However, it was....cozy. Mikey and I lived in a lovely, 1200sq rental home in Atlanta - it had two bedrooms, a great porch, and a huge backyard. The place Carrie and I found in West Seattle weighed in at a whopping 640sq, with one bedroom, no outdoor space (not even a balcony), and a wide-open floor plan. Which is why I was terrified. How would we adjust to living in such a small space? One saving grace of the apartment was the storage space - several closets, including a massive walk-in closet in the bedroom. I believe upon seeing the size of the closet, Carrie's exact words were, "holy sh*t, this could be a second bedroom!"
After much purging of extra furniture and assorted goods, and a 2700-mile journey across the country with three dogs and a cat in our Subaru (aka "Scuby"), Mikey and I arrived to our tiny new apartment in Seattle. Although it was hard at first, we managed to adjust just fine, and have come to love our apartment. We have less crap, it takes no time to clean, and with plenty of walks our dogs do just fine here. We also hike on the weekends, so we manage to never feel too cooped up in our cozy little space.
Our living room, being occupied by three lazy dogs
Cut to September 11, 2012. I had just arrived home from a trip to help my friend Matt organize his new home in Boston. I had a little inkling that we might have a bun in the oven, and sure enough, a pregnancy test taken that evening was positive! After 12 years as a couple, Mikey and I were having a BABY! Over the next two weeks, excitement quickly morphed into excitement + horrid nausea and fatigue, which morphed into excitement + nausea + anxiety....how would we fit a baby into this tiny apartment? We didn't want to break our lease because of cost, and we were both working in postdoctoral fellowships (in other words, neither one of us was bringing in the big bucks). As we strategized and rationalized ("well, it's not like babies need a lot of room;" "the baby would sleep in our room initially anyways....," "are we going to have to tiptoe around the apartment whenever baby is sleeping??"), my thoughts came back to Carrie's early remarks about the size of our walk-in closet. What if we put baby in the closet? And so began the adventure of turning our walk-in closet into a nursery.
That's our bedroom, and that's the closet, hidden behind the pocket door
I did tons of research before embarking on this mission. As it turns out, this is apparently a "thing" in many parts of the US, especially places like NYC and San Francisco, where families are raising one or two kids in tiny spaces with astronomical rents. I even read about folks that give up their bedrooms for their kids and camp out on pull-out couches in their living rooms. What was most impressive what how creative people get, and how they have created amazingly cute and warm spaces for their infants without relying on the tons of crap that people seem to think they need to raise a baby. Here are some neat blogs/websites from people who have been-there, done-that:
http://www.powersofmine.com/closet-nursery-now-with-panoramic-view/
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/creating-a-nursery-out-of-a-cl-133105
http://offbeatfamilies.com/2009/10/walk-in-closet-nursery
The first major task was taking everything out of the closet, which measures roughly 4.5 feet by 9 feet. And this was a major task, because it was crammed FULL of crap, including all of our clothing, shoes, an antique bureau, and office paperwork. Also, our small beagle liked to sleep in the closet (he just randomly went in there one day, probably to escape the two big dogs, and just started sleeping in there regularly). I wish I had taken a "before" picture to actually demonstrate how packed it was, but I forgot. My friend Matt suggested that I just take everything down, put it all back, and start all over so that I could get that Before shot. I politely declined :).
After removing all of the clothing and half of the rest of the crap in the closet.
The next task was finding somewhere to put all of the stuff we had taken out of the closet. I had to get very creative here. I ended up purchasing a large dresser from IKEA to put in the bedroom, and we used our other closets and under the bed for shoe storage. I also transferred most of our clothing into fabric boxes and bins that we now store on the shelving in the closet, which we didn't want to remove because the apartment is a rental. I will admit that the bins/boxes are a huge pain in the butt (I really took for granted how nice it is to be able to actually see what clothing you own), but it seems to be working okay so far.
Some of the fabric bins. And a closet beagle.
Now, onto nursery decoration! I was inspired by two owl prints I had seen at Target, as well as an owl mobile on Etsy. However, I didn't want to pay $80+ on a baby mobile, so we decided to make our own. The owl nursery theme was born! I quickly got sucked into Etsy, looking for owl ideas and decorations. Again, given that we are in a rental, we couldn't make any major changes, so I decided to go with some easy-to-apply and easy-to-remove owl wall decals. By this time, we knew we would be having a girl, but I knew I didn't want a "girly" nursery. I found a seller on Etsy that made cute owl decals with custom colors. I picked a bold persimmon and a baby blue, and went from there.
Owl decals from Etsy
The antique bureau we had been storing in the closet turned out to be the perfect size for a changing pad, so we moved that back in, purchased a cute owl changing pad cover (Etsy), and turned it into a changing table/clothing storage. I installed some additional wiring shelving to allow for more storage for diapers, toys, and blankets, leaving space underneath for storing the infant carrier/carseat which we would be carrying to/from Scuby. Finally, I wasn't wild about having to use the bright overhead light when baby finally moves in, so I installed a sconce on the wall over the changing table (had to run an extension cord into the closet from outside).
Changing table with Etsy owl covered changing pad
Shelving for additional storage; owl prints from Target
Wall sconce from Home Depot
Finally, we needed a crib. Given that the closet was only 4.5 feet wide, a regular-sized crib was out of the question (those things are freakin' huge). After some internet research, I discovered the magic of the mini-crib - looks just like a regular crib, but is about 15 inches shorter. They even make special bedding and mattresses for them! My mom purchased us a lovely espresso crib with 5-inch mattress and mattress cover, and I discovered Carousel Bedding, a great shop located in Douglasville, GA. They make custom baby bedding for regular and mini-cribs. I purchased sheets and an amazing bed skirt (Mikey: "Do we really need a bedskirt?") that fit perfectly!
Crib from Baby Earth; bedding from Babybedding.com
Add to that our homemade felt/fabric owls for the mobile (which isn't yet complete), and we finally completed our closet nursery!
Our homemade owls suspended from the existing shelving
We are also installing a fan for air circulation, but we really don't plan on closing the pocket door that much and our apartment stays quite cool and ventilated, even during those two hot weeks in August in Seattle. And I have decided not to do a co-sleeper (bassinet right next to the bed), which isn't too big of a deal since the closet is about two feet from the bed :). Since finding out we were pregnant, I was hired for my first job, so we will be moving out of our tiny home when our lease is up in August. But having our little cozy closet nursery means we have a lovely space for our little lady for the first three months of her life.
The finished product :)
