Ideas for Painting a Baby Nursery

Babies love to look at primary colors, and they are fascinated by black-and-white designs and plain stripes. Painting your baby's nursery may be challenging, however, because there are so many ideas to choose from to make the room a stylish, one-of-a-kind decorating masterpiece incorporating all your favorite colors.

  1. Considerations for Your Nursery

    • Babies love colors, shapes and geometric designs in black and white. You may want to start out with a pastel shade of paint in flat latex as a base or first layer for your walls. There are so many delicate colors from which to choose, including pinks, blues, greens and yellows. The gender of the child you are expecting can determine your base color. Don't forget to paint the ceiling, as babies spend a lot of time lying in their cribs, and the first thing they see when they awaken is the ceiling.

    Types of Nursery Themes

    • You may choose to base your nursery design on an overriding theme. There are hundreds to choose from, including Peter Rabbit images based on the Beatrix Potter books; Jemima Puddle-Duck illustrations; jungle iconography; stars and moons; and planets and constellations. If you are not skilled at freehand mural-painting, stencil sets allow you to do a professional-looking, top-class job. You may wish to paint your boy's room in a camouflage design or paint simple paw prints all over the walls and ceiling in basic primary colors of red, blue and yellow. You could also simply paint your baby's nursery in a base color and splash it with different colors for a totally one-of-a-kind design.

    Nursery Characters

    • You can feature Disney characters all over the baby's nursery walls; or, if your baby is a boy, comic-book heroes on each wall and the night sky on the ceiling. Paint a skyscraper, with Spider-man swinging via his webbing from the corner to the building. Feature a medieval castle with jousting knights in the courtyard and damsels in long, flowing dresses ready to be rescued from high towers. You may wish to choose a dragon theme with fire-breathing dragons and men carrying swords, daring to fight them. Simple country designs are timeless, and they work well in a nursery if you can't decide on another theme that would work properly for you.

    Simple Nursery Ideas

    • Simplicity always works. Nothing could be simpler than painting a flat pastel base on all the walls and the ceiling, or a combination of all of the primary colors with rainbows and sun designs, interspersed with the baby's name written in different sizes and fonts. Staying with the pastel base, paint mathematical problems on the walls, including A2+B2=C2; this way, the baby becomes familiar with numbers and letters. Simple ABCs painted all over the walls teaches the baby to recognize the alphabet.

    Maps and Nurseries

    • You can design and paint a map of the world with pirate ships in between countries, populate the scene with pirates in eye patches and striped attire, and a peg-legged captain in a tri-cornered hat looking through his spyglass for signs of land. Paint treasure maps here and there, and old chests filled with treasure. Paint sharks and octopi swimming around for an added, dynamic effect.

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