No One Puts Baby in the Closet

Photo Credit: A Cup Of JoeActually, using a closet as a nursery is a great and common solution for people with limited space like me! We live in a two bedroom condo and space is lacking to say the least. Especially after two years of collecting children's toys, books, clothes and everything else child related. With our second child on the way we contemplated moving to the burbs (where we know we'll live and love one day). We imagined more space, a backyard, storage, much less street noise, better weather, room for entertaining and the list goes on.

But living in the burbs also means a longer commute for my husband, which translates to him not getting home in time to see either of the kids before bed and also lots more driving on my part! Sounds silly but I hate packing up the car and doing the car seat thing! It's tedious.

While having a large gourmet kitchen to cook in, more space to entertain and a backyard for the kids to play in is a dream of mine someday, I had to think about what I truly value right now in my life. And that is time with my husband and conveniences of city living. I realized I am not ready to give up my walking life style. I can walk to my daughter's preschool, public library, coffee shops, restaurants, convenience stores and more. We have a park across the street that we consider our backyard and most important to my family is that my husband has a less than 15 minute commute home and can be home most nights in time to help put the kids to bed. So you can bet that I am willing to sacrifice all the joys of the burbs for this... at least for a while longer. Not to mention there is a good possibility that we'll make a big move to the burbs in the next two years. 

So where does that leave us? We've decided to do some major rearranging and organizing of our place and clean out a small walk in closet that we have for our second child. The closet is located between my toddler's room and a bathroom area. We have some major work to do since we currently use it as storage and my toddler's room is half her room and half office but we'll get there. We figure we'll keep our second in the closet nursery for at least the first six months to a year and then move her/him to my toddler's room and they will share.

One couple in New York City made a nusery closet in their 500-squre foot studio apartment. I found the post, (which the picture to the left is from) inspiring. I've also been finding inspiration on Pinterest, Project Nusery and Babble. If you have any thoughts, ideas, suggestions I'd love to hear from you!

Comments

[Sandra]

What a great idea!!! Good luck! We actually used the closet for our now 2 yr old a few times on vacation & she didn't know the difference! I'm sure it'll be just fine for your pending arrival.

And on a related note, I commend you for all of the reasons to stay. We moved from a similar living situation in SF to the suburbs of a Midwest city. While we LOVE the additional space & ammenities, how I long for the life we had! I miss all the walking to coffee, shops, restaurants and child-related activities! ;)