• A gender-neutral nursery works for a boy or a girl.baby"s bedroom image by Paul Hill from Fotolia.com
  
  Many reasons exist for wanting to decorate a nursery in such a way that it works for either a boy or a girl. You may not know the sex of the baby you're carrying, you may be planning to use the room again for subsequent children or you may disagree with the whole "pink is for girls, blue is for boys" approach. Fortunately many styles of baby furniture and accessories are available to make the room cheery and inviting without adhering to an arbitrarily strict gender stereotype.
  
  

Color

• Pink is probably out, but blue is often used for any child's nursery walls. Consider a powdery denim blue rather than a pastel "baby boy" shade, or go for an almost midnight-blue with luminous stars on the ceiling. Try a soft mint green or a buttery yellow for a more traditional nursery look, or give the room a warm glow with lilac or peach. A sophisticated gray or café-au-lait is adaptable for either sex and grows with your child, too. Whatever paint or wall covering you choose, make sure it is washable.
  
  

Themes

• If you want the baby's room to have a theme, several work equally well for either sex. The "jungle" look is one example; you can hang a tropical wallpaper border up near the ceiling, punch up the bedding with bright yellows, reds and greens, and attach a monkey mobile to the crib. Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse are both classic unisex nursery themes, as are clowns, teddy bears and ocean themes.
  
  

Decorating Styles

• If the rest of your house is shabby chic, early American or some other distinctive decorating style, there's no reason your baby's nursery has to look like a kid's restaurant. Continue the colors and general décor you use in the rest of the house. Many furniture companies make cribs that coordinate with their other bedroom gear, and you can even buy cribs reconfigure into beds and changing tables and will turn into dressers so the room evolves to fit your decorating style as your child grows older.
  
  

Classic Baby

• Many nurseries are decorated in a primary color schemes, using bright reds, yellows and blues for bedding, curtains and accents. You can also make a lovely ethereal nursery by sponge-painting the walls with sky-blue and cloud white, hanging white net curtains and using white bedding. Paint the ceiling sky-blue with a few artfully-placed clouds to complete the effect.