DIY nursery decorating ideas

[lalababy]

So DH and I have just bought our first house (read flat) and by the end of the year we will be having our first baby. The place definately needs a bit of a once over... and I am quite keen on doing something fun with the nursery. Unfortunately after buying a place we are both relatively broke and I have few artistic or DIY skills - and was hoping someone could give me ideas that would be simple to execute and not too pricey.

[ksaunders]

How about painting the walls white then using wall stickers to decorate? I bought some winnie the pooh ones a while ago to decorate my ds toy chest and wardrobe from pricerighthome.com but if you google you will easily find other places that do them too. You can get all sorts of packs e.g. jungle, dinosaurs, flowers, teddies...price from £5.99+ depending on number and size of stickers.

[Primafacie]

Wall stickers all the way! There are some lovely ones by Djeco among many others. Check out bambinogoodies for other brands.

[icravecheese]

We did this for our daughters room just before she arrived: a load of cheap picture frames from ikea, filled with illustrations of favourite childrens characters...WHSmith do a lovely range of cards all with much loved childrens characters drawn as watercolours - we got lots of beatrix potter characters (but from memory they do postman pat amoungst other ones too). Do a display of 10 or so frames on one wall, it looks fab.

Our son has gruffalo wall stickers on his wall - bought from Debenhams I think for £13 for a massive set.

[lalababy]

ohhh - I love both ideas. I am going to start exploring both!

[kri5ty]

hello again lala, seems as though i am stalking you haha


we rent, so are limited with what we can do... so we are buying wll stickers, which are easily removable and for the floor something like this although as we are going for a jungle theme, it will prob be plain colour, rather than patterned x

[kri5ty]

wipe clean and safe if baby decided to roll off the changing table!!

[Pootles2010]

My tip would be think about furniture first, what furniture do you already have you could use? Then take your theme from that.

We had a white togue & groove and cherry wood set (wardrobe, chest of drawers and bedside table) that was getting too small for us, so used that for his room, put changing mat on the drawers rather than get changing table, and found a cot that matched.

Once we'd done that, we decided to decorate it in a nautical theme that was pretty easy and went really well.

Pretty pleased with it, as i don't think he'll need it changeing for a few years - not too babyish iyswim.

[melliebobs]

how about decorating your own block canvases

or using old douvets/curtains/general material to make your own bunting

[ToriaPumpkinPasty]

We painted the room a nice bright neutral colour and I bought sticker paper from the pound shop and printed little bumble bees, cut them out and made them into a border. Think we spent a grand total of £16 decorating :)

[kri5ty]

yup thats a great idea melliebobs we have decorated our own canvases for all over our house... we bought the most awful canvases that were in the sale (as no one wanted them) ... theni went to places like wilkinsons (its harder in B&Q as they stop you) and i ripped LOADS of wallpaper samples off, and backed the canvases in these :-) we decorated every room in our house with different ones... and it cost about a fiver!!

Im sure you could do this if you found nice childrens wallpaper too lala

[MummyAbroad]

Practical dip from me: put in a dimmer switch, and thermal blockout curtains (you can put put a pretty set of curtains over the top for asthetics) - invaluable!

[kri5ty]

I am off to try and pinch some childrens wallpaper this afternoon to put on canvas :o

[Sewmuchtodo]

Single sided bunting is easy to make and a fab way to frame a room instead of a border.

By using pinking shears you can make 'no sew' bunting easily. Download a template, draw out and cut from either fabric scraps of fat quarters as you then can have a lovely mis of fabrics. Attach to ribbon or twine using glue (or a few stitches).

The Penguin range of postcards are lovely framed and are timeless so can grow with your child or you could buy wooden letters and either mount them or sit them on a shelf to add another dimention.

Remember that a shanging tabel is a luxury not essential. Shelves with baskets are just as good as drawers for a small person!
Bumpers and cot quilts are no use at this stage, so save some pennies there. A cotbed is a good investment and a blackout blind will pay for itself in soooooo many ways!

Also, your new baby will be given lots of toys, gifts etc so save a little space for those!

[lalababy]

Sorry - I was in hiding... just came back to see all these great ideas!!! Truth is I have no furniture at all. Bascially been renting all this while and in London they are usually fully furnished. So now that we bought a place (still to move in) all we own is a bed (for the adults) and 2 chairs... so we still need to furnish the whole house... not just the nursery. Which is why I am looking at the cheapo options!!!

The canvas / wallpaper idea sounds fantastic... where would you buy the wall paper bits... do they let you buy little bits? I have lots of old clothes etc so I can try and do the no sew bunting too.

The nursery have a built in closet for hanging and a bookshelf... (I think it used to be a study in a previous life) so I thought I would just get a chest of drawers and put a changing mat with sides on it and use that as a changing table????

Ebay is fast becoming my favourite timekiller!!!

[mummynoseynora]

we had pale blue walls and a green carpet in our rented place - so we painted a BIG tree taking up the floor -> ceiling in one corner, and have put pictures up on it so its basically a big family tree - we have a corner shelf with a picture of us, then going out each side (and using the branches) each of our families! its fab and EVERYONE says how much they like it!

[QuiltySecrets]

We framed some wallpaper in our dining room and I really like the effect. You can get wallpaper samples online - most sites let you order a few for free. Be warned that these are often just A4 size though. I did find a couple of sites that would send you a 6' length of the paper for about £2 and that was great as we had more to play with then and you knew you were getting the whole picture that was on there, if that makes sense?

Love the family tree idea mummynoseynora

[browneyesblue]

Apart from the cot, we didn't buy any dedicated nursery furniture either - we didn't think it was necessary, and used stuff that we had already with a couple of new bits added. I had an old chest of drawers that I use for DS's clothes. It was big enough for a changing mat, but to be honest, we always just changed him on the floor.

I got loads of great ideas from Ohdeedoh, and as I saw it featured so often on there, we got an Ikea Expedit bookcase from eBay. It has been invaluable as it stores loads of stuff and displays DS's toys nicely. I put drawers in the bottom shelves to discourage climbing, and that's where I keep nappies, wipes etc.

I also used picture rails as forward facing bookshelves. They were cheap, easy to fit, and the books brighten up the room brilliantly. DS can easily pick the books that he wants now.

I also found some old children's records on eBay - the covers are in bold, bright colours and I bought some cheap album frames and hung them in the nursery too. I love looking at them.

My best tip is to take your time though. Get the basics ready now, but if the baby will be in your room for a while, you can add your finishing touches when the baby arrives. Have fun with it, and fill it with things that you love. My DS's nursery is a never-ending project - it will grow and change with him.

[kri5ty]

lala i didnt buy the wallpaper.... i took BIG samples of it!! Places like wilkinsons are better than B&Q as they do not have staff snooping at how much you take!!

I bought the most horrible canvases for about £2 each (in the sale), then just took loads of sample wallpaper! Like i said we decorated out whole house doing this... just with different patterns / colours etc

as for the changing mat on the chest of drawers... thats all you need!

have you looked on gumtree too for cheap stuff? I live off ebay anyway!!

[kri5ty]

as for doing stuff cheaply... are you getting a travel system? if so you wont need a moses basket... just use the carrycot from the travel system :-)

Thats what we are doing... then we have bought a cotbed with air sprung mattress for £160 off kiddicare, which will last them up until they are about 5 or 6 years old!

[lalababy]

Okay - I am going to head to wilkinsons (whereever it is) hehehe and try and mooch some wallpaper ... hehehe :)

I know what you mean that it is a never ending project... I have seen so many pictures and you all have such great ideas... that now I want to do everything... which might be a bit crazy!

[magicmelons]

Try ohdeedoh.com it's brilliant for ideas, sorry on my phone so can't do a link.

[PrincessJenga]

We just painted the walls white and then put up bright pictures (painted by talented friend) & soft furnishings (material from Birmingham Rag Market & made by me & mum)

V cheap. Looks amazing. Easy to change when baby gets older and develops own tastes / interests

[corkythecat]

There are some fab wall stickers here decowall. We have painted DC2's (due in Oct) room white and decorated with a large tree from there (they dont have the exact one on the site anymore).
Also framed wrapping paper looks good, found some very pretty paper in John Lewis and used a cheap frame.

[wombatinwaiting]

Agh corky - I have just spent the last hour (at work ) looking at wall stickers - great suggestions and website but think I now want to do our entire house in them!

[kri5ty]

yup! i have just been doing exactly the same!! i found some nice wallpaper to go in the bedroom (we rent so cant decorate.. perfect idea as you can peel it off!), lots of nice things for LOs room, and a nice design for the hall, oo and for the stairs too!!