From baby names to car seats to the best brand of diapers, there are just so many decisions to make when you've got a baby on the way. Designing your baby's nursery can be one of the most exciting and important adventures you'll go on pre-birth. This room will be the first 'home' your baby knows, and you want to create a space that'll comfort them, inspire them, and help them develop into the curious toddler you want them to be. But, you don't have to know what you'll be having to create a nursery to be jealous of - gender-neutral nursery ideas have come a long way, and there's one perfect for your bundle of joy.
Explore the Stars With a Space-Themed Nursery
Space is one of the great unexplored parts of the universe, and what better way to connect your baby with their place in the world than showing them where their home is in it? Gravitate towards deep blues for paint color and sheets, then create contrast with the deeper colors by using pops of yellow and orange as accents. Glittering fairy lights can also act as stars and bring a bright feeling to the little one's space.
Create an Interesting Space for Baby With Color Blocking
Color blocking is a cool way to use every part of a small space while giving it a ton of character. Stick to gender-neutral nursery colors for your main furniture and wall colors and create contrasting accent pieces to add flavor. Think contrasting color picture frames, a color-blocked rug, or hand-painted color-blocked shelves/drawers. This is also a great way to give new life to secondhand furniture or furniture leftover from a previous baby.
Bring the Garden Indoors With a Nature-Inspired Nursery
Going gender-neutral doesn't mean that you have to give up typically feminine themes. There's nothing gender-specific about enjoying all that Mother Nature offers. Recreate the storybook nursery with antique floral prints, wallpapers, or rugs. Similarly, you can add upholstered furniture that has large flowers and vines, cacti, succulents, or whatever you fancy. Don't forget to bring a real piece of Mother Nature into the room by adding a small potted plant that can grow alongside your baby.
Dive Under the Sea With a Gender-Neutral Ocean Theme
Studies show that blue has a calming effect on people, and if there's one thing you want to keep your newborn, it's calm. Help ward off restlessness by decorating your nursery in neutral and deep blues. To tie a theme together with this color, you can go the ocean route. Ocean exploration is a fascinating thing for kids to learn about, and letting them see the wonders of the ocean floor in their room every day is a great way to spark their interest in the world around them. Pick out cute stuffed ocean creatures, and rugs or blankets with oceanic imagery like whales or waves.
Make a Soothing Space With a Minimalist Nursery
If this isn't your first rodeo with kids, you know that the less to clean up, the better. So, a minimalist nursery could be a great idea for you. This is the ultimate challenge in economizing on space and finding pieces that have multiple uses. For instance, a crisp white changing table that doubles as a dresser is perfect. Typically, minimalism puts the focus on the individual pieces you've curated, so you want to keep your walls, light fixtures, and furniture all in cool, neutral tones. Having a less-is-more color scheme and room design can help the space feel calm and soothing.
Let the Clouds Drift Into Your Nursery
Your baby's worries will be light as a feather in this cloud-inspired nursery. Taking colors and textures from nature, you can make a space that's so soothing, your baby won't be able to resist sleeping through the night. Stick to a gender-neutral color palette with whites, light grays, and baby blues for this one. Add little accents of meteorological phenomena like raindrops, umbrellas, wind, and more. Think about giving some texture to your baby's wall by sponging it and letting some of the white come through to mimic the translucency of real clouds.
Create an Energized Environment With Gender-Neutral Color Schemes
If you're running low on energy but want to have a high-energy space, then choosing a single color as your theme is the best idea for you. The entire color wheel's at your disposal, so you can pick any hue or shade out there and customize your space with pieces full of it. Paint the walls that color, or just let the furniture speak to your choice. Either way, monochrome baby nurseries can age well alongside your kid as they move into their different stages. A gender-neutral color like the green shown here can make a nursery feel cheerful and bright.
Easy Ideas for Creating a Gender-Neutral Nursery
Babies are expensive, and one way to save so that you're not adding financial stress to the piles of other things to worry about is to DIY different parts of your nursery. You don't have to own a power drill or spend a lot of money to make the space special, and these are some great ways for new and experienced parents to decorate a nursery on a budget.
Make Your Own Artwork to Hang on the Wall
Whether you're a stick-figure kind of artist or make art for a living, one of the easiest ways to save on nursery decorating is making your own artwork to hang up. Art can take up a lot of visual space without occupying tons of physical space. A few ways for every person to make some art their kid would love are:
- Put a collage in shadow boxes. Take personal items, magazine cutouts, postcards, and more and paste them around each other on the backing board of a shadow box. Once you're done, all you have to do is clip it into the frame, and it'll look like a professional put it together.
- Paint a canvas with an important word or saying. Most people have fair to impressive penmanship, and you can show yours off by painting a word you think's important for your baby to know on it in a bold color. Think things like kindness, adventure, compassion, and joy.
- Have a wall full of loved one's photographs. With some fishing wire or fairy lights and miniature clothespins, you can take your pictures or Polaroids of family and friends and hang up them on an accent wall for your baby to see. That way, they'll always have the people that love them nearby.
Paint or Stain Old Furniture to Make It New
Paint continues to be a DIYers best friend. Whoever said that paint is only meant for the walls, anyway? Painting old furniture is the number one fastest way to upgrade it. Oil-based paints can cover just about any type of furniture, but if you're not fond of covering up natural woods, then a stain could be a suitable solution.
Bring Your Baby Into a Clean Slate Kind of World
If you don't want to influence your baby into being anything other than exactly who they were destined to be, then the first place to start with that blank slate is their nursery. And choosing a gender-neutral nursery theme doesn't have to be a huge political statement. It can be as simple as wanting to explore more creative options than stereotypical color palettes and fabric choices. Either way, the best nursery for your baby is the one you create for them, no matter what ends up inside.
