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When New Orleans–based art director Rebecca Hollis Dalovisio gave birth to her son, Pete, on November 27 (Black Friday), her friends thought it was pretty fitting. “Because I love a good deal,” she says, laughing. In case you needed another reminder, step inside the now 2-month-old’s candy-colored nursery, which was once upon a time Dalovisio and her husband Andy’s home office. At the center of the 105-square-foot room is a Robert Sonneman Lollipop light, scored at an unassuming estate sale six years ago for a mere $30 (similar ones retail for $800 on Chairish). “It was all about the lamp,” according to the creative. 

With her focal point figured out, Dalovisio turned her attention to the bones of the room. Given this isn’t the young family’s forever home, the only renovations she made came in the form of paint, peel-and-stick cane wallpaper (peep the inside of the closet door), and $12 globe bulbs for the existing chandelier. “That swap was easily the biggest bang for my buck,” recalls Dalovisio. 

Case Closed

The whimsical 1960s lamp is too tall to go on an end table and too short to sit on the floor, so Dalovisio tapped into her graphic design skills and created a bookcase to go around it. She played with the arched cutouts, flipping the shapes in different directions to make the top and bottom shelves. After six different iterations, she handed off the final 2-D and 3-D renderings to local fabricator Colin Keith at Union Studios, who coated the piece in Sherwin-Williams’s Green Aura in a flat finish. “It’s what really gives the light that extra boost of visual interest,” she says. 

Courtesy of Rebecca Hollis Dalovisio

It took some convincing to get her husband on board with the playful piece, but Dalovisio had a winning closing argument: It can live in other rooms down the road, at least with the right coat of paint. “I could see it in a white or black high-gloss, even lacquer, in a living room one day,” she explains. 

Up, Up, and Away

To accentuate the height of the space, Dalovisio painted all four walls crisp white, relegating Sashay Sand, a rusty tan tone, to the sloped ceiling. “When I saw it, I panicked at first,” she recalls (the couple didn’t know the gender of the baby yet, and the hue was reading as salmon pink in the can). “But when it went onto the ceiling, it completely changed just based on the light.”

Sweet Dreams

“You don’t want to skimp on the crib when it’s basically going to be your baby’s house,” says Dalovisio. In August, after doing a ton of research and polling fellow moms, she came across then-just-launched DTC crib brand Nestig and opted for its most popular model, the Wave Crib (finally back in stock after selling out in less than a month). “I decided to step out of my comfort zone by going with natural wood,” she adds. The piece converts from a mini crib to a full crib to a toddler bed, making the $600 price tag a whole lot more digestible. It’s another bargain for the books.

Photography by Paul Costello 

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