Our big (tiny) nursery reveal!

When we found out we were going to become a family of six our immediate reaction was to put our small house on the market and buy something with more square footage. We went to showings, had our realtor over to discuss changes for our home, and came SO close to listing. We prayed about it a lot and decided that selling was not the direction we should go for now.

So now what? The current nursery is out because J is moving into that for his big boy room, and S is moving out and into the new "girls room" with F. So she could stay in our room with us until we either decide it's time to move or until she's big enough to move into the girls room. That idea didn't seem like a good fit though because we constantly have kids in and out of our bedroom either during the night or first thing in the morning and we really didn't want to have to stress out over the kids waking the baby for who knows how long. So that's when my crazy idea came about...

A closet nursery. Seriously. These are not uncommon in small homes or condos in big cities and with a little planning and a lot of vision I knew we could make this happen. Why not? A baby really doesn't take up that much space, there's a big window in there, it's temperature controlled, and my handy hubby is perfectly capable of renovations and building anything I ask! So before I knew it our master closet became the 4th bedroom in our home. As far as our clothes are concerned that really wasn't a big deal at all. We bought an amazing used armoire that hubby converted to a wardrobe for all our stuff. We did have to pare down our clothes and shoes but you know they say, you only wear about 10% of what you own or something like that. Plus we've always had a dresser so we used that in combination with under bed storage and we are set.

Just like with the Homeschool Room Reveal post, here's your warning about how hard it is to take pictures of a small room. This room is TINY so it was even more difficult! I am no photographer so hopefully the pictures came out good enough :-)

First of all here's the before (I think S was not so sure about all this!)...


Then the construction began. What a mess!


And now the big reveal... TA-DA!!


I definitely wanted a changing table in the nursery but there was just no way that was going to work without it swallowing up the whole room. Finally I found a tutorial on pinterest for a hanging changing table from DIY network. Hubby did an amazing job helping me create that plan I had in my head. Don't worry it's extremely secure, mounted into studs plus with the addition of the added chain I could change my soon to be two year old without a second thought. I love my shelf above for the diapers and wipes, etc. The little storage bin shelf on the floor was a completely lucky find. It will house all the extra diapers, wipes, burp cloths, and so on.


The next thing I had to figure out was the crib. Once again, a full size wouldn't work but a bassinet wouldn't last long enough. After some research I discovered something I had no idea existed. A mini crib! A little smaller than a regular crib and should last until 18-24 months depending on how big your child is. We currently have no intention of having her in here for longer than that anyway so it's perfect. Plus, I read so many reviews of people with almost 2 year olds that said they were still fitting perfectly. We went with a Davinci crib because you could raise and lower the mattress height. We're very pleased with it.


This is going to be H's "closet". The 3 bins will hold tops, bottoms, and pajamas. The bottom is for her hanging clothes and shoes. I might update the blog later with pictures of the inside once I actually get her clothes in there. It's empty for now, as I still need to go through her clothes.


Here are a couple things I made. Once again a couple pinterest inspirations that I put my own spin on. The mobile had no instructions so I really had to get creative with that one. The pictures weren't as big of an undertaking as the mobile. I just fell in love with some prints on Etsy but there was no way I was paying what they wanted. No offense to those sellers, it just wasn't in the budget with everything else we needed. So I printed a few images, created a document or two on Word, used frames I already had and some scrapbook paper, and it was nearly a free project :-)


And finally the cherry on the sundae... the light fixture. We found this little gem at... wait for it... Home Depot! I couldn't believe it either, but we fell in love the minute we saw it.


So there you have it! Hope you enjoyed our cozy little nursery. I know we're thrilled about it and can't wait for little H to let us know what she thinks :-) Now time to get J's room and the girls room started!