Welcoming a bundle of joy into your home is an incredibly exciting time, and you’ll want everything to be just right for your baby’s arrival, especially the nursery. There are masses of design ideas out there for decorating the nursery, and Pinterest is a great way to get ideas, but to get you started we’ve rounded up a few of our favourite nursery design trends.
1. Scandi Simplicity
The Scandinavians are known for their simple, stunning home design which utilises lots of white, black and natural wood tones, offset with clean lines and simple prints. Scandi design is about simplicity and an absence clutter, so to get the perfect Scandi nursery, limit the amount of furniture and trinkets to the bare minimum.
White walls are essential for your Scandi nursery, but spend some time choosing the shade of white to compliment the room.
Rooms with little natural light may benefit from a warmer, almost cream, shade to make the room feel cosier, while rooms with a lot of natural light can be the perfect canvas for a more grey-white. Continue the flow by hanging long, white linen curtains on a high curtain rail. While beautiful, these won’t keep out much light, so you may want to install a blackout blind in a similar shade of white or grey.
A wooden or wood effect floor with a black and white striped rug can perfect this look, but if this feels a little cold for a nursery, a neutral carpet in cream or beige will work just as well.
In terms of furniture, again keep things natural. A simple cot in a light wood with white or light grey bedding and matching wooden chair or rocker are the perfect accompaniments to your neutral design. Finally on the walls a geometric black and white print in a black or light wood square edged frame will look stunning and stimulates your baby’s eyesight. Check out Pinterest for free printables which you can frame.
2. Inspirational & adventurous
An adventure and inspiration theme is a great gender-neutral nursery idea, and perfect for parents with wanderlust. There are thousands of takes on this idea (just search Pinterest for ‘adventure nursery’), but one of our favourite design ideas is a mountain themed room.
With this idea the focal point will be a mural wall. There are a number of ways to create this, either through taping off ‘mountain’ sections, or by creating a layered, freehand design using painting sponges. The colours you use are up to you, keep it light and airy with beiges, greys and light blues, or a more dramatic scene with dark greys and a bright yellow sun.
This idea will work with any nursery furniture so is suitable if you’ve already purchased your furniture set. Pull the look together using subtle touches such as a cot mobile with mountains and clouds, a globe as a nightlight, and adventure themed wall art.
3. Floral & fancy
Big, bold floral themes are a modern take for a traditional girl’s nursery. This trend is all about big prints and bright colours within a confined space, balanced with block colours in matching tones.
A large print, bright floral wallpaper is the perfect way to create this look, but if you’re renting and can’t decorate the walls, or prefer something easier to change in future, then a bold print floral curtain is another way to get the look. Choose up to three colours from your floral print and pick these out by choosing wall colour, furniture and soft furnishings in these shades. For example a rug with green detailing to pick out the leaves, and a soft pink chair to match the petals. If you have space, a mini tipi or quilted pouffe are cute additions to this nursery idea.
4. Cosy & cute
All those adorable cuddly toys and cute cushions you’ve had your heart set on, this is the time to buy them! Create a cosy, comfortable and 100% childlike space by making a feature of stuffed toys, tied together by keeping everything in the space in similar tones.
Use fairy lights and bunting to up the cute factor, softening any ‘hardness’ to the room with plenty of oversized pillows, furry rugs and snuggly blankets.
Prints can work in this space, provided they’re simple geometrics and match the tones of the room, but avoid florals or fussy patterns which may clash with the details on other accessories.
While lots of soft furnishings will make for a wonderfully cosy space, things can start of feel a little claustrophobic, so use large framed mirrors to open up the space without losing the cosy feel.
5. Beautiful Bijou
While it would be lovely if we all had huge rooms just waiting to become nurseries, the reality is that ours homes often aren’t as spacious as we’d like. If your nursery could best be described as bijou or even a ‘box room’ then don’t fear – it can still be beautiful.
It’s a well-known that light colours make a space look bigger, while dark colours and detailed prints draw walls inwards, so bear these principles in mind when creating your space. Whites, creams or very light pastels are ideal wall colours.
Give the illusion of space to a room by drawing the eye upwards using floor to ceiling curtains, hung from a high curtain pole. A long, thin mobile can help give the illusion of space. On the floor, if you have hard floors, a rug which covers most of the floor leaving a small space around the outside of the room which also create a feeling of space.
Keeping furniture minimal, and in shades of white or light wood will maximise the space you have. Avoid shelves, chunky wall art, or anything which breaks the line from floor to ceiling. If you need extra storage space, a floor to ceiling wardrobe in a light colour is a practical and stylish solution.
6. Baby luxe
Who said babies can’t be luxurious? Add a touch of class to your new arrivals nursery by making gold a central part of your colour scheme. A gold, metal or painted wooden cot is the perfect centrepiece, echoed by gold detailing on cushions, bunting, picture frames or wall art.
Set off your gold accessories with more neutral, dusky tones for your wall, floor and bedding colours. Navy, cream, dusky pink/blue/green all work well with metallics and can be adjusted for a girls, boys or gender neutral room.
Ramp up the luxe by adding plush soft furnishings such as furry cushions and snuggly rugs in colours which match your colour scheme. A snug reading corner with cushions piled high will add to the luxury feel, and give you somewhere to curl up when the late nights become too much.
7. Good old traditional
A guide to nursery design ideas wouldn’t be complete without a nod to the traditional way of doing things. If you’re planning more than one baby our top tip is to keep your furnishings in white or natural wood tones, using soft furnishings in pinks, blues to pull the room together, meaning your nursery can easily be adapted for future children.
In terms of accessories, there’s nothing sweeter in a baby’s bedroom than a rocking horse, and there are a huge range of styles and colours on the market to suit your style.
If you feel your nursery needs brightening up a bit, try creating a frame gallery on one wall, making this a feature wall. Use Velcro hangings for your frames to make it easy to switch out the frame contents – a portrait gallery of different cartoon animals can look very effective, or find a huge range of free printables online to match your colour scheme – Pinterest is a good source, as are mummy blogs.