Designing A Barnyard Theme Nursery

A barnyard theme nursery has a certain appeal to it that offers up a degree of warm fuzzies. It also allows parents to improvise with the design, which besides being practical is quite educational. The crib bedding, the accessories and the wall décor are a good way to introduce the baby to different colors and farm animals.

Before you get started on transforming your nursery into a farm, take a look at some barnyard pictures, clipart, and coloring pages for inspiration. I always advise parents to first check out the available crib bedding as this will give them a good idea on what colors to choose for walls and decorations. The most popular colors for this theme are red and white, blue, green and brown. Traditional color and animal schemes run from the highly recognizable red barn, green tractors (think John Deere), along with the lambs, chicks and little pigs. To encourage curiosity and learning, parents will sometimes add the black and white cow patterns to their walls.

Once you have selected your nursery colors it’s time to decide on wallpaper or paint. Wallpaper carrying a farm decor is all over the place and readily available but you are running into the risk of having every second nursery on the street look very much the same. Paint as an affordable choice might be better for parents on a budget; it’s also much easier to keep clean and with the parents’ artistic touch can be transformed into a very unique barnyard nursery. You can achieve that with barnyard theme wallpaper borders or try your artistic skills using stencils of farm animals (sheep, donkeys, chickens and roosters, cows and horses, pigs), barns, milk pales, bales of hay, etc. If you are not that much the artistic type use the peel-and-stick farm yard wall decals. Just to be different, parents might try doing part of the wall in the black and white cow pattern, or having a closet door painted barn red.

With the walls and border decorations in place, it's time to turn attention to other areas, like the rugs, window treatments and bedding. There are many crib bedding sets to pick from; also a lot of stores offer coordinating curtains, valances, crib throw pillows and nursery rugs.

Now, it’s time to fill out the nursery with barnyard theme accents, such as toy box, shelves, chairs, lamps, etc. Toys that can be displayed, from play tractors to stuffed farm animals, work well. A word of caution: do not overdo it! Remember, all displayed toys have to be dusted and busy moms do not need this extra chore. Naturally, if you have a wooden rocking horse, it belongs to the nursery. Tie a bandana around his neck or accompany it with a small pair of cowboy boots and voila another unique decoration.

Fill bookshelves with farm related storybooks like ‘The Little Red Hen’, ‘Big Red Barn’, ‘Giggle, Giggle, Quack’, ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’. For now they will be only decorations but will come very useful for when the child reaches the age of learning words and pictures and enjoys reading with Mom and Dad.

Having a theme nursery such as the barnyard classic is not difficult to put together and is well worth the effort that goes into it.