and I can relax and do something I really like….look for inspirations for my blog. 

You asked me where I take my inspiration from. There are many different ways I get inspired, so let’s start with the first one. Favourite stylists, yes, I follow them on INSTAGRAM, Pinterest and I look for their latest work in magazines and books. Today I would like to show you work of Kim van Rossenberg, who I came across in the Dutch VTwonen magazine. She really likes to work with natural materials and colours, and is a big fun of DIY. What always catches my eye and what I like the most about her style, is that she tries to bring some new ideas and show products in a fresh way. Look at the ladder , which she used in a children room. What a great way to divide a room in a transparent way, child can climb on it, but also hang favourite toys and garment. And do you like the big wardrobe painted half dark and half white, exactly the same as the wall? Such a brilliant idea, to soft the look of such a dominant furniture in a room.  It doesn’t take so much attention anymore and look just so nicely as a part of the child’s room. 

Looking at other stylist’s work, doesn’t mean I wan’t to do exactly the same thing of course, but it gives me sort of fresh wind and inspires me to also try my own ideas and to experiment. 

Thank you Kim for your great inspiration! Kim van Rossenberg on Instagram. 

Pictures via: vtwonen 

Hereby my older posts with other stylist work which I admire and follow: 

part 4  - Jessica Hanson / part 3 - Hans Blomquist  / 

part 2 - Jenni Juurinen /  part 1- Susana Vento 

Creative children’s spaces

Few days ago I was so lucky to find in my post box this wonderful book ‘ Creative Children’s Spaces’ by Ashlyn Gibson. As you can imagine going through all the pages made me very exited!  

Most of the houses the stylist and author of the book Ashlyn Gibson selected and visited with photographer Ben Robertson are not know in the online word.  This makes the content of this book very fresh and unique.  You can also be sure, that the houses are not changed by the stylist, who is trying to show us specific image or product. They take us like a little spy, to watch the real homes and their families.  Dynamic, personal and creative environments which are beautifully captured by photographer Ben Robertson . I had hard time to select pictures to show you. 

Each page is just full of ideas and little details, which you would like to watch, and watch again.  The author Ashlyn discusses the key elements of successful and inspiring children’s spaces: colour, wall décor, storage, display, dens and hideaways, creative spaces plus homework zones, and cozy bedrooms. We are very touched to also see our Rafa-kids R toddler bed in one of the houses! 

Images from Creative Children’s Spaces by Ashlyn Gibson, 

photography by Ben Robertson, published by Ryland Peters & Small  

available at : rylandpeters.com/creative-childrens-spaces