Baby Nursery Design
So, the pitter-patter of tiny footsteps is only a few months away and it’s time for you to begin your life as a parent. Along with making all the necessary purchases, such as buying a pram for your child, you need to begin thinking about decorating your child’s bedroom or nursery.
Designing a baby nursery can be scary, even more so if you are a first-time parent. So the first step is to take a deep breath, grab a cup of tea or coffee, relax and start looking around for inspiration, ideas, and example pictures. Oh, and of course you could start by reading this concise guide that highlights some of the areas you will most likely want to consider. So, deep breath, go grab that coffee and start reading!
Here are the Children’s Furniture and Toy Companies’ top tips for decorating your babies’ nursery.
Firstly, remember that creating the baby nursery should be an enjoyable, exciting, and fulfilling experience.
To begin with, a first-rate nursery starts with a few measured ideas and considerations before you begin mixing that wallpaper paste.
Start Early
One of the most common problems associated with designing your babies’ nursery is leaving it all to late, so start early. Do not leave it to the last couple of months of your pregnancy before you start to make your plans. For a start, you are likely to be tired by then as your baby is sapping your energy and putting on weight. Starting early give you the time you need to make all the necessary plans, makes budgeting easier and the process as a whole a lot less stressful.
Baby Nursery Design
Keep it Simple
It’s important to consider the old saying “less is more”. The simpler the design including your color schemes the less can go wrong. The end result will be much better, you will have more space and the room will look more effective.
Have a Plan
It’s important to develop a plan, now we are not talking about an in-depth complex plan, just a basic idea of how you plan to approach decorating and furnishing the nursery. You could make a rough sketch on paper, highlighting where you will position furniture, shelves, and toy boxes. Having a plan makes shopping for these items more efficient, you will know sizes and shapes and can start considering colors schemes so you can shop for matching sets incorporating bedding.
Wire Away
When making your plan consider the position of electric sockets and cables. Modern technology has given us a multitude of baby products that help make life a little easier, such as baby monitors and electric mobile projectors, and mood lighting. Make sure you consider these items in your plan and take note to position sockets so that visible wiring can be kept to a minimum.
Shop Around
Work off your plan, look around, use the internet, visit children’s furniture websites and look at pictures to get an idea of matching color schemes and layouts. Keep looking around until you are satisfied you have the perfect furniture that fits.
Stimulating Colours
Newborn babies can only see in black and white for the first couple of weeks. The first colors they are able to see are red and yellow, so using red and yellow for example can be visually confusing for the child as they will seem to pop out from any other colors in the room. Do some research and as an alternative, consider using pastels such as purple, green, blue and even pink.
Mood Lighting
Lighting is an important feature for both the parent and child. When your child wakes during the night the last thing you want is to turn on an over bright light! You should consider a lower voltage night light or the main light on a dimmer switch.
Wall Art
If the room you are planning is of a good size, why not consider using one of these walls to replicate a screen from a popular children’s storybook? This type of decoration can be really effective, and visually stimulating. If the room is a little more modest size-wise, why not purchase pictures of similar scenes and frame them for hanging on the walls?
Large area rugs
Again, this is one for the larger room. Using rugs to break up lines in a room can be really effective, and allows for a defined play space for your child as they grow.
Storage Space
Until your child arrives you may not realize just how much ‘stuff’ they accumulate in a short space of time. You will buy items, your family will buy more and then there are friends and friends of friends! Before you know it you will be overrun. Take this into consideration when making your plan, where will you keep all of this? Do you have adequate storage?
Consider some hanging storage options such as a hanging cloth storage rack next to the cot, this will not only make things reachable but can be filled with smaller decorative items such as plush toys, teddies, bibs, and nappies, making them easily accessible.
What Can You See!
The last thing to do once the room is completed and furnished is to look around and see if there are any obvious safety issues, make sure all wiring options have been considered and there are no trailing or accessible wires or heavy objects that could fall.