My husband and I decided early on in my pregnancy that we didn’t want to find out our baby’s gender. As it turns out, it’s a little difficult to create a gender-neutral nursery. The majority of baby products come in either pink or blue! But we did it, and I couldn’t be happier with the result!
From junk room to nursery (and it only took three years)
We were over-the-moon excited to find out we were pregnant after struggling with infertility. After we calmed down a little, we realized that we were going to have to finally tackle the spare bedroom. The same bedroom that still held boxes from when we bought our house three years prior. *Cue scary music.*
That room was a hot mess. My hubby and I married after we finished college, so we had both been on our own for a while. This meant that we had each accumulated a lot of stuff. And all that stuff had moved with us from our first apartment into our first house. In the process of merging our lives, we merged our stuff into one huge mass of stuff that stayed in our spare bedroom. We shut the door and conveniently forgot about that room and the mess it held until the day we realized we needed to convert it into a nursery.
So we got to work, and many late nights and weekends later, the room was finally empty. We did a little happy dance, shared a high-five, and patted ourselves on the back for a job well done. Until we realized that our work wasn’t over. Now, we had to figure out how to create a gender-neutral nursery on a tight budget. *Cue scary music again.*
Here’s how we created our gender-neutral nursery.
First, pick a color palette
The first thing we did was pick a color palette. Obviously we didn’t want to do pink or blue. I hear a lot of people pick yellow, but I really don’t care for the color, so we went with mint green. And it totally worked out that it’s my favorite color!
Once we picked mint green as the main color, we decided to darken it up a bit with a pretty grey, and then soften it with a nice white. The result was a lovely palette that is was pretty and modern.
As you create your own gender neutral nursery, look for colors you like. Orange looks nice with a light brown and cream. You can even choose a dark plum with golden yellow and turquoise. And then there is the classic black and white; the possibilities are really endless. You don’t have to stick to just three colors, but I wouldn’t use more than five.
Pick a theme
The next step of creating your gender-neutral nursery is picking a theme. I knew from the get-go that I wanted an elephant theme for our baby’s room. They are so cute with their long noses and big ears! I love them and have been collecting elephants ever since I was a kid. I even used some of my own collection to decorate our nursery.
Some other theme ideas for a gender-neutral nursery include jungle, clouds and rainbows, teddy bears, and storybooks. You could even use a particular pattern as a theme, such as polka dots, stripes, chevron, or checkers.
Paint those walls
Our house is fairly old (over sixty years), and has a lot of character. Part of this character was the weird paint in the bedrooms when we moved in. Our master bedroom had chair rail along the wall. The bottom was painted hunter green and the top was wallpapered hunter green and white vertical stripes. It reminded me of something out of Alice and Wonderland. I refused to sleep in that bedroom until we repainted it because I was sure it would give me nightmares.
The nursery was painted a medium tan and had dark wood wainscoting on the bottom half of the walls. Clearly this would not work for a baby’s room, so we painted the top part of the walls mint green, the bottom part grey, and the trim white. It’s amazing how much it brightened up the room and made it look bigger.
When you paint your gender-neutral nursery, I suggest you buy paint samples and test them out on the walls before you commit. Paint several shades next to each other and pay attention to how they look in various lights and at various times of the day. Remember, light colors make a room feel large and airy, and darker colors make it feel cozy.
Get creative
I hate painting, so I really looked forward to the part where I got to decorate and design the our gender-neutral nursery. And, let me tell you, I had a blast with it! Because we were on a budget, I couldn’t go crazy, but I did figure out some ways to turn this nursery into a lovely space for our little one.
Changing table
Instead of buying an expensive changing table, we used a small dresser. When we don’t need it to change babies anymore, we can still use it as a dresser. We registered for a changing pad to place on top, and it’s worked great!
Storage
My husband has this amazing entertainment center that his grandfather built. It has a lot of sentimental value, and we didn’t want to get rid of it. So I decided to use it for storage in our nursery!
I bought these super cute canvas storage bins at Target (they matched our colors perfectly!). Inside, I keep all the little things I’d normally put in drawers: itty bitty socks, extra diapers and wipes, first aid and grooming kits, and so much more. They work great and I love how I can pull one whole bin out and take it to other rooms in the house if I need to.
Mobile
I knew I wanted a cute mobile for our elephant-themed nursery, but I didn’t want to spend a fortune on one I didn’t really love. So I decided to make one instead. These cute little origami elephants took forever to fold, but they look adorable, and our baby really likes looking at them.
I bought all the stuff I needed for this mobile at Hobby Lobby for just a few dollars, and people always ask me about it. If you enjoy paper folding, you can create a mobile like this that matches your theme and colors.
Add some accents
This part is so fun! Add in some cute accent pieces to complete your nursery. As I mentioned, I’ve collected elephants my whole life, and anyone who knows me knows I love them. So in addition to all the elephant pieces I already had, I was blessed to receive several other things from family and friends.
Stuffed animals are a create way to accent your theme, and your baby will have fun playing with them when he or she gets older. I got all the wall art for our nursery half off at Hobby Lobby when they had a sale going on. And we found the pretty grey rug at Ross for less than $30.
Done and done!
And that’s all there is to it! You don’t have to spend a ton of money to Create a gender-neutral nursery. Don’t feel like you have to go in a traditional direction with your decor. It’s your baby, and the most important thing is to create a space that is comfy and filled with love.
If you’re expecting and don’t want to find out the baby’s gender, I hope you use the ideas above to create a gender-neutral nursery of your own. Ditch the pink and blue and make a space that’s perfect for your new little one!
Do you have a gender-neutral nursery for your baby? Tell us about it in the comments!
