Outfit a baby’s bedroom with a vintage style. Create a chic and cosy baby nursery using these vintage decor ideas, tips, and resources. New parents and families can decorate a baby’s nursery with a classic vintage style that is both elegant and baby-friendly.
Vintage-Inspired Baby Cribs
Using an heirloom iron or wooden crib may sound appealing, but chances are that antique pieces may not fit the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s crib standards. Instead, look for pieces that are vintage-inspired but that meet today’s safety standards. Some vintage-style cribs include:
Mission-style cribs: these pieces, usually crafted from solid woods like maple, oak, or pine, provide a clean look that is both classic and modern.
Iron cribs: modern iron cribs, inspired by the ornate baby beds from the Victorian era, will set a very vintage tone in a baby’s room.
Distressed-finish cribs: these cribs offer a rustic, old-fashioned feel. Make sure that any crib finish is non-toxic.
Bassinets: a piece of furniture that is somewhere between a crib and a cradle, bassinets tend to be smaller than a standard crib and able to rock gently.
Wallpaper and Paint
Use these ideas to create a vintage nursery space:
Consider using a vintage or retro wallpaper pattern on an accent wall or as a room border. Design Your Wall’s website features an entire children’s section of vintage wallpaper patterns, including circus, ballerina, cartoon, and baseball designs.
Choose a classic colour palette: soft pastels like yellows, purples, and greens; crisp light blue and white; apple green and chocolate brown for a funkier look.
Look for paints that are low-VOC (volatile organic compound) to provide the healthiest space possible for a baby.
Vintage Baby Linens
Babies’ nurseries require many linens: receiving blankets, crib bedding, and window treatments. Add some vintage charm to a nursery by using some of these retro-inspired fabrics and linens:
Warm Biscuit, a custom bedding company, offers a selection of nursery fabrics that are inspired by vintage prints in themes like a nautical, china doll, and tea party.
The Fabric Finder has a number of vintage children’s prints, such as the zoo, balloons, pinwheels, and more graphic prints in stripes and paisleys.
Toys and Accessories
An easy way to set a vintage tone in a baby nursery is to set up a decorative shelf (high enough so that little hands can’t access it) with some antique or vintage-style toys. This is also a great way to display heirloom items that very young children can’t play with yet.
Solid wooden toys like aeroplanes, cars, or trains. The simplicity of these items makes even newer pieces look antique.
Antique board game boxes.
Vintage building blocks.
Antique stuffed animals or dolls.
With some key pieces of furniture and carefully-chosen accessories, even the blandest of rooms can be transformed into a warm, cosy, vintage-chic baby’s first bedroom.
