And then, in March, one did. Through a network of friends and kind circumstances, good luck and prayer, tiny Chloe Elizabeth was placed in Laverty's arms through the adoption process. At 44, Laverty, single and a district-sales manager for an Internet automobile company, was a mom at last. And that baby, she vowed, would have a room that was worthy of its tiny empress.
"I knew that I wanted Chloe's room to be peaceful and beautiful, but not overdone," Laverty recalls. "I wanted it to feel soft, serene, and delicate. And when I learned in January that the baby was going to be a girl, I started letting myself dream of her room."
Laverty brought that dream to Phoebe Danahy of Moorestown. Danahy previously had decorated other areas of Laverty's circa 1930s brick cottage just a few blocks from her childhood home in Riverton, a Norman Rockwellian town on the banks of the Delaware River dotted with Victorians and Colonials.
"I knew what I wanted, but not how to get it, and how to achieve the balance of feminine, beautiful, and simple," Laverty says. "I also knew that Phoebe would understand. So, I basically gave her carte blanche, although we agreed on the basics."
Stepping into Chloe's room is to experience the feeling of being enveloped in a color that's more easily felt than defined. Imagine hydrangeas in the blue family after they've mellowed and been kissed by pale violet, and you've got the essence of what is called "Morning Chill" on the paint can.
