Design Story: A Gender Neutral Nursery

Time Several Hours

Budget $ $$$

Skill Level

WORDS BY The Havenly Team

Fill 1Created with Sketch.

Published on May 9, 2017

Gender neutral nurseries are becoming ever more popular as more parents opt to wait to find out whether they’re expecting a boy or girl. Now, “gender neutral nursery” doesn’t have to mean pastel greens and yellows instead of pink or blue. In the case of Mara Ferreira of M Loves M, gender neutral meant soft whites and creams, and lots of texture.

You may remember Mara from her office makeover with Havenly. As you can probably guess from her office, Mara isn’t exactly shy of color. However, the best part about this nursery design project (besides eventually becoming home to a very cute baby) is that it enabled Mara and her designer, Julianne, to explore how texture could be used to create a mood, rather than focusing on color.

How To Design A Textured Gender Neutral Nursery

The first step to designing Mara’s gender neutral nursery was determining the perfect color palette. Should it be cool whites and chrome accents, or warm with cream and copper? Should brown be used as an accent color, or would a soft grey be best?

Image by Style Me Pretty

Mara gravitated towards the warmer neutral tones and mixed textures in her gender neutral nursery inspiration. Both the warmth and the textures made it into Mara’s initial concepts.

In Mara’s first concept, her designer combined creams and varying shades of brown to add warmth and dimension to the neutral palette. The concept is a textural playground, with everything from soft fringe on the crib skirt to the carved face of the dresser. The rule to mixing textures in a gender neutral nursery is similar to the rule when mixing patterns: Vary the scale and type of pattern (or texture).

Mara’s second concept is a cooler neutral palette, with more grey and bright white than the first concept. Texture is still key here, with a fringed moroccan pillow, a thick shag-style carpet and a woven basket.

As is often the case, Mara and her designer worked to combine the two concepts into one fabulous final layout.

The cooler neutrals from Mara’s second concept hold sway in the final layout, while the gold accents from the first concept add a bit more warmth to the overall design.

“I’m so happy with how the room came out. It’s actually my favorite room in our house!” – Mara

Mara and her designer finalized her gender neutral nursery design just in time to welcome Augustine, a baby boy. Though Augustine can’t yet tell us in his own words, we’re betting he loves the wallpaper and that moroccan pillow best.

What is your favorite part of this gender neutral nursery design?

        

Ready to start your own design? Explore these nursery design ideas then find your very own online interior designer!