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Gender Neutral Safari Nursery Tour
"I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post. I am careful to only recommend products I truly love."
When we were preparing for our new baby, I got so excited with the idea of planning a nursery.
With our first, I decided to stick with gender neutral until our little one was old enough to make decisions about what he liked. We stuck with grays and creams and followed a starry night theme.
When I found out I was pregnant with our second, I was really looking forward to creating another nursery. I knew what I liked and what I would change after having gone through it once before. I decided that I wanted to go with a gender neutral theme again, but wanted to to be drastically different than the theme I had chosen before.
I didn't immediately know that I wanted a safari themed nursery. I was actually perusing at Home Goods when I came across a wooden sign with a lion on it that I loved. It was a light purple color paired with a medium-light wooden frame. I had to have it. I ended up finding a set of four of these signs-- a giraffe, an elephant, a lion, and rhino. Yes, I know these are technically animals that live on the savannah, but aesthetically it made sense to group them in the safari category.
I had an idea of what I wanted for a crib, too. I was thinking dark. I didn't want a higher back, I wanted all four sides to be even. Our neighbor happened to be selling their daughters crib and it was exactly what I wanted, so we were able to snag it for only $40! A little scrub with hot water and powdered tide and it was good as new.
I wanted to tie the animals together with the safari theme using green, so I set out to find a green. I was stuck between a sage color and a dark, emerald type green. I ended up deciding on the emerald color green as it matched the black crib better, in my opinion.
Next, I found our dresser at slumberland furniture. It was a dark, natural wood that tied together our cream colored trim and doors and black crib. We looked for a dresser that was on the taller side as my husband and I are both tall. We found the Gambrel Dresser which we love. It's just more comfortable for us when we're changing diapers.
We settled on a rocker with black wood and gray cushions. I love the ottoman it came with. We had a reclining glider in my sons room, but you could either put your feet up or rock, never both. Now, we can do both.
The last few things I wanted to add were extras! I found lightly stained animals heads in the Target Dollar Spot that I added above the dresser. Next to those, we hung a small mirror with light, weathered wood accents.
I stumbled upon a leaf hanger while shopping for bridal shower decorations at party city. It, in my opinion, tied the room together. Unfortunately the original is no longer available, but you could make something similar with these leaves.
We have a large empty space that shares a wall with the guest bathroom. We hung another word sign as well as a clock to help time feedings. A late addition to the nursery was a small shelf that holds our bows! This was originally a jewelry holder, but it works perfect for all of our bows. I like that it has the option to use hooks or a rod. We placed a small personalized name sign on top of the shelf as well as some fake greenery from Home Goods.
I was desperately wanting a book shelf or storage system to go on this wall, but we decided to wait to find something we loved rather than settling. Currently, we are using an old night stand that I refinished that held item in our closet that matches the crib. This holds books, some toys, and our baby girl's stockings.
For our fabrics, we stuck with neutral colors, too. We have a gray and white weaved basket to hold blankets from Home Goods. This is my favorite place to buy storage items! They have so many options and are very reasonably priced. We stick with plain white or gray crib sheets, too. Our favorite during the winter months are these cozy fleece fitted sheets.
We love our Owlet camera monitor. We will eventually mount it on the wall. We love that we can look from anywhere in the world--it gives us peace of mind anytime we need to leave home. Also, you can watch and listen, or choose to play the audio in the background so you can continue using your phone or turn off the screen while you sleep.
We swear by our Apple homepod for white noise. You can read more about why we use white noise in our baby's room here. We keep in on the dresser so that it can better spread noise throughout the room, we found that carpet muffles the sound a bit. We were looking for the perfect blackout curtain to support with nap time and I found our new favorites. These are thermal blocking and block out light extremely well. They were super easy to hang, too.
I love the way our little lady's room turned out. It is calm and relaxing for us to play and read in, but also colorful and not as bland as our sons nursery was! It was fun designing this space with my husband in preparation for our baby girl and we love spending time with her in there.
Talk to you soon,
Erica
