By Sarah Powers

As I fussed with trinkets on the shelves and hung pictures on the wall last weekend, I realized how much I’ve learned about making a baby’s room cute, comfortable, and functional. Between new babies, moves, and room-swaps, I’ve decorated and organized a total of six nurseries for three kids (including one nursery-in-a-closet, but that’s another story). Some things, like socks living in the top righthand drawer of the dresser, have never changed; others, like how I fold and put away the clothes – or don’t – have evolved with time.
If you’re a first-time mama setting up your little nest now, you might be overwhelmed by the perfect Pinterest / Pottery Barn / Restoration Hardware images, the cost of a glider, and the “must-have” lists telling you that you MUST HAVE a wipe warmer (spoiler: you don’t). It’s natural to fixate on creating a perfect space for your new babe, so I think part of the fun is in the dreaming and the pinning and all the rest. But it’s easy to get carried away, too, with color schemes and bumper fabric, and to forget that much of what makes a baby’s room special is all the living and growing that happens there: the midnight feedings and the bedtime books and the nap battles and the piles of outgrown shoes in the closet.
And it’s from this perspective, looking back, that I share a few nursery decorating tips and organizing ideas I’ve picked up over the years.
Don’t Ignore The Floor
Before having kids, most of us don’t spend much time sitting or lying on the floor unless it’s in the yoga studio on top of a mat. But babies, and parents of babies, log a ton of time on the floor. It’s great for playtime, tummy time, diaper changes, practicing cool skills like rolling over and sitting up, and maybe best of all (especially for those of us who have ever accidentally allowed our baby to topple off the changing table or a bed): a baby can’t climb up on, or fall off, the floor.

Plan For Books
The books you see in staged catalogue photographs of nurseries are usually artfully stacked first editions of childhood classics. The books that ACTUALLY live in a baby’s room are, um, not. As your baby’s library grows, you’ll have boxy little Sandra Boynton favorites, oversized Elmo board books with those musical buttons (the stuff of nightmares!), odd-shaped lift-the-flap books with the flaps all ripped out, and all kinds of “interactive” baby books with tails sticking out or plush puppy dog ears hanging off the cover.
I realized early on that the pretty white bookshelf I’d repurposed from my college days was not going to work well in a nursery. Its shelves are not very deep and only a few of our baby books fit on it. Even if they had, babies like un-shelving books as much as they like ripping the flaps out of them, so we needed a solution that offered quicker cleanup.


Make Space For Clothes That Don’t Fit
Oh, the satisfaction in folding tiny onesies and pajamas and filling each drawer with adorableness! I think it’s my favorite part of preparing for a new baby. What you realize almost immediately, though, is how quickly babies outgrow each clothing size. It seems like by the time the piles of laundry are done, the clean clothes that come out of it are already too small.
One thing that has helped me is to have a dedicated place right in the baby’s room for “too small” and “too big” clothes. That way it’s easy to toss an outgrown outfit right from the clean laundry into the too-small bin, and you always have a larger size at the ready. Even if you have a seasonal clothing system like Meagan’s for the rest of your family, I recommend keeping baby’s outgrown and “next size up” bins right in the bedroom – at least for a few months at a time.

Don’t Get Too Attached To Your Color Scheme
When I was pregnant with my first baby I envisioned a nursery based around a soft, purple-gray color (oddly, not unlike the color of the room my youngest has inherited in this new house, which was like this when we moved in). But when I went shopping for fabric to make the crib bedding, I found two different prints I loved that didn’t go with purple at all. So I bought the fabric, made the bedding, and we painted the room pink to match.
I never loved the pink walls. I always longed for that soft grayish-purple. And it would have looked fine. Lesson learned.

Want some colorful nursery inspiration? Here are two I love from Girl’s Gone Child and my friend Jess of Stellar Day.
Take The Long View

And at the time of purchase, it was the single most expensive piece of furniture in our home. In fact, I think it’s still the most money we’ve ever spent on a piece of furniture all on our own.
I’m not suggesting that expensive furniture is always the way to go. Baby and kid furniture gets tons of wear and tear, and sometimes something from the thrift store does just as well. But if you’re on the fence about spending more money on a quality piece you really love, remember: you’re in this for the long haul.
When I was expecting my first baby, I had a hard time envisioning anything past the first few months. It never occurred to me that my infant would be a toddler in the blink of an eye, and that by the time said infant was a toddler, another infant would be on the way. So I can’t even take credit for taking the long view with regard to the glider chair – but I’m so glad I did.
(You know what’s funny? That little table next to the chair has also lasted us six years on wobbly legs, and it cost $25 from the clearance bin at Home Goods 🙂 ).
Oh, I love it, Sarah! I never really had the experience of creating a nursery per se…we lived in a one-bedroom apartment when our oldest was born, and after that the boys always shared bedrooms. Clara has her own room, but when she was first born we were using it as an office and didn’t fully convert it to her own room until she was more in the “little girl” stage. But Violet’s nursery is gorgeous and almost giving me baby envy! Great tips. 🙂
Aw thank you so much for linking to my nursery tour Sarah!! You’re awesome! Violet’s nursery is amazing and lovely!! I love it! ~Jess xoxo
Great tips – they’re all spot on, and I wish I had read them before I set up a nursery two years ago.
I didn’t realize how important the floor was back then, and the rug was the last thing we bought (after our baby came and I realized it was a necessity). My rug tip would be to make sure you set it up so it doesn’t slip all around because new walkers aren’t so good on slippery rugs (it took us about a year to finally put rug pads under ours).
We also do the too small/too-big clothing storage right in the nursery. I have a number of plastic drawers in the closet that store a host of items, and two of the drawers are devoted to too small clothes (when the drawers are full, I eventually get around to moving the items to the garage) and one to too big clothes.
And I’m a fan of investing in a nice rocking chair too because then you can repurpose it into another room down the road if needed.
Finally, if I had to do it all again differently, I’d go for gender neutral colors (especially for the rug). We have a 2-year-old girl and a boy on the way, so while I’m happy the nursery walls are green, I’m probably going to have to get rid of one of the nursery’s two pink rugs (our kids will eventually be sharing a room).