I think it’s probably every mom’s dream to have an adorable looking nursery. All you have to do is go on Pinterest and thousands of ideas are at your fingertips. But how are you supposed to pay for it all?! Let’s be honest, baby items are expensive! So today I want to give you some neutral nursery essentials on a budget, to help you achieve your dream nursery.
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Neutral Nursery Essentials On A Budget
Go Neutral
One of the best ways to keep your nursery under budget is to keep it on a neutral theme. This will save you money in the long run, especially if you plan to have more kids down the road.
How? Because you won’t have to redecorate if your next child is the opposite gender! Neutral furniture and decorations will prevent you from having to spend more money on redecorating.
When you’re designing your neutral nursery, be sure to stick with colors such as white, black, grey, yellow, or green. White, black, and grey tend to have a cleaner, polished look. However, you can do yellows or greens if you want the room to have more color in it. You can always mix and match too!
Essential Furnishings
Crib
The most essential piece of furniture you will need for your nursery is a crib. Be careful to not sacrifice quality in the name of saving money–you want your baby to be safe, after all. That being said, you don’t have to break the bank to get a quality crib.
The crib we have is a Delta Children’s Gateway 4-in-1 Convertable crib–and we love it! It has plenty of room for our very long child (takes after his dad!). The mattress height can be adjusted on it so that you can continue to use it as your child grows.
When your child is big enough, it can be converted into a toddler bed, day bed, or full size bed. We got ours in a dark cherry color, mainly because we prefer darker wood tones and it matched a lot of the other furniture in the room.
The mattress we use on it is a Serta Nightstar Firm Comfort Crib and Toddler Mattress. It’s firm but comfortable for our little guy, and wasn’t expensive!
Dresser/Nightstand
For our neutral nursery on a budget, we used an unused dresser that we had around the house. It has plenty of space for our son’s clothes, burp clothes, and even diapers and blankets. This piece of furniture was free for us since we already had it!
I also recommend getting a night stand or drawer storage unit. This makes a great place to store burp clothes, pajamas, and nursing supplies. You can keep it near the crib or your nursing area to provide quick and easy access to essential supplies.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been happy that I had our drawer storage unit nearby while nursing! The one we have is a three drawer hamper from Badger Basket (only ours has brown drawers with white polka dots).
Laundry Bin
No matter how low your budget is, you’ll definitely need to invest in a laundry bin/hamper for your little one. Babies make a lot of messes, and in the first few months you will be doing a lot of laundry to clean all the clothes and linens they’ve spit up on and blown out diapers in.
While you can certainly get a generic laundry bin and save a lot of money, we opted to get one that matched some of our other decor. Our son’s laundry bin is from Badger Basket, and matches his three drawer hamper with it’s white polka dots on brown fabric. Although it is made of fabric, it stays surprisingly clean, even when it’s full of dirty clothes!
We also grabbed a matching storage cube, which we currently use to store all his socks, shoes, and jackets.
Diaper Changing Station
One of your neutral nursery essentials on a budget should definitely be a diaper changing station, no matter how small your budget. This area doesn’t have to be super elaborate, either. My son wiggles a ton, so for me it’s easier to change him on the floor.
We have our changing pad set on the floor, and a bucket containing his wipes, diapers, and diaper cream. Whatever system works for you, be sure that all your diaper changing supplies are within easy reach.
Rocker/Nursing Chair
Having a comfy chair in our nursery has made breastfeeding much easier. It provides us a regular place to nurse, and also offers privacy for when we have company. It’s also great for night feedings, although by the time we moved to a two bedroom apartment and set up our nursery our son was already sleeping through the night.
But, I know it is a great way to let your spouse keep sleeping while you nurse during the night, or while dad feeds the baby a bottle during the night. Prior to our move, I simply did our night feedings in the living room until he was sleeping through the night.
Wall Decor
Last but not least, don’t forget to pick up one or two (or more) wall decorations. These can be as simple as photographs of mom and dad with baby, or perhaps a canvas picture of an animal–elephants make great nursery decorations.
In our nursery, we have a hand-lettered canvas that was given to us at our baby shower. The simple white canvas with silver lettering made a great decoration for our neutral nursery.
In retrospect, I wish I had decorated our nursery space more before Elijah was born. Next time for sure I’ll be doing more decorating, among other things I wish I had done the first time around.
What would be your dream nursery theme?
Enough about our nursery, what about you? What theme would you love to have in your dream nursery? Drop me a line and let me know!
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