Shared Spaces: Make Room for Baby

Unfortunately, babies don’t come equipped with instruction manuals. They also don’t come with additional living space. So, this often means taking a space you’d previously been using for something else (an office, a guest room or even a closet in your bedroom) and turning it into a nursery.

Carving out extra space in a home that’s already filled to the brim is definitely a challenge. The best thing to do is to try to throw away all your preconceived notions about how the space functions and look at every nook and cranny as an option. In the room shown here we removed the doors off a closet to create a nursery nook within the master bedroom. While this may not work for a two year old, it’s definitely an option for an infant. We painted the inside of the closet a lively triangle pattern. It gives the “nursery” some personality, while allowing the rest of the space to still remain sophisticated for mom and dad.

You’re probably wondering what you’d do with all the stuff that used to be stored in the closet. We’d suggest investing in some under bed storage for the time being. They’re a great option for storing out of season clothes and linens.

If a closet or nook isn’t an option, just go ahead and create a space. The use of a screen or bookcase as a room divider would work well in a master bedroom. Simply designate a corner of the room for the baby and have some fun with it.

The fact is when you start sharing your home with a baby, you’re going to have to make space, a lot of space. The bedroom is just the beginning, prepare to pack away those martini glasses, too because bottles and sippy cups will also need a home! But the needs for space will ebb and flow, so the more flexible you can be, the better your home will function. Reminds me of my husband’s childhood home. His folks added an addition with a dining room, which was then walled off to be a bedroom for his brother, sure you had to enter it through the kitchen, but it worked. Then when he left for college, the wall came down and his mom got her dining room back. So, don’t get rid of those martini glasses, you’ll have space for them again at some point, I promise.

By Danielle Kurtz

Danielle is the Creative Director at Nod and an over-protective mother of two. She’s also completely obsessed with Pinterest, Twitter and her Kindle, but not necessarily in that order. Danielle loves to craft, sew and crochet, but all her supplies have a layer of dust on them about 5-years-thick, wonder if it's just a coincidence that her oldest kiddo is 5 years old?