21 Creative Baby Boy Nursery Ideas, from Design Pros and Parents (2024)

published Jan 31, 2024

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Designing a nursery to welcome your little boy is a delightful experience, but it can be intimidating to figure out where to start. So, your Cubby editors called on some of our favorite design pros (who also happen to be parents) and asked them to share their favorite boy nursery designs. With a range of styles, colors, and themes, these rooms offer inspiration for your own nursery. But the most important thing, according to these designers, is to create a room that feels at home in your house! Yes, it’s a room for your baby, but it’s also a part of your grown-up home (and you will be surprised how quickly your own child will grow).

In this list you’ll also find real-life nurseries from Cubby and Apartment Therapy house tours. Yes, there are some baby boy blue rooms, but why stop there? From playful neutrals to street-art style, you’ll find plenty of other stylish baby boy nursery ideas to get your ideas flowing!

21 Creative Boy Nursery Ideas

Street Art Style

Bold and graphic is how Hilary Matt describes another baby boy’s nursery she designed (hello, graffiti wallpaper!). Located in a Tribeca high-rise, Matt drew inspiration from the city itself. “We kept the palette minimal and let the books and toys bring in the pops of color,” says Matt.

Gender Neutral

This room ended up belonging to a baby boy, but when Mia Jung, director of interiors at Kligerman Architecture & Design, was designing it, her mom-to-be client didn’t want to find out the sex of the baby. “I thought this soft blue could be a nice background for other accent colors,” Jung says. The wallpaper resembling children’s drawing is LES BIDULES from Pierre Frey.

Playful Neutrals

In a room for twin babies with twin dormer windows, Curated Nest Interiors, a design firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut, used pattern and color to strategic effect. The gray wall paint reduces the jogs in the architecture, while the buffalo check print on one wall becomes a focal point. Vibrant green and mustard accents, plus a swing(!) bring a playful spirit to the otherwise neutral space.

Take Flight

When Taylor Whaley, the principal of Lark & Grace Interiors in Houston, was hired by a friend to design a room for twin boys, Whaley says, “We wanted to design a space that reflected the traditional style of their home.” The starting point was a wallpaper by Lee Jofa, which Whaley accented with bright blue drapery panels. Toy airplane prints by Leslee Mitchell hang above each crib.

Perfectly Balanced

For one New York City family, interior designer Hilary Mattsays she “bridged the gap” between designing for the child but also catering to the homeowners’ adult tastes. “The wallpaper isn’t too stereotypically childish and keeps the room feeling sophisticated,” Matt adds.

Color Drench

Interior designer Sissy Yellen went all in with a blue “color drench” effect in this nursery, coating the walls, ceiling, trim, and doors in Benjamin Moore’s “Water’s Edge.” Note how the paint cleverly camouflages the closet doors.

Statement Wallpaper

Double-Duty Design

When Brooklyn-based interior designer Sarah Rinehart Fleischer was tasked with turning her client’sguest room into a nursery, she managed to make the small room serve both purposes with a daybed on one wall and a crib opposite. The bed has a storage drawer to maximize space.

Pops of Color

Just because Sarah Rinehart Fleischer’s clients were renting, that didn’t mean the nursery had to be colorless. “Rather than paint or wallpaper, we focused on adding color in areas that could eventually move with them, like the artwork, the daybed, and dresser,” says Fleischer. The dresser is by Studio Ziggy, which Fleischer says she likes to use in nurseries for its low-VOC finish.

Mad for Plaid

When designer and YouTuber Sharrah Stevens welcomed a second baby boy into her family, she pulled out all the wall decor tricks for his nursery: paint, beadboard, and wallpaper. Stevens matched the paint to the darkest square in Chasing Paper’s Big Gingham wallpaper, opting for Benjamin Moore’s “A License to Dream” at 75-percent opacity.

Tiny Jungle

When Ashley Macuga of Collected Interiors in San Carlos, California, found out she was pregnant with her fourth, her house was already “full to the brim,” so she transformed a closet into a nursery for her son Beaux. With its bold wallpaper and painted ceiling, Macuga describes the decor “as fierce as the little soul that made his way into our lives.”

Not-Too-Baby Blue

Gui Piciotto, one of the cofounders of Nestig, and his wife, Renata, called on designer Ariel Okin to help them create a fresh spin on the iconic baby blue boy’s room. To keep the sky-blue walls from reading too pastel, Okin used lots of natural wood and crisp white.

Heirloom Details

For her son’s nursery, Maine-based designer Samantha Pappas included a mix of modern furnishings and vintage and heirloom accents. Pappas says, “My favorite details of the space include the subtle pops of color that greet you with emerald trim and an antique rug positioned under the crib.”

Equestrian Inspired

Content creator Anna Page “craved something really cozy,” for her baby boy, so she wallpapered the room in Equestrian Plaid Green wallpaper by Mind the Gap. Then she layered on an antique-inspired crib, brass accents, and equestrian-themed art for a look that’s more Ralph Lauren than BuyBuyBaby.

Calm Like the Forest

Wanting to create a calm spot in the midst of the city, Shelby Vanhoy from Pretty in the Pines drew inspiration for her son’s nursery from nature. Vanhoy painted the ceiling and trim in “Green Smoke” and covered the walls in Emrik wallpaper in Misty Blue from Sandberg. Vanhoy also created calm by providing ample storage in the form of an IKEA Pax Wardrobe System, which she dressed up with decorative molding and paint.

Mini Minimalist

Think of it as Donald Judd Junior: Bliss Lau took her design cues from New York City and its minimalist art movement for her baby’s room. The convertible daybed is from Couchbed and the walls are Sherwin-Williams’s “Light French Gray,” a super-neutral gray.

Climbing the Walls

While it may be years before the baby can use them, a climbing wall made with climbing holds from Hangar 18 almost doubles as art until they can. This nursery’s convertible West Elm crib picks up on the house’s mid-century architecture.

Black & White, Done Right

These Brooklyn parents warmed up a black and white baby boy’s room with a wood IKEA crib, natural-fiber stools, and a sheepskin throw. Minimalist decals on the wall and gray accents give the room further depth without overwhelming the small space.

Book Nook

Is it a surprise that the nursery belonging to children’s book author Oliver Jeffers is extra cozy and filled with books? Narrow ledges display current favorite books in one corner, while a two-tier shelf holds the rest of their son’s collection.

Modern Mix

Talk about high-low: A vintage rug sits happily beside a plastic basketball hoop in this little boy’s nursery. “Nothing is too precious or pristine,” says mom Becca Crawford, the senior manager of product design and development at St. Frank. We say it’s even better that way.

Primary Colors

Bridgette Haulenbeek anchored her son Franklin’s room with a colorful IKEA kids’ rug. “The bigger the rug the better,” she says in this Apartment Therapy house tour. When decorating a nursery, she says this: “Pull color from art. Art, throws, and pillows are great ways to bring in pops of color. Buy what you love.”

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