Our plans for a simple, gender neutral nursery bedroom

In just two months, we’ll be welcoming a little one into our lives. I’m in full nesting mode – if I liked to make things nice and cosy before pregnancy, now I’m in roosting overdrive, preparing for our Spring chicken. Before the new addition turns the whole house completely upside down, I wanted to transform our spare bedroom into a simple, gender neutral nursery bedroom. I’ve been testing out paint samples, pinning until my heart’s content and getting ridiculously excited about every new delivery that lands on our doorstep.

There’s a couple of reasons why the room needs to be gender neutral. We’re not finding out the sex of the baby until it makes its long-awaited appearance – we don’t want to make assumptions about a little human before we meet it and we don’t really mind either way. And to be honest, I don’t really like the colours blue or pink anyway!

The nursery bedroom will also need to work hard to serve multiple functions – combining a guest room with a fold-out bed (if we can ever have guests again!), an office for working from home, plus somewhere for baby to live. It needs to be a timeless, understated space that can evolve with us. I didn’t want to be drawn to a particular theme that might soon tire and date, rather I wanted to treat the nursery like any other room in the house. My approach tends to view the walls as a neutral backdrop, allowing everything else to tell the story. I want this baby to be able to make the space its own, once it reveals all its quirks and character to us.

I know a baby spends the first few months in the parent’s bedroom but it was still important for me to have ‘made an effort’ and created a dedicated space for baby. Even if one of us is still working in the room for the first six month’s of its life, I wanted to create a corner in the house just for them. I think the process of sorting things out, tidying, decorating, primping and preening can do wonders to help you mentally prepare and get excited about the transition to becoming new parents.

[Disclosure: I will be working with Scandiborn on this gender neutral nursery bedroom makeover – they will be kindly providing a cot bed and accessories]

BEFORE
So let’s take a look at how the space has evolved up to this point. When we first moved in, the room functioned as a fairly plain guest bedroom with bare white walls and a double bed. After I set up my own business and started to work from home full-time, I transformed the space into a cosy home office with dark grey walls and picture ledges to display my samples and inspiration for my creative projects. I soon realised that we didn’t need a double bed taking up half the room anymore, so we soon decided to swap it for a space-saving day bed which could function as a sofa during the day and guest bed by night.

When the pandemic hit and we both found ourselves working from home, we added an extra workspace to the room, creating a neat run of desks along one wall with plenty of storage to hide clutter away. The calm look didn’t last too long, what with my husbands two screens and messy nature, and the general malaise we all found ourselves in during lockdown, battling to keep each room tidy and organised. To be honest I now spend most of my time working from the dining table – as lovely as it is to have an office companion, every now and then I just need a little peace and quiet!

THE PLAN
We’ll be shifting a few things around to make space for the baby. The plan is to move one of the desks out to the bedroom next door. I migrate a lot when I work; sometimes I’m taking photos, other times I’m working from the sofa with my laptop. I’ll also be taking maternity leave to begin with, so won’t need a dedicated space to work. The remaining desk can then shift a little and be placed in front of the window.

The daybed will move from the wall to the left of the door to the wall facing the window. This will provide a nice backdrop for virtual calls and offer a cosy corner under the picture ledges (which I’ll style with new art and easy to reach baby books) for naps, feeding and bedtime stories. The darkest corner in the room can then house the cot bed with a canopy above it. We’ll also move an existing IKEA chest of drawers from the bedroom into the nursery to add storage and create a changing table. For this room, we’re really making the most of the furniture we already have (bar the new cot bed) to make it as affordable and simple as possible. Every piece of furniture is also fairly moveable, offering us the most flexibility, so in the future we might find ourselves moving the desk elsewhere and adding more storage, but for the moment a baby doesn’t really need much.

THE MOODBOARD
Currently the room is painted in a dark grey – Farrow & Ball’s Lamp Room grey. You have two strategies when it comes to decorating a north facing space; you either embrace the dingy light conditions and paint it dark (which I attempted here) or warm up the cold light with sunny tones. For me, the dark grey can appear a little drab and dreary. I want to try and lift the space and make this gender neutral nursery a little more joyful. I’m thinking a light, warm beige on the walls and a soothing sage green on the wood work. I might even paint the ceiling green but I’m going to wait until I’ve got some paint on the walls to decide.

Not surprisingly I’m going for a Scandinavian-inspired look with clean, white furniture, monochrome prints and muted tones. There’s some cute details and nods to some of our favourite things – dachshunds will of course be making an appearance as well as a few references to the baby’s French heritage. It’s going to be a simple space but it will have its own charm!

Sources:
Paint colours: Beige 01 and Green 02, Lick paint
Maileg papa bear, £17, Arket [press sample – affiliate link] 
Bear poster, from £6.95, Juniqe [press sample]
Liewood Hannah muslins in faune green, £11.90 for two, Scandiborn [press sample]
Iris Hantverk rack, £12, Arket [affiliate link]
Small storage basket with ears, £14.99, Lindex
Bonjour Bébé printable by Rose and Julep Paper, £4.61, Etsy [affiliate link]
Dachshund baby mobile by utatata studio, £132.74, Etsy [affiliate link]
Nobodinoz canopy, £89.95, Scandiborn [press sample]
Oliver furniture cot bed MINI+ (0-9 years), £909, Scandiborn [press sample]
Liewood changing mat, £45.95, Scandiborn [press sample]
Malm chest of drawers, £70, IKEA
Prints, from £6.95, Juniqe [press sample]
Numero 74 organic cotton cushion in sage green, £17, Smallable
OYOY Slinkii dachshund, £45.95, Scandiborn [press sample]

Now I’ve created these mood boards, I can’t wait to get cracking and open the paint tins. All going well I’ll be able to share the finished results with you in a few weeks. I’ve already dug out my old Beatrix Potter books and selected some prints for the space.

Can you believe that I’ve never shared any blog posts about nursery decor or kids room on here before? Let me know in the comments below if there are any other posts you would like to see!

For more gender neutral nursery ideas, see my Pinterest board: