No Place for Young Men

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Thursday, April 17, 2008

As the mother of 5-year-old Margaret, who lives in a lavender-painted room with a sweet Victorian chair and a bed topped by four pillows and a pig named Cinderella, I know an over-the-top kid's room when I see one.

At the D.C. Design House in Georgetown, the little girl's room shouts "ta-da" from the hallway. Some people might think walls upholstered with fat pink peonies and a ceiling painted apple green are a touch loud. Not I. I see those quilted peonies as an important safety feature when her Osborne & Little boudoir is invaded by her football-throwing baby brother, and she hurls him across the room in irritation.

Designer Victoria Neale acknowledged that a pink-and-green design combo "can be really cliche." But she thinks it's cheery, and I agree. I imagine my little girl hopping up onto the turn-of-the-century, four-poster twin bed (snagged at the Georgetown Flea Market a few years back), cozying under the raspberry coverlet and white-and-green duvet (Pottery Barn) and forgetting all about the brother next door.

Liz Seymour