Jungle Safari Baby Room

by Liz and Jen Matson
(College Park, MD)

Our
jungle safari baby
room was most definitely a labor of love. We purchased a small fixer-upper apartment a few years ago, and set about gutting every room in the house. Originally we set about painting the room as a guest room. With our first baby on the way, we decided to go all out to convert this small bedroom into a fun place filled with baby jungle animals where our son can live and grow.

Decorating the nursery took about four months from beginning to end with a significant amount of time spent on basic repairs and carpentry work. I had to put up some drywall to repair the previous owner's "home addition gone wrong", as well as patch holes in the closet wall. I also put up new molding and a chair rail using a woodworking kit from Home Depot. This meant getting comfortable with the use of two different kinds of power saws and a variety of other power tools. Once the foundation of the nursery design was completed, the fun part of decorating the jungle safari baby room began.

Rather than using a set of jungle or safari baby bedding we chose a crib set called Alphabet Soup by Cocalo, which we chose before we knew the sex of the baby. It is a fun print with bright colors, and the quilt has several fun textures.

We chose two of Behr's Disney paint colors, Silly Old Blue Birds and Christopher Robin's Swing, from Home Depot to match the blue and the green in the bedding fabric's print. The quilt in the Alphabet Soup pattern has a giraffe, elephant, and zebra that was definitely related to our Jungle Safari Baby Room theme.

We wanted to run with the safari theme, but not get overloaded with too many matchy-matchy accessories offered in the set. So we put up jungle animal wall decorations from Zoo-Wallogy on the wall behind the dresser. We have the palm tree, giraffe, and elephant designs. I love that the mama giraffe and the baby giraffe are in the corner by the crib and are the first thing our baby boy will see when he wakes.

The baby's crib and matching dresser are from the Munire Essex collection stained in a classic chestnut finish. We also have an upholstered nursery glider in the corner of the baby's room. It is upholstered in a neutral beige fabric. We plan to use it as a recliner in another part of the house when the baby is older.

We have very little storage space in the house, so remodeling the closet with plenty of shelves to make sure we have plenty of places to store clothes and toys was a crucial part of the design process.

We're still looking for a rug that is colorful and soft, but that doesn't cost a fortune. Other than that, our Jungle Safari Baby Room is finished and we can't wait to welcome the little guy who's going to occupy the space!

Return to Unique Baby Gear, Bedding Themes and Nursery Decorating Ideas to find more pics of cute, safari themed rooms for baby.