Updating the Guest Room to a Nursery

After finding out we were having a boy, we had to start turning a room into a nursery. The obvious choice was our guestroom. I spent countless hours going through Pinterest boards and googling pictures of DIY nursery ideas, deciding how I wanted to decorate our little one’s room.

The room was currently yellow – a color I had chosen years before. The yellow was bright and sunshiney, but it was ready for a change.

The furniture was ready for a change as well. It was odds and ends from flea markets and leftovers from our college days.

It was certainly time to makeover the guestroom, converting it to a beautiful baby nursery.

Making Plans for the Nursery

The carpet was already turquoise, so the plan needed to revolve around that. I love a pretty carpet, but when they are bold colors, you have to go neutral with the walls.

After much consideration, I decided to paint the walls gray. I know that sounds crazy – who paints their nursery gray?! But, I had a vision.

My DIY nursery ideas included painting the fourth wall, the longest one, striped with a lighter/whitish gray. This wall was opposite the mirrored closet doors, so the reflection of the stripes in the doors would make the small room appear larger.

The furniture would be all white, and I would work in more turquoise in other areas – pillows, blankets, and baskets.

Here’s a side-by-side before (from quite a few years prior) and after:

Painting The Stripes – DIY Nursery Ideas

We planned to do nine, thick alternating stripes, aiming for the stripes to start and end in the base color – the darker gray.

The process started with the laser level and masking tape with the plan to do two rounds of masking tape, painting the darker stripes first.

After that dried, another round of masking tape was done for the lighter stripes. It was more time-consuming this way, but paint wasn’t wasted.

The laser level made putting on the masking tape rather simple. It hooked onto the wall very easily, so there was no ruler, pencils, or any other contraptions involved – just a little patience 🙂

Here’s the initial tape job, leaving everything outside the boxes to be painted with the base color. ​​

Painting The Window Trim

After the room was painted with the base color, the wooden window trim stood out like a sore thumb. It screamed to be painted white.

This is a prime example of how one project can turn into another; however, the end result made it worth all the effort they put in!

Below the window trim is now painted white, the second round of masking tape is on the striped wall, and the lighter stripes are now painted.

After looking through so many DIY nursery ideas, the room was coming together nicely.

Other than cleanup, the room was done. The accent wall looked perfect!

We loved the grays of the nursery. If you are looking at turning a room into a nursery, definitely consider neutral colors. They are easy to work with and can be easily accentuated.

Furnishing The Nursery

For every piece of furniture, we carefully read reviews – especially for the changing table and the crib. The crib and glider chair were from Babies R Us. We used coupons that came in the mail.

The changing table was from Wayfair, and the lamp was a Target find.

I made the pillows with leftover fabric from the curtains. I also made the storage bins for under the changing table. The storage bins were made from contact paper and cardboard boxes.

The nursery was such a sweet little room – perfectly made over. After we moved, the new owners fell in love with the room as well, using it for their nursery too 🙂

If you are looking for DIY nursery ideas, the gray striped accent wall looked gorgeous – and it was an easy DIY.