Perhaps space is at a premium in your home. It might not be possible to set aside a bedroom just for the baby, but if you have a corner of your bedroom, a spot in the dining area near the kitchen, or maybe in your living room, it can be made into a temporary nursery until larger quarters are available.
Remember, babies sleep most of their days (and hopefully, nights) so you want an area that isn't part of the normal daily household traffic. It should be draft-free, but it's nice to have a window. You can make temporary "walls" with screens made from hollow-core doors or plywood panels secured to the floor and permanent walls with 2x4 uprights. Make sure that the opening of the space can be closed with either a heavy drapery on a rod, or a real door.
Paint your temporary walls a soft pastel, in your choice of one or two cheerful colors. After the baby has outgrown the nursery area, and has a permanent sleeping room, you can re-use these screens or plywood panels by painting them to match another room, as a study carrel, computer/home office corner, or to hide the laundry!
If you do have a spare bedroom for the new arrival, that's terrific! Perhaps it used to be a home office or den, or guestroom. You will have a lot of fun remaking it into Baby's Space!
There are a lot of very popular themes for nurseries, such as storybook characters, Disney, transportation (trains, planes, cars, even fire engines), or fairy tales. Pick one that you love, and you'll find there are a gazillion choices among bedding, curtains, wall coverings and borders, and accessories. The baby won't know, however, whether you spent a lot of money on these or if you made some of them yourself. The baby won't care if you scoured thrift stores, yard sales and the Salvation Army for the furniture and toys!
You can recreate any theme you've fallen in love with, by downloading images and blowing them up to poster-size at your local copy center. Use bright acrylic paints to color some of them, and use others to make stencils. (A good course on basic stenciling can be found at SuiteU: Stenciling 101).
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