items in bag
Our family has been on the hunt for a house for about a million years, it seems. In reality, we’ve been casually looking for a couple of years, but our search has gained urgency with the coming of our second child in November. With two adults, one preschooler (is it weird that I want to continue calling him a toddler at three?), three cats…and now one more little one, our 1,000 sq. ft. home seems to be bursting at the seams. We adore our home and it’s served us well, but it’s time.
I’ve learned that, as with much in life, the best house for us will “happen” when it’s meant to. So, I’m not too stressed about whether we find our new spot sooner (ie before November) or later (ie before our oldest enters school…or college). Because of this, we’ve taken a hard look at our space to figure out what will double as a nursery if and when the time comes.
We’ve got three small-but-functional bedrooms, one of which performs office duties, currently housing several bookshelves, two desks, and walls full of my husband’s quirky comic art and pieces we’re proud he’s written. Oh, and a Katharine Hepburn autograph. (That’s mine. ;-)) It’s kind of a hot mess, honestly. After realizing that a crib and toddler bed won’t fit in our son’s room (and, honestly, with potty-training, a new “big boy bed”, a new sibling, and the possibility of moving, we don’t need to add one more reason for him to revolt!), I turned to the office with a fresh set of eyes.
Since I hardly ever use the office (except for, honestly, to store piles of my paperwork and books), it’s time to move my DIY parsons desk to the basement and clean out most of my stuff. Poof! Room for a crib. Purging some books and storing the ones we don’t need at-hand will allow room for baskets/bins to contain some baby paraphernalia. Oh, and our son only uses his dresser, so we’d probably utilize his closet for baby clothes and cloth diaper stash storage (pulling a handful of diapers and clothes each day to hang out in the little one’s room as needed).
With a spark of “what if” comes the next logical step: an exorbitant amount of time spent perusing Pinterest. Since our house has a unique set-up, I actually searched for several ideas for small nurseries as well as shared space nurseries, whether office-related or not. So, maybe if any of you are in the same under-sized boat, you can glean some inspiration from the spaces and ideas I stumbled upon.
This is a great “if the room were big enough” toddler/infant room sharing scenario. You can see the crib peeking out in the right corner, and the fun, cohesive styling in the room somehow suits both ages. Shoes Off Please also has a great general nursery-and-toddler-room roundup.
Source
Ahh, Buzzfeed strikes again! Here’s a great list of tips hacks that will help anyone who’s trying to make raising a little one work in a small space. We already do several of these (hidden storage is a must!), but others are simply genius.
This one from The Sweetest Digs may very well be my favorite. Unfortunately, we have far too little by way of “white furniture” and mama’s only got so much energy for painting stuff. But, the design and utilization of space is giving me tons to work with, mentally!
The Glittler Guide gives me hope that a pretty cluttered mishap of a “before” can turn into an “after” like THAT.
These things can happen in real life, right? RIGHT??
Here we go with the white again. But, it’s still a very realistic interpretation of a shared nursery space, isn’t it?
I know I’d love having this replace our current office monstrosity!
What about you folks? Who has a less-than-traditional nursery setup? Let us hear your tips and tricks for making it work! We’d considered co-sleeping but don’t think it’s for us. We will, however, have the baby with us for the first couple of months in a bassinet-type scenario, so that gives us even more time to find a larger place. 😉
Great tips! I love the design in the rooms. So cute!
We have done the nursery/office split twice now, with our first and now our third. With our firstly it was a simple everyone gets half the room and the closet was the baby’s. Now the office is in the den along with the crib. I took the lightbulbs out of the side where the crib is and hung a $5 flat black sheet with command hooks. This way it’s dark enough for baby and hubby can still use his office for work. So far, it seems to be working. I would like to move the crib into our spacious bedroom closet we aren’t using, but I haven’t cleared out enough junk to see if it would work yet. The black sheet could just as easily go in front of the closet than where it is now. A friend did the closet thing with their 2nd and I have liked the idea ever since.
Wow those are really cute. We room shared with my 1st until she was 18 months old. It was easier to do that then try and have her in the office space. That way I could work on stuff while she napped.
I love all these ideas! so cute!
Our nursery is also the guest room and where my husband keeps all his books – thankfully it is a large room!
for us we decided to keep the office the office. Mostly because we don’t have an indoor laundry room or a large enough bathroom to keep the cat box. So, kids go together. Thankfully, the kids room is actually pretty big for a bedroom and can have a twin bed against the wall and the crib against the other. Older son uses only the dresser, and their sheets fit in it too. Baby’s stuff can all be hung up in the closet. I guess what also makes it easier is that we don’t use a changing table. We found the floor works just fine for us so we gave it to my sister who is finally pregnant! Leaves space for the toys 🙂 For now, we moved the crib into our room, but when the baby’s a year, we’ll move it back in so they’ll really be sharing the space. Really: we just looked at what we really needed and what we didn’t. Not having the changing table really opened up the room for the bed and crib.
“it” being the crib. I don’t refer to my child as “it.” Just reread my comment, and saw that, yikes!
We’re expecting #3 and having to put them somewhere too! It will be a juggling act!
You’ll make it work, Ruth! (Don’t we always? ;-))
excellent ideas. this really comes in handy
I love the idea of a combined office and nursery. Since the desk is where I spend most of my time at home, it makes sense to have the baby nearby. Right now he sleeps in our room in a Rock and Play, which is a great space saver and also has the added benefit of being portable – we can just slide it into the living room with us, and I fold it up to carry it in the trunk to work with me so he can take naps in a familiar place. We also took it on vacation with us so he had a bed at the grandparents’ house.
Sounds like you have the perfect set-up! 🙂 If I used the office more (as a writer, I tend to sit with the laptop in the living room — horrible, I know), it’d be ideal for hubby and myself for baby tending.
These are some cute ideas. I don’t know where the baby will go as my middle kid is in her senior HS year and my college aged daughter wants her room when she leaves to college, and we are in a 2/1!
Thanks! Wow, that does sound like an interesting dilemma! Good luck solving it. I’d love to hear how it turns out. 🙂
Our girls currently share a room and use the den as a play room/movie room/tool room (my husband refuses to put his tools in the shed so they get stuck in the corner by the fireplace.)
LOL We definitely have some random things in random places! I only wish we had a den. 😉
Cute ideas. I’m back and forth on whether I want to bother with anything aesthetic.
This blog post is incredibly helpful! We are currently nesting for our first baby who is due Sept. 20th. This will help us put some last minute touches in his nursery. 🙂
I love all these ideas especially since we are trying to figure how to make our guest room into an office/playroom!
Love these tips!
Very cute ideas! I love the idea of hidden storage. The bookshelf in the nursery on the bottom is amazing!
I definitely needed to read this! We will also have a shared bedroom for my two little ones. Great ideas!
Perfect for the space we have right no, thanks for these great ideas!
I’m so glad the tips are helpful, Silvia!
Very helpful tips! We’ve got a very small house (with small bedrooms to boot) and we’re expecting our second any day now!
Congratulations!!! I’m glad the tips are helpful. Good luck with everything!
We’ve utilized many of the ideas mentioned in the BuzzFeed article – think vertically, and use a hanging wet bag!
By submitting a comment you grant Thirsties Baby a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. Inappropriate and irrelevant comments will be removed at an admin’s discretion. Your email is used for verification purposes only, it will never be shared.