Decorating Our Neutral Nursery

When I was pregnant with my 4th child, we didn’t know the gender of the baby. I was excited to decorate the nursery, and was determined to have most of it ready before the baby arrived. I had a girl and two boys already, so part of me was thinking, well, it must be a girl because I wanted a sister for my daughter. I’m not sure why I was surprised when my 4th turned out to be a boy. I was thrilled, of course, to have a healthy baby in my arms, and God obviously had other plans for our family. My daughter cried when we first told her she had another brother, but the second she met him she was completely taken with him! He’s seriously the best baby ever, and we love him to bits, and would obviously never trade him!

The walls of the bedroom we were using for the nursery were already painted Stonington Gray by Benjamin Moore. It’s a soft grey that’s not too dark. Part of me wanted to paint it just to change things up, but I still love the color and knew it would work for a boy or girl. There are two rather large windows in the room, making for a lot of light, but also making furniture arrangement a bit of a challenge. The room was previously my oldest son’s room, so we moved him in with his brother (who’s room used to be the nursery) and made them a shared bedroom (see this post for more about that.) At the time we were still using our crib for my 2 year old, so I decided to find a used crib online to purchase for the new nursery. I am in LOVE with the old-fashioned look of the our new crib!

I wanted a white crib with a vintage vibe to it. Finding a crib that I loved second hand was a bonus, and it is exactly the vintage style I wanted!

If I was purchasing a glider for my first child (and not my fourth!), I probably would choose a cozy glider like this one. The glider chair I already had was completely functional and reasonably comfortable for nursing a baby in. I have fallen asleep in it a time or two. There was really no sense getting a new one in our situation, so I prettied it up a bit with a faux sheepskin draped over the top. My son loves to grab a fistful of it when we are sitting in the chair. I think we’ve managed to keep him from spitting up all over it too so far, which was a concern!

The side table I bought a Canadian Tire on clearance. It is metal with a distressed wood top and base. I love it so much I’m tempted to move it to my living room, but it’s too handy in the nursery to hold a basket of board books and my water bottle close by. I wish I had bought a couple more for my living room, because sadly the store no longer carries them. This rustic end table has a similar style.

We moved the change table into the new nursery, and I placed it on the small wall between the doorway and closet. I would have loved to get this matching change table, but again, ours was completely functional. I thought the wall above would be cute to make a gallery wall on.

I found this cute wire basket with hooks at Home Sense. I love displaying vintage books in it! These were my mom’s old readers. I totally remember reading stories from them when I was little. The basket gives me easy access to diapers and I thought the hooks would be cute to hang adorable newborn outfits on. Although, honestly I haven’t really used the hooks yet—so if you have another idea of something I can hang on them, let me know! I think this metal storage basket without hooks would also be perfect for a nursery for toys, books or diapers! I also hung an inexpensive vintage style clock that I got at Walmart, and some picture frames (also from Home Sense). I had been eyeing some gold letters at Michael’s, but because I didn’t know what I was having at the time, so I waited to pick out the “S” until my son was born.

I love the simplicity of a white dresser; white is classic and works in any space. Our dresser is from Ikea, and we actually have a few of them in our home. This dresser looks similar, but I LOVE the added detail on the bottom!

I had purchased a couple metal baskets at Michaels and used one on top of the dresser for books (we love Peter Rabbit books!) and an adorable stuffed elephant which was a baby gift from my sister and her family. I love wire storage baskets because they go perfect with farmhouse decor and you can see what you are storing in them. The lamp we had in our old nursery—I wasn’t sure how the blue and white chevron pattern on the shade would look in this room, but it actually works just fine. A white lamp like this one is perfect for a neutral nursery.

One of my favorite things in our nursery is this Ikea Kallax shelf (can you tell we like Ikea?!). It gives a rustic look to the room. I also love this 9-cube storage bookcase. It also has a weathered-grey barnwood look, which I adore!

This Ollie the Owl sleep aid toy has sounds and lights and has been awesome to help my son fall asleep at night! He loves it!

It’s a lot of fun to switch up what’s on this bookcase. I love having storage for blankets, and this shelf gives me quick access to grab one when I need it. This muslin swaddling blanket is my absolute favorite! We actually used it in a lot of baby photos too which turned out so adorable! We also have a ton of board books that we read often and they also look cute on display. This is my kids favorite story book! I had these little BABY blocks and Noah’s ark ornament from when my other children were smaller. The picture of the boy laying in a field on a farm is actually a page out of a book I bought at a thrift store. I thought the art work was beautiful, and I’ve had these hung in my other kids’ rooms in our old house before.

I love layering rugs, and I already had these two rugs that I purchased a few years ago from Costco. One is a white sheepskin rug and the other is a chevron rug. I would have loved to purchase this rug though for our nursery, but I wanted to make use of the rugs we already had because they still looked great.

The square rope mirror was from Home Sense that I purchased a few years ago. I also think this hanging chain mirror would be so beautiful in this room! I want to get one for our entry way!

Our two large windows let so much light in that we definitely needed curtains for this room. I am a huge fan of curtains with grommets because they hang so nicely, and are easy to open and close. I found some curtains I loved and ordered white, but they definitely more grey than white, but I still love them in the room. I love the texture of them and they darken the room enough that my son can nap in the day time. These grommet curtains are similar. The metal wire basket is from Walmart, and I’ve filled it with blankets (which we have a lot of!) I also love these lined metal baskets that would be awesome for stuffed animals or laundry!

Before my son was born, I was picturing putting a few pink or coral accents in the room. I considered wallpaper (floral if we had a girl) for a feature wall, but that seemed like a fairly big commitment in the room that I wasn’t sure I would like long term. I already had a flower painting that was in our master bedroom for a while, but I really wanted to hang it above the crib if we had a girl. I restrained myself from doing that, and it turned out that was a good thing! After giving birth to my son, I bought a digital download print of watercolor trees off Etsy and had it printed at Costco and hung it in a frame. I love using picture frames that look like barnwood; I found mine at Michael’s. I love how it looks above the crib, and I think it would be cute for a boy or girl. I think a shiplap wall would be beautiful behind the crib, but that hasn’t happened yet!

The quilt prints I got online for free and printed them at Staples. The white square frames I had on hand and wasn’t using them, but I think they’d also look great in these black square frames.

This verse I got off Etsy, and found this cute frame at Home Sense.

The wire toy basket on the wall was already in the room (I found it at Home Sense, but this wire basket is similar, and I have it hung in our bathroom!), and it has worked well for toy storage. I only wish I hung it higher up, because my kids have swung it back and forth on the wall and scraped the wall all up!)

I wanted the room to be a calm, relaxing place to be, and I think I achieved that. It’s an inviting space to be in and my baby sleeps well in it—so that’s the most important thing! If I have inspired you to decorate your nursery, I’d love to hear about it!