Baby's got style: my top 5

I just became an Aunty, and I couldn't be prouder! My 'baby' brother and girlfriend (in Perth) have had a gorgeous little boy and we will be visiting soon.

So I thought it might be nice to share with you the room I did for my baby boy and my top 5 things I found to be the most useful and stylish kids things in my home...

1. (Above) In Hugo's room, my absolute number 1 must-have is my feeding chair. Comfortable, high backed (great if you're nodding off in the middle of the night!), low arms, a little bit of bounce - this is the best $30 (at Big W) I ever spent! I recovered the cushion in Amy Butler fabric from Addicted to Fabric. (I also made the bed linen and painted the tree mural).

2. (Above) Automated 'speaker light' (on the wall above the chair). I made this one and it was easy peasy. Take one old fashioned wooden speaker, remove internal speakery bits and daggy 70's fabric, replace fabric with cute paper from Pepe's. Screw new batten light (low wattage) to base, hang on the wall. Get husband to hook it up to his crazy home automation set up so that it comes on when baby stirs, stays on while mum feeds/changes baby and stays on for 10 minutes after she leaves - brilliant.

3. (Above) Ikea Antilop high chair. Brilliant because of it's simplicity. This is the BEST high chair ever and a a measly $49 it's well worth coercing a friend to bring one down from Sydney. Why is it so good? let me tell you about the crap that gets stuck in the 'puffy' padded chairs - this one is hoseable (I wont go into detail of a moment when we needed to put baby and chair straight into the shower! handy!). And with easily removable legs, it goes anywhere. Oh and it's look works brilliantly in my dining room!

4. (Below) Infa re-arrangeable gate system (from Baby Wombats, Belconnen) is one of the less ugly aternatives for houshold defence against children. Comes as a horrible multi coloured set, or if you are an opportunist like me, you can talk them into letting you buy all of the white ones. This is great, we have used it for playpen (baby prison), crowd control (and balloon control) at a huge 1 year old's party, and fencing off the outdoor stairs. But most of the time it is the 3 metre wide audio-visual defence system in our lounge room. Set against our white tv credenza, I don't really notice it anymore!

5. (Above) Wheely Bug ride-on ladybug. Available at City pharmacy (Canberra Centre) and The Little Red Engine in Phillip. This is great Australian design, award winning innovation etc... and absolutely adorable and very well loved.