I’m excited to share my work-in-progress nursery today. In case you missed it, I am pregnant and due around June 4 with a son. I am SO happy, excited, and nervous, as this is my first child and I’ve wanted to be a mother for years. Dreams come true!
I feel grateful everyday but I have to admit that one of the most joyful aspects of preparing so far has been beginning to decorate his nursery. Almost immediately, I knew I wanted to do some kind of plant/botanical theme. And, I also wanted to wallpaper his room. I pretty much planned the entire room around the wallpaper, ha.
I was thrilled when I found out I would get to work with Spoonflower for this project. We are big fans of the Spoonflower Marketplace and have used a number of their wallpapers in our homes over the years (see Elsie’s girls bedroom here).
There are a lot of things I love about them. First, there are SO many options, not only different designs but also different types of wallpaper (and other products).
I love that you get to support independent artists and choose from an entire marketplace of work that directly supports those who designed it. And I love Spoonflower’s commitment to sustainable printing
I pretty quickly fell in love with this design from Red Briar Studio, but I thought I’d share with you some other wallpaper design options I considered as well.
On the Spoonflower website you can order samples of almost any wallpaper you are considering, and I actually love to do this and hang the sample up in the room so I can see what it looks like in the space (with the light throughout the day, and the color with furniture or other elements in the room).
You can also use the samples for small gift wrapping or even framed for little art vignettes after your done so you don’t have to feel like you “wasted” anything while making sure you love your wallpaper choice (before ordering the full amount your space may need).
Here are the samples of all the wallpaper designs I considered. You can find them all here. As you can see, I was set on something with plants and I was wanting something that felt a little bit vintage as that feels right with my 1920s bungalow home.
From top to bottom: Vintage Botanical Wildflowers, Bees and Wildflowers, and Soft Eucalyptus Watercolor.
The two I went back and forth on were the Vintage Botanicals and Bees and Wildflowers, but I did also love the watercolor/handpainted vibe of the Soft Eucalyptus option.
From top to bottom: Cottage Print, Floral Forest, and Into the Woods.
For these options, I was considering something with a colored background (rather than white), but in the end I decided white was more what I wanted to go with for my space.
I ordered prepasted removable smooth wallpaper. This is recommended for nurseries as it’s durable and long lasting but also removable, and you can recycle it!
Spoonflower also offers peel and stick removable woven wallpaper as well as non-pasted traditional pebble wallpaper.
You can find instructions on the Spoonflower website for measuring your space and also to learn more about these different types of wallpaper they offer.
There are a number of different options and some things you may want to consider is how long you plan to keep the wallpaper in your space (like if you are renting and need to be able to remove it one day, etc.).
I had my wallpaper professionally hung with a local installer I’ve worked with many times. You absolutely can hang wallpaper yourself, and in fact, your order will come with helpful tips and instructions.
But given I was six months pregnant when my paper was installed, and I got tired just putting together the rocking chair (which came in only three pieces, it was not hard I am just tired, OK!) I opted to pay a professional instead. You do you.
Once the paper was fully installed, the room felt immediately SO cheery! Maybe it’s hormones but I cried a little when I first saw it all up. I am SO in love with this wallpaper and I am already imagining all the memories my son and I will make in this room.
I love the wallpaper you chose! Congrats on your baby boy. I now I have 2 and the bond between a mama & her son is just so special, I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to have this type of relationship. I know you will have that too with your little boy! Anyway, I am looking forward to the full tour. And I wanted to say, I also did love the wallpaper right below the one you chose with the bees, thought that was cute too. All your contenders would have been pretty!
So beautiful! I used to go and sit in the finished nursery when I was pregnant and feel emotional! It was so lovely feeling so excited to meet my baby and at the same time I couldn’t imagine it! Such a special time, enjoy every moment and definitely rest as much as possible and ask for help! ?
Looks amazing!! All of the samples were so cute, I sure would’ve had a hard time choosing. But I like the bigger print you went with! I actually like the baseboard color because to me it makes the room look warmer. And the rocking chair is perfect! Definitely the cutest boy room I’ve ever seen!
I honestly LOVE seeing Emma do stuff with the holiday house (now Emma’s house, haha) because the holiday house is so cute and Emma has great taste! This nursery is so great. Congrats, Emma!
I love it! What a beautiful nursery. I’m very happy for you and your family!
I have been absolutely fixated with the idea of getting a emerald green velvet platform bed, but I also sort of keep trying to talk myself out of it. Opening up this post, my eyes went right to the fabulous green rocker and once again, I’m convinced a green bed is what I need in my life! (Thank you!)
The nursery is wonderful, and as a long time reader, I’m so excited for you, Emma.
So lovely! Thanks for sharing all your choices! I think you picked something beautiful! I wallpapered my nursery (I didn’t get mine done until I was like nine months pregnant!) and I LOVED rocking my newborn in there – it was the calmest space in the house! This space has the same calm and you are going to love being there with your new little boy!
Congratulations!!!!
What a perfect choice, Emma!! It looks awesome! So very happy for you?
my boys are 6 & 8 and I’m still tired! and I’d still hire someone else to install the wallpaper lol! It’s so cute! love the idea of botanicals for a theme. Now my 8 year old has very specific ideas about how his room is to look so picking cute wallpaper is over lol!
I love it! On the ” Cottage Print” option how did you get the pink / purple background instead of white? I only see the neutral option on the Spoonflower website.
love your final pick, definitely has a vintage botanical textbook vibe and love the vibrant contrasting colours for a baby, When you install it, do you have a choice of how you align the pattern repeat? could you have installed it so the big fern was staggered versus all in a vertical row? thats the part I find hard to imagine with the samples, and also since spoonflower designers are not specifically wallpaper designers (since their designs can be fabric, wallpaper etc), do the designers think about how the pattern repeat works on different products?
Congrats Emma! The nursery is beautiful & I’m so happy for you! 🙂
I really like the room so far! The wallpaper and furniture are great picks. It looks like a bright and happy baby room.
How many houses have you and Elsie decorated over the course of A Beautiful Mess? I would be fun to see a blog post of “Our house design over the years”
Love this wallpaper and it was so cool to see you choose between the options. I like the one you chose. 🙂
I LOVE it!!! That paper is so sweet and evokes going for a stroll through the forest. Love the red, yellow and green color combo!
That looks incredible! And as a 9 month tired pregnant mama, I totally support hiring someone else to put it up for you. So excited for you!
It’s GORGEOUS! What a truly love look for a nursery. I’m so excited to see the finished room- I also love the green velvet rocker. Great job Emma and congratulations!
The wallpaper is lovely! I do hope that you will get the painter in to do the baseboards, doors and windows in that lovely green from the rocking chair! That would be even lovelier! Another green from the wallpaper would work as well. Or do the safe thing and paint it with the same cold white color of the background of the wallpaper. The creamy warm white around the windows with the cold white of the wallpaper is rubbing me the wrong way. It is not quite like the wood tone of the furniture but it hides the lovely wood which is a shame. Or it might just be the photos?
Love to see the finished result!
And best of luck with the rest of the pregnancy and congratulations on your baby bliss!
I love it, is it just me or does this seem ‘christmas-y’?
Oh! I love it even more now that you said that. 🙂
I immediately thought the same thing! Great choice Emma, love this for you and your son 🙂
This room is beautiful, what a lucky baby!!