How Jenny Johnson Designed a Gender-Neutral Nursery
NESN Dining Playbook cohost Jenny Johnson welcomes her new bundle of joy with a light-filled nursery.
Photo by Allison Sepanek
The Problem
It’s a…surprise! Johnson and her husband, magazine editor Robert Cocuzzo, needed a cozy space for baby in their new South End home, but they didn’t know whether they were having a boy or a girl.
The Solution
Maggie Lydecker Kanter, an interior designer with Wayfair’s new e-design service, worked with Johnson to create a gender-neutral room with plenty of personal touches. Faux grasscloth wallpaper on the back wall adds texture to the space, while the clean-lined Oeuf crib gives the nursery a midcentury-modern vibe. The focal points, however, are the gilded world map—a nod to the couple’s love of travel—and the one-of-a-kind Pasargad rug, layered with a white shag rug for comfort. The corner bookshelf, meanwhile, features gold elephant bookends—a favorite motif of the parents-to-be that Lydecker Kanter subtly incorporated throughout the space. “I wanted the room to be vibrant, versatile, and imbued with the sense of adventure [we] hope to impart to our little one in the years to come,” Johnson says. “Wayfair swooped in like an interior-design SWAT team and brought that concept to life.”
