Red is the color of love and passion, and you’re determined for your child to be surrounded by both. Either that or you simply like the color. Red is a lovely nursery color choice regardless of your reasons, but it can be a difficult color to manage since too much red will be too intense for a bedroom. We found some Red Nursery Ideas to help strike the balance between too cute and too much.
1) Wall Roses
Roses are probably the most traditional red decoration and symbol of love, but while you’re raising a baby, you probably won’t have the energy to refresh a vase of flowers repeatedly. It’s easy to work roses into the decor, though, with things like these red rose wall stickers. These can take up a whole wall like a mural, or a fair portion of one, though the recommended size is around 5×3 feet. The nice thing is that these add a splash of red to the room, but you can use a more soothing color for the wall itself.
2) Red Butterflies
Red is a color best taken in small doses, at least in a nursery where you want your baby to sleep well. One way to start with a neutral base and add splashes of red is to get red butterfly decorations like these red butterfly wall stickers. These are neat because their wings lift up, giving them the look and texture of real butterflies fluttering around the room to fascinate your baby and stimulate their mind.
3) DIY Flowers and Petal Transformation
Many flowers are red, making them the perfect way to introduce the color in small amounts that won’t be overwhelming to your baby. Flowers are also nice because they have a natural look that’ll make your baby more interested in nature by showing them its beauty as they grow older. We found this tutorial for transforming a baby’s room using flowers and petals, and you can use it to do something similar with real or faux red flowers.
4) Accent Only
One thing you probably don’t want to do with red is create a wall-to-wall red space. No matter how much you love the color, it can be overwhelming and it’s a warm color that’ll be far too stimulating for an infant to sleep around. Instead, use the advice in this article, using red in small doses as an accent color only. Stimulation is wonderful and essential; you just don’t want to have too much of it in a sleeping space.
5) Wall Hearts
Hearts are one of the most popular representations of love, and if you want to surround your baby with loving imagery, you certainly picked the right color. You can buy decals like these and put them on the wall like polka dots in whatever pattern you like. Try creating a slightly uneven pattern to create a real polka dot impression, or choose a focal point and place them close together, gradually moving them apart so it looks like all the hearts are flowing outwards from the focal point.
6) Red Leaves
It’s important to add red in accents only, and if you don’t want to focus on patterns, you’ll need a natural way to add red pieces. One way to do that’s to get a tree decal like this one from Amazon. Tree decals are common in nurseries, encouraging children to develop a love of nature, and you can get one like this with red autumn leaves. This will add a splash of red and look good with a few similarly vibrant red decorations or furnishings.
7) DIY Heart Wall Lamp
Since red is the color of love and hearts are typically red, it only makes sense to put red hearts in your nursery. We found this amazing tutorial for a DIY heart craft that’ll be both practical and decorative. You can use this video to learn how to make a heart-themed wall lamp that’ll look pretty both day and night. The nice thing is that you can use it as a night light so that you can safely check on your baby without turning on harsh lights at night. This way, you can get back to sleep more quickly.
8) DIY Wood Ceiling
Red is a vibrant and warm color, meaning that it’s generally too stimulating to use wall-to-wall in a bedroom or nursery. That means you’ll have to look for other colors, textures, and materials that go well with it. We found this wood ceiling DIY project that’d be perfect, giving the room a rich, woodsy look. You can even pick a reddish stain that’ll highlight any brighter reds instead of toning them down, but won’t be too stimulating in the dark of night.
9) Buffalo Plaid Sheets
What happens if you’re a fan of the color red, but you don’t want a lovey-dovey design, and couldn’t care less about the symbolic meanings of the color red? In that case, you can use buffalo plaid pieces like this set as the base for a woodland, hunting, or any sort of outdoorsy or country nursery. It’s easy to find buffalo plaid nursery decorations and furnishings, making it a safe choice if you don’t want to have to make a lot of crafts, too.
10) DIY Red Decorative Accent Lamp
If you’re feeling creative and have an interest in sculpting, we found a project for you! Of course, you can also create this project with a rounded base and minimal sculpting skills if you want. In this article Joy Kelley describes how she turned a thrift store lamp and some materials into a customized red chevron lamp with a sculpture at the bottom. While she chose an elephant for the base, you can pick almost anything you can make!
11) Red Poppies
If you love the idea of using naturally red decorations, but aren’t a fan of roses or don’t think they work in a baby’s room, you can use something a bit more unusual. Red poppies are just as natural as roses, but they’re less typical and will add a unique twist to your nursery. This way, you can show your child that they’re unique, and red is still the color of love and passion, so you can ensure that that passion is reflected onto them with red poppy stickers like these.
12) DIY Bird Mobile
If you like a nature theme, there are so many ways that red appears in nature, and they’re more subtle than artificial decorations tend to be. We found this tutorial for making a mobile with cloth birds flying around, and while the video shows a pink one, you can simply modify it by using red birds. You could try red, pink, and white together, too, if you wanted to. This is a beautiful way to bring nature into the nursery.
13) Barn Night Light
Night lights are valuable in children’s bedrooms because they allow you to check in on your little one without turning on harsh overhead lights and waking them. You can also nurse or comfort your baby if they wake up without turning on brighter lights, making it easier for you to return to sleep afterward. We found this barn-shaped night light that’d be great for an old-fashioned or farmhouse-themed red nursery. You can even do a barn animal theme with red barn decorations like this since little kids love animals.
14) Feminine Nature and Butterflies
If you want to create a feminine look with your red nursery, you can do something delicate like this family did with their nursery. The room is gray trimmed in white with many small touches of red. The red pieces and furnishings are small and delicate, and many include flowers and butterflies, leading to a feminine appearance. While there’s a lot of red, it’s spaces in such a way that it makes the room feel bold but not overwhelming.
15) DIY Painted Wood Letters
Wall letters are standard in nurseries for a reason, but it’s hard to find red ones that aren’t Christmas-themed, so you might have to get an unpainted set of wooden letters like these and paint them red. You can even use a ruler to randomly section off parts of the letter, making one-third of it red, one-third of it blue or pink, and one-third another color. This way, there isn’t too much red, though you can also make solid red letters on a light neutral background.
16) Wild & Free
Red is a bold color for a bold child. If you love the idea of your child growing up with plenty of stimuli and want to encourage their mind’s development, you might like the idea of them growing up “wild and free,” as these crib sheets say. These have a red buffalo check pattern, making them perfect for a woodland- or nature-themed nursery. These are one way to express your hopes and dreams that your child will grow up free-thinking and energetic.
17) DIY Floral Wall Art
Red is commonly found in nature in the form of flowers, so if you like the idea of a natural-looking nursery, you’ll probably want some flowers or faux flowers in the room. We found this tutorial for making floral wall art with your baby’s name, and the neat thing is that you can spray paint faux flowers red or paint half of them red to have the rosy background you want. Or, use pink flowers like the ones in the video and paint the letters of your baby’s name red.
18) Red and Black Bordered Little Man Cave Sign
If you’re having a boy, this room will be his little man cave. He’ll probably spend all his recreational time here, so if you want to be cute, you can get a “little man cave” sign like this with a red and black border that’ll fit in with your red decorations. This is a nice way to add just a touch of red to your little man’s room without being overwhelming, and it’s adorable, with the phrase “no girls allowed: except mom.”
19) Custom Name Tractor
Having your baby’s name on the wall is a wonderful way to claim this nursery as theirs, so we looked for some cute ways to put their name up. One of the cutest is this tractor wall sticker with a red tractor pulling a trailer with a word on it. You can customize it so that the word on top of the trailer is your baby’s name. The whole thing is less than three feet wide, but’s a neat decoration that’ll give a little splash of red to the room.
20) Red and Pink
If you’re having a little girl, you can combine red and pink to create a look that’s bold and passionate but with a hint of feminine delicacy, as a family did in this nursery. Pink and red are similar colors and go well together, but red symbolizes passion and love while pink is a traditionally feminine color, and also stands for love. Try using faint pinks and a few bold touches of red as they did in this nursery to maintain the soft, delicate look while adding just a few hints of intense red.
21) Polka Dots
Since red is too bold of a color to use wall-to-wall, your best option may be to start with a neutral base color and add red decorations and furnishings to that. Red polka dots like these on neutral walls could be the perfect way to create a colorful nursery with vibrant red that still has a soothing base. This way, the intense color won’t interfere with sleep, but the combination of the stimulating color and the polka dot wall pattern will intrigue your infant.
What other ideas could we have included in the list? Please tell us what you’d have done in the comments below!
