Want to make a gender-neutral nursery? I’m sharing the plan for ours, which is full of classic nursery ideas, and show you how to decorate a gender-neutral nursery! Plus I walk you through how to plan and design your own room that you will truly love! When you’re done, it will be a Pinterest-worthy room, too!
Ok, I cannot believe this is real life! If you don’t already know, I am going to be a Mimi. EEEEKKKK!! My oldest daughter, Taylor, is having our first grandchild in just a few short (or long for her) weeks and I couldn’t be more excited!
She and her husband have also been building a house and living with us for the past 5 months with all of their things and their two dogs. It has been such a blessing and such a precious time. I know that these days will never return so I am being mindful and soaking up the time with just them. They lived with us right out of college so having them back with us has been so fun! It has been a great time to reconnect on a different level.
Since they are just a few weeks away from moving in and having a baby, I wanted to give her the nursery of her dreams to bring her baby boy home to. It will be the first space that will be completely done in their new home and I am SO excited to be able to do this for her. Their new home is so beautiful and I wanted the nursery to match the look and feel of the home.
The moment she asked if I could do the nursery the ideas started to pour into my brain. Since the room is closest to the master bedroom it will be the nursery for each baby they have so I knew it needed to be neutral. Whether they have another boy or girl in the nursery in the future, she can just add pops of color to the space for that baby. Plus, once the nursery is no longer a nursery the room will become an office so it also needs to be classic and timeless.
Taylor had an idea of what she wanted before we began to dive into the design, but once I started to put together a mood board for the nursery everything she wanted started to change. At first, she wanted a saturated sage-green board and batten trim moulding all around the bottom half of the room, and wallpaper on the top half. That is pretty, but I gave her some alternative design ideas to think about because I know that she gets tired of design elements easily. I knew it needed to be something that she would love for years to come. I loved THIS photo the most and she did, too, so it became my inspiration. Isn’t it GORGEOUS?
First, we set out to find the perfect wallpaper. We looked and looked and finally found THE ONE! It is the most precious bunny wallpaper I have ever seen and what I love most about it is its simple elegance. It is not loud or saturated in color so it is perfect for a neutral base for the room.
The room has a ton of natural light that floods the space. Right now the walls are white like the rest of the home and white carpet will be installed soon so I wanted to add some color to the walls to make it a little cozier. With the neutral color of the wallpaper, it would be easy to saturate the walls with a timeless hue. You can also see the room from the front hallway when you come into the home so I wanted to be sure that the color was cohesive with the rest of the home and that it would add to the beauty of the home and not detract. That your eye would just flow from space to space easily.
The Plan:
The room will be painted in a neutral color that blends nicely with the wallpaper. I will install picture frame moulding to create ‘frames’ around the entire room that will highlight the adorable wallpaper. Once that is done it will be time to add all the other details.
I have an heirloom iron crib that I used for my babies that will be handed down to them for their nursery. It has the sweetest bunny finials at the top and is the prettiest aged gold. Perfect!
I will be adding cute bedding she picked out, the perfect rocker and ottoman, an aged side table, the most adorable changing basket found on ETSY, and vintage finds that will make this nursery sweet and functional. And wait until you see what I am doing with this Amazon chandelier!
TIP* Not everything has to be new in a space. See how I updated an old dresser for $10 in my son’s room and check out how I updated and made an old hutch look beautiful again!
What are neutral colors for a nursery?
Think of the color as a base, not a focal point. In that case, any color could be neutral. However, if you are planning a nursery I would stick with a soft palette. Soft greens, beige, greige, creams.
I can’t wait for it to all come together! I started on the nursery this week. I am 4 days in on this makeover and the room is starting to take shape!! Follow along on IG for daily updates to this space if you aren’t already.
How to design or make a gender-neutral nursery (or any room):
- Pick something you want in the room that will become the “jumping-off” point for the space. For me, it was the wallpaper. But it could be a pillow, bedding, a rug, etc. Find something you love that will be the basis for the space.
- Pick your paint color. The lighter the paint color the bigger the room will feel. The darker the color the cozier and more intimate it will feel. Smaller rooms should be painted a lighter color to make them feel larger when you walk in. If you have tall ceilings, you can paint them a deeper color to bring them down a bit. If you have low ceilings, paint them white to give you as much height as possible in the space. Remember that wall paint really shouldn’t be the highlight of a room unless you’re doing an accent wall. It should quietly support the space, but not overwhelm it.
- Decide what large items will be in the room. In this case, it is the vintage crib, dresser, and rocker/ottoman.
- Then decide on accessories.
- If you don’t have any idea what you want, create a Pinterest board with all of your favorite ideas for THAT room. If you don’t have a particular style you love, just start pinning all the things you like to a specific board! Pinterest is really good at showing you what it thinks you will love, too. Once you have a pretty good board, go back through the board and start to eliminate photos you no longer love. As you do this you will start to define the style you want in your space.
- Once you have your items picked out or have an idea from your Pinterest board of what you want, create a mood board to help define and solidify your vision. You may find that something you thought you wanted doesn’t actually work and you just saved yourself the headache and cost of returning items you won’t/can’t use.
- If using your Pinterest board as inspo, add the elements you loved in your board for that room to your mood board. Take the moulding style from one photo, wallpaper inspo from another, wall color from another, etc. and soon you will have a mood board that you absolutely love and you will be able to create your own Pinterest-worthy room!
Canva.com is my go-to for all mood board creation. Simply screenshot the item you want, upload it into Canva, and place it on your board. It is so simple and so fun!! With the PRO version, you can remove the background of items you upload! That is how I am able to seamlessly layer all the items on the same board without distractions. But you can make your mood board on the free version as well. You can see that I took photos of all the items I want to use in the space and put them together to see how it looks and how it makes me feel. It is the best advice I can give to help you with your design decisions!
I really can’t wait to show you the progress of all of the details going in. I have to install crown moulding this week. Not my favorite part because up is down and down is up, right is left and left is right. But I will do it because it definitely takes a room to the next level.
Wish me luck! I will be back with more details of how this is going and show you what I get done. If you want to keep up with me on this project or any of my projects in real time, follow along on IG for daily updates!
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