Nursery Decoration Ideas

We did a jungle/safari theme. We bought a bedding set and then I free-handed a vine around the top of the room and added leaves. It was really easy and WAY cute!

I used Sesame Street for my first child, Disney animals for my second, and when my foster daughter lived with us she used Winnie the Pooh. All are pretty non sex oriented and easy to work with.

Rain forest FIsher price theme. Can be a boy or a girl That is what we did for my daughter. Paint a big tree and then put animals in the tree... As she gets older you can change it a little and make it fairies if it is a girl or bugs if it is a boy.

You have some good neutral theme advice here. When my daughter was born in 1984, I decked out the room with Winney The Pooh bedding and a Winney The Pooh lamp from Sears.

The bedding was green and I felt this was a neutral alternative to pink and blue. The carpeting in the room was green at that time. The green Winney the Pooh theme did not clash with the green print drapes that I had.

Look around at Sears and Burlington Coat Factory in the Southland Shopping Center in Middleburgh Heights.
Burlington Coat Factory has a separate section for babies. Good Luck.

I would say what some others have said. Paint the walls a neutral color or two- yellow, green, aqua, pale orange, and then go find some stencils you like and "splash" them around the room. There are a lot of cute bedding sets with beige or tan as a main color, too. Aqua with orange fish would be cute. Or just do something really simple like stars. You could even do an animal theme- ducks, bees, lambs, rabbits, monkeys, safari animals, farm animals. You could probably find coordinating material to make a valance- just a rectangle with a wider hem on the top-side. Our nursery is pale green with a farm theme because our daughter loved Old MacDonald's Farm when we moved in. How about sky blue or aqua with kites? I've never seen that done and it would be really cute and simple. ABCs are another good standard choice and you can definitely find bedding with that as a theme. I don't know if you're into it, but I think a cowboy or horses theme could be cute for either. You could always add a few extra stencils in purple or pink to girlie it up, if the baby happens to be a girl. My best advice is not to take on anything too complicated and do a little at a time. Have fun!

Hi K.,
Congratulations! We were like you & gender was a surprise. We did our 1st daughter's room in ocean stuff & our 2nd daughter's in jungle stuff. The best advice I got about decorating was from a co-worker ~ she said not to go too baby-ish so the child can grow up a little bit in the room. Our oldest is 8 & she has the same boarder, light switches, curtains, etc. I'm sure she'll want to change it later, but she still enjoys it. Good luck!
H.

If you don't want to know, that narrows it down, but I don't blame you. I wouldn't want to know either. Noah's ark is a "neutral" theme and will be EASY to find items. You can even go as simple as an animal or Noah's ark border and then go from there. Jungle or enchanted forest would also be neutral. I saw a nursery done in THE JUNGLE BOOK about 10 years ago that was absoltely PHENOM! If you have a favorite book.....like.....THE VELVETEEN RABBIT......that could ALSO be a great room theme that's neutral. GREAT STORY, GREAT LIFE LESSON, too!

I actually design and make custom baby bedding...you pick the fabrics and go from there. Check out my website at www.lullabycustombedding.com. With most fabrics the design of the nursery comes very easy! I actually used extra fabric from my daughter's set to decorate the walls as well. Let me know if you are interested1

Congrat on becoming a Mommy and not finding out the sex! We didn't either and it was the best surprise for both of our girls' births!

We did our nursery in Boyd's Bears. They are adorable and have multiple sets to choose from. I collect them anyway, so we road-tripped to Gettysburg, PA to buy it all in person, but I'm sure you can find it online.

Try google by typing in Boyd's Bear Nursery sets or something to that effect. I can also send you some pictures of our nursery if you want to see it. Just e-mail me privately!

Hi, K.! Congratulations on your pregnancy! I hope everything is going well and you are feeling great! My sister bought some wall adhesives that are removable and reusable from Pottery Barn Kids, and they are adorable! I think bumble bees or maybe some sort of an aquatic theme would be cute... with sea horses, star fish, octopus, things like that. Once the baby is born, you can even buy the wooden letters to put the name on the wall... that's always really cute too! Then again, you can just leave the walls painted a neutral light green or yellow and decorate the walls with the wooden letters and lots of precious pictures of mom, dad, and baby!! Pictures are always a hit! Best of luck!!

Hello K.,We didn't find out the sex of our child either.  It was really hard to find something neutral.  Everything now is so gender specific.  We ended up going with a moon and stars theme.  It's light blue and yellow and absolutely beautiful. We painted the walls a light yellow. We went with white furniture for the room also.  Oh by the way, we had a little girl and it's perfect even without pink..   

First, Big Congrats!!! Second, decorating a gender neutral nursery has its challenges but you've got a lot of options these days. My advice would be to paint the room a color that could be boy or girl and choose curtains or other accents to buy once she/he is here. We choose a fun green color that would go great with purple or blue curtains. For bedding we bought a white sheet and crib skirt then added a purple bumper down the road. (You will save a ton of money by not buying a crib set.) It was so neat to finally put the curtains up once she was home!

Hi K.,

I am a new mommy of a 3 month old and we did not find out the sex of our baby. For the nursery, I decided to decorate the nursery with brown and ivory. Then I could add details of blue or pink after the baby was born to personalize the room. I used safari animals from pottery barn for the bedding and other decor for the room, which I really like. Just a thought, hope it helps!

We also didn't find out the sex of our first child and we just kept it very simple and then when she was born we added some "girly" stuff. We painted the room a bright cheery yellow, and added some moons and stars and planets that were paint stamped in a couple of the corners of the room, hung one of the large paper stars in the corner which was great for the middle of the night visits since it wasn't bright, and hung a couple pictures on the wall and bought some pink toy bins after she was born. The bumper had animals on it, so in a way it ended up having a little bit of a circus theme. It was also rather inexpensive by keeping it very simple. The baby will never remember what the room looked like. Remember for awhile you'll be spending just as much time in there as well so make it nice for you as well.

J.

I used the Bubble Bee theme by Wendy Bellisimo. I bought it at Babies R Us. It is great quality, a little pricey but well worth it. I also bought the mobile, lamp, shelf, and curtains. It is basically white, black, yellow, and light green. I painted the walls a pale yellow and it looked great. Now that my daughter is older, I left the room yellow but turned it into a toddler's room with lots of pink!!! Congrats on your pregnancy!

Our son is an artist and he drew pictures of nursery rhymes all around the room with sayings under them. You might look into decals and they have wordings now you can put on your walls. His turned out terrific!! You might even buy a book with pictures and try to paint some yourself...I think they did a yellow wall to start with, as they didn't know the sex either. Good luck and God bless.....

Hi K.:

I didn't find out with either of mine. My only advice I have would be to decorate the nursery for you, not the baby. I did an animal theme with the John Lennon imagine bedding. I ended up having a boy and the room was probably a little girly since we decided on green, lavender and yellow and had picked out white furniture, but I was able to add enough boy stuff to make it work.
I ended up having a girl after that and it was real easy to make just a few changes for her. Good Luck!!

I would go with a gender neutral color in a light tone such as off-white, green, yellow, aqua, or peach.
Then I would look for the wall decals that are easily removable and go in the direction of sesame Street, ABC's, crayons, nursery Rhyme characters, or cute puppies and kittens.
Do white or woodgrain furniture and there you are!
You can always change the wall decor in a few years to something your child likes as he or she gets older.

P.S. I always had some sort of interesting pictures on the wall where I changed diapers....animals, colors, characters, letters of the alphabet, familiar objects to name, whatever....something to point to, sing about, that your child can be distracted by and maybe learn about.

Hi K.,

A quick way to "make" curtains, with whatever theme (or non-theme) you choose: Get a sheet and run the curtain rod through the top hem. Tie back with ribbon, cord, rope, whatever.

If you have small windows, or want a valance, you could probably take apart a pillowcase and use that if you can sew up the raw edges. If you don't have a machine, maybe a friend/relative could help you out.

Red-white-blue is a color scheme that could go either way.

We didn't find out our kids' sex before birth either (well, actually my husband found out for the second one, but kindly refrained from telling me!). I'm glad some people still want to be surprised!

Congrats and have lots of fun!!

K. Z.

I found out what both my children were before they were born so decorating was pretty easy. However, i would suggest not making a complete baby theme. I docorated my son's room with firefighter/sports so as he grows older he will still enjoy his room. For my daughter we did a beautuful boarder that looks like satin bows strung on the walls and picked princesses. We did not do disney princess we did authentic princess. Which she will also be able to enjoy when she is bigger. Good luck! Congrats on your pregnancy.

I didn't find out what my first child was either. We decorated his room in animals. You could do a zoo theme or Noah's arc.

I agree with some of the others, a neutral color is great. We used that light teal green that is popular for our son's room. Even though we found out ahead what he was, my thinking was that I would want to reuse the nursery for his future sibling and wanted to keep it neutral. To save money, I used paint and a rug/valence from Walmart. I'm an artist so I did paint a Pooh mural for his room, but my suggestion for those who do not feel talented is to get creative stencils and a nice border. Simplicity actually goes a long way!

I did kind of my own thing when I had my son. I did a Tebby Bear room. I didn't know what I was having, and allt he teddy bears seem to have a boys theme so I just found my own. I went to a specialty paint/wallpaper store and got books to look through for kids. I found a border I liked that worked for both sexes. Painted the room based off colors from the border, and simply filled the room with different teddy bear decorations.
I loved finding out at birth the sex of my little man. Congrats on your bundle of joy!

There are a lot of cute Noah's Ark things out there. Paint the walls tan, get a Noah's Ark bedset (Kmart has a really cute one), then find a poster or pictures etc of Noah's ark. Even just some animal pictures would be cute- giraffes, lions, monkeys. I have seen material with Noah's ark also.

We took famous nursery rhymes and worked around that. Baby #1: Old McDonald Has A Farm. Baby #2: Hey Diddle Diddle. By the way, I'm glad you are not finding out ahead of time. My doc said he liked it best when he got to announce the sex when he pulled the baby out.

I'm very happy for you and so glad you asked this question. I have a catalog full of ideas, available on my website [a mom-owned business] Browse it online to get themed ideas, or to find a special expression that shares your joy of bringing a baby into this world. If you already have a theme, then you can search the embellishment library or customize the style, size, color and font of your words with MyDesign Tool options(also online) to make the decorations all your own. Please see http://MindyN.uppercaseliving.net
Please email me if you have any questions. Although I am located in Cincinnati, you can order from me online, join my team to share this exciting opportunity or have a 'book' party to get free products.

Pottery Barn has a new Dr. Seuss line of bedding and decor. What I like about Dr. Seuss is that it will last several years and not just be 'babyish'. If you don't want to go broke buying the entire set, just buy maybe a crib sheet and then decorate the room in primary colors. If you use a crib bumper, you could just use a denim/chambray one and get matching curtains.

You could do a google search online to perhaps find Dr. Seuss related decor. Maybe they have wallpaper border - paint each of the walls a different color (yellow, blue, green, red) but only halfway and then put up wallpaper border about where a chair rail would be and leave the top half of the wall white. If you're crafty, buy wood letters for the baby's initials and paint them in fun, funky colors, using ribbon to hang them. If you're not crafty, Land of Nod, Pottery Barn, and other places have pre-cut, pre-designed letters. You might be able to hire an artist to paint a simple mural or paint characters on the top half of the walls, along with memorable lines from Dr. Seuss stories.

If we have another boy, I'm totally entertaining this idea but if it is a girl she's getting a pink and green girly fantasy!