Tour this Muralist's Colorful Home in Portland, Maine _ Home Tour _ HGTV Handmade

The Joy of Childhood Play and Design

This is kind of like her little cozy readingnook.My other daughter is our foodie and she loves being able to use the little kitchenette and she'll make food and, like, bring it upstairs on a tray sometimes for us. There's something about toy food that I don't care how old you are, there's just something very magical and fun about them, so. Always want to play with it too. Get served coffee all the time and it's so good and yeah, and then we've got some additional photos.

I think, like just being surrounded in pictures of family is just makes everything better. Neither of us grew up with a playroom, so we didn't really have like a bar set for what a good playroom would entail. We just really tried to let our inner child, like kind of shine and figure out what we would have been excited about. Also, as adults, we wanted to be able to like, you know, visit the girls like space. And it's kind of like a time for us to, like, come check out their pad and just have it be kind of whimsical, good, clean design.

I think I've always loved bright color and pattern, but I think having kids is just like fully enabled us to lean into that and maybe do things that we would have done, but may not as boldly. I mean, it's kind of just our all-of-playhouse, really. This is the girls' bedroom. They asked for a pink room and I did not give them that. I gave them a pink rug. Really don't like the whole assigning color to gender situation. My girls love the color pink, but it's not necessarily just because they're girls. And so I wanted an opportunity to make pink pop.

I also love the ocean and love water. So to be able to have it feel like this immersive experience with pops of pink, I think makes pink feel stronger. Color can really create an environment without having to have a lot of space. The girls' room, we just painted this blue color that makes the room seem way bigger than it was before. It's not a massive space. Just because it's for kids doesn't mean it has to be straight out of the box kind of colors and that you could have something that's appealing for both a child and an adult to enjoy.

I think with my design and mural work, I try to balance that line of it being approachable by both children and adults. It kind of makes kids feel a little bit maybe more sophisticated, but then it makes an adult feel a little bit more playful. We also have these two Marimekko fabrics that are also stretched over canvas. My sister gifted this fabric to me when I was pregnant with each of my daughters. Just feels like something will have forever.

This is a piece by They Go by Dirty Bandits and it's kind of just like a traditional sign painter lettering format. This is kind of where Ryan's style comes into play, where we've got our lettering. And this just felt like the perfect kind of piece to put into the girls' room. This is also by my same friend. So she recreated childhood ornaments that she had, and she's actually my youngest godmother, so she's gifted us these that are also kind of like mementos from her childhood that have been made modern, which is kind of, in a way, a theme of a lot of the stuff in our home by having all these handmade objects by family members and loved ones around.

I hope it inspires them that if they have an inkling to be creative that they feel like they can just do it and they have examples of people doing it. I mean, we always say like, be like, just be unapologetically yourself. And I think for them to see us both following our dreams, it's exciting because not a lot of people get to see their parents do what they love. And so I think that in itself is powerful.

And then I think growing up in a house full of art, I think is just joyful. The artwork that they bring back home. Can see our house reflected in what they're doing at school. You know, it's what we're passionate about. And being able to share that passion with our kids is really exciting.

Honestly, this is like it's going to sound kind of weird. I'm excited for the next adventure. Think that, you know, you learn so much with taking over a space like this and then it's like help me build my creative voice and my design sense and it makes me want to take on additional challenges and like what possibly could be next. Mean, it's exciting.