She is known as an actress, but British-born Jane Seymour also is quite the homebody. She has renovated, decorated and sold “at least nine homes in the U.S.” since landing here 30 years ago. She has created her own company and brand of home goods, which are sold at The Great Indoors and on her Web site ( www.janeseymourhome.com). And she recently came out with her first decorating book, “Jane Seymour, Making Yourself at Home” (DK Publishing, 191 pages, $40).
We caught up with Seymour when she was in Chicago earlier this year, and we talked to her about creative ideas for children’s rooms — a topic she knows well as a mother of six. All of these ideas are covered in her book and were used in her home in Malibu, Calif.
— Karen Klages, [email protected]
1. It’s a jungle in there: For a baby’s room, paint a jungle-themed mural on the walls and hang stuffed animals from it, using picture hooks. You get a colorful backdrop and a clever way to “store” all those fuzzy critters, says Seymour, who received “two of every stuffed toy” before the birth of her (now) 11-year-old twin boys, Kris and John.
Her instructions to the artist doing her sons’ mural: Put an ocean around the jungle. “It makes the room look much bigger if you have the horizon in the distance.” And make sure there are enough tree branches from which to hang the critters.
Animals hang discreetly from the picture hooks via little ribbons, which Seymour says should be removed before giving the toys to babies.
2. Surf’s up: When babies get to be 9 or so, reinvent that mural. When Seymour’s twins got to be of a certain age, she morphed the jungle theme into a surfer’s den. She kept the mural backdrop, but built a grass hut over their twin beds, which were placed side-by-side with bamboo headboards to the wall and a nightstand between them. She and her carpenter created the structure with 2-by-4s nailed to the back wall and at ceiling level. She covered that wooden frame with bamboo hollows (bought at a craft store) and then topped the “hut” with grassy reeds (also a craft store find). Tiki lanterns hang from the hut.
3. Pictures perfect: To display kids’ drawings, Seymour says, “get an eclectic combination of different frames” (ready-made and inexpensive) and change out the pictures on a regular basis. And “feel free to edit.” Cut out the best parts of pictures to fit the frames.
4 A wallscape of their own: For boys 12 and older, Seymour suggests getting them involved. Get a low bed and hang a huge (floor-to-ceiling) framed and matted corkboard behind the bed as a pseudo headboard. The corkboard becomes this “constant collage” that can be changed. “It becomes very much their own wallscape.”
5. Girls crave cozy: For a girlie-girl who happens to have a tiny, low-ceilinged room, “embrace the coziness,” Seymour says. “Get a canopy bed. You don’t have to have big curtains and a lot hanging from it.” For daughter Katie (who is now 25), she hung “some lace scarves and pieces of lace that I found” over the top rails. “None of the lace matched.” Airy, inexpensive pieces of tulle also would work.