Nursery Decor

Decor is such a personal choice. The truth is, wonderful art and joyful little objets can be sourced from just about anywhere. By sticking to a few simple guidelines, you can curate and create a beautiful space for your baby no matter where you shop.

Choose a color palette, not a theme. Many say you have to “choose a theme” when designing a nursery, but you really just need a unifying color palette. Whether you’re partial to warm neutrals, cool Scandinavian tones, or something else altogether, select decor, textiles, and accents in colors that fall within your preferred palette. It will help create a unified look and feel without having to build the aesthetic around some arbitrary theme.
Give the room sleepy vibes. Most sleep experts strongly suggest creating a nursery that is designed, first and foremost, for sleep. Designing around baby’s bedtime routine (reading, singing, nursing/snuggling, and sleep) often means choosing decor that feels calming and keeps visual “noise” to a minimum. There are also practical considerations, of course, like installing blackout curtains, sourcing dimmable lighting, and likely moving baby’s playspace to another area of the house.
Make it yours first… Babies mirror our own internal states, so creating a space that makes you feel happy and at peace will create a similar uplifting and calming effect on baby.
… then make it theirs. As baby grows and as their tastes start to emerge, you can add in new small touches to make the room a bit more theirs. You don’t have to design too far into the future at the start, but there are some practical considerations you might want to build in from the beginning. For example, everything that’s within reach of a standing toddler should probably be something you actually want your child to have access to. While potted floor plants, floor lamps, and standing shelves full of bits and bobs make look nice in theory, they are likely not practical once baby becomes more mobile (and curious).
Choose warmth and joy. Along the lines of the Marie Kondo adage, fill your baby’s nursery with things that make you feel warm fuzzies and help radiate love, warmth, and positivity through the space. Photos of family, objects with sweet histories, meaningful art, and houseplants (or succulents if you have a particularly brown thumb) can go a long way toward making a nursery feel like a love-filled space.

You can buy wonderful decor just about anywhere, but here are a few of my favorite baby-specific shops for wall hangings, lamps, decorative pillows, and all those other little objets and accessories: