How To Use Wallpaper and Wall Borders To Decorate a Baby Room Nursery

By Sherrie Le Masurier

Are wallpaper and wall borders a good way to decorate a baby room nursery? If so, how do I decide on the right pattern?

Wallpaper or a wall border is a great place to find inspiration when looking to decorate a baby room nursery.

With the variety of wallpaper and wall border products on the market you should be able to find some classic patterns that will grow with your baby that aren’t age or gender specific.

Many of today’s classic patterns are manufactured to coordinate with other prints and fabrics. If this is the case with the wallpaper you select for your baby’s nursery you should have no problem mixing and matching items in order to create a cohesive look to the room.

When decorating a baby room nursery you want to complement your child’s walls with bedding, window and floor treatments that coordinate but you don’t want to go overboard by making sure that everything matches. Too much of any one thing is never good.

Decorative borders are a great cost-effective way of bringing life to a baby room nursery without having to spend a lot of money. The upside is in most cases, they’re just as easy to install as they are to replace when your baby grows into a pre-schooler desiring a bedroom makeover.

Once you have a baby room nursery pattern in mind you’ll want to make sure it’s appropriate. If the wallpaper or any wall border positioned low on the wall isn’t labelled ‘washable’ I suggest you think twice if you plan on keeping it in place through the toddler and pre-school years. Kids can be messy.

Vinyl wall coverings are a popular baby room nursery choice - they’re durable and can retain their good look for years to come. There are three kinds of vinyl wallpaper to select from - paper-backed, fabric-backed and vinyl-coated. 

For more tips on selecting a quality baby room nursery wallpaper visit What to look for in baby room wallpaper ( the ‘baby room wallpaper’ article)

Once you’ve decided what type of wallpaper or decorative border you want to use, you need to give some thoughts to the right pattern for the room.

Your wallpaper choices range from floral to stylized motifs for traditional schemes and abstract and geometric patterns for contemporary settings. That said some geometric patterns like plaids also work well in a country or traditional baby nursery room. When it comes to stripes, just about anywhere you can imagine them, you can put them.

As for the size of your print, the general rule is that your print should match the size of the room. If you’re decorating a small nursery but love the look of a big print, consider covering only one wall. Likewise, the wallpaper in a large baby nursery room shouldn’t feature small prints as the pattern may fade away into the background and not achieve the desired look.

When looking to decorate a baby nursery room with wallpaper or wall borders it’s wise to explore different options. Borrow a wallpaper sample book or ask the salesperson if you can take a small cutting home. Another idea would be to purchase a roll you really like and then tack it on your nursery wall to see how it looks under natural and artificial lighting conditions.

Finally if you do opt to decorate your baby’s room with wallpaper you’ll want to make sure to carefully calculate how much you need.

To estimate the correct amount of wallpaper you first need to determine the square footage of your nursery minus the door, windows and any built-in furniture and then divide that number by 30. The reason you divide by 30 is to take into account the amount of waste you’ll have from a standard 36 square foot roll. The best thing to do is round up to the closest whole number when ordering standard sized rolls.

And remember using a repeating pattern takes extra planning and know-how in order to figure out where it’s best to start and finish your baby room nursery wallpaper project. When it doubt seek the advice of the salesperson.