When we started telling people that we were expecting our third child, every other person immediately asked if we were finally going to move.
We moved into our house on the day that Eva was born, about five and a half years ago, and at that time it was absolutely perfect for two people and a baby. Now that we're going to be a family of five, things have definitely gotten tighter. It's a house but it's basically a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment because we only have the one floor and since we live in one of Salt Lake City's most charming neighborhoods, our house is more than eighty years old. That means the bedrooms are small with old closets, old windows, and not a lot of extras.
On the plus side, there are a lot of things that we love about this house, including the neighborhood and the fact that it's a very short commute both to Kyle's office and to the local children's hospital. (Not a selling point for everyone, but the Morgan kid tends to end up in that hospital a little more than the average bear.) So, even though we knew it would be tight, we weren't in a hurry to move just because of the baby.
Instead, we plan on sharing our room with the baby for the first year and then either looking into a new house or putting all three kids in one bedroom. We had both Eva and Calvin in our room when they were infants, but the big drawbacks for keeping them in there past the first few months are that it makes settling the baby at night more complicated and limits how much space everyone has.
Our solution was to divide the room in half this time, rather than tuck the crib into a corner, so we now have a micro nursery sharing the bedroom with our sleeping space, which is comprised of our king size bed, shelves mounted on the wall to hold things like books and our television, and our couch which is currently doubling as a headboard.
That might sound a little nuts, but once we added some curtains to divide the space, our part of the room turned into the world's coziest parent fort and we actually love spending time in here.
As for the nursery part of the room, a small sofa with a storage ottoman set up a place to nurse/pump and the other side has a mini-crib and a little bit of storage. The result is the perfect micro space for a new baby boy.
The sofa is the SOLSTA sleeper sofa from IKEA and we bought it a few years ago to put in the kids' room. It's small but surprisingly comfortable and easy to clean so we really like it. I picked up some extra soft pillows and a throw to fancy it up for the baby and we brought our Boppy out of storage. You can't see, but the breast pump is tucked in beside it (although I'm really hoping to upgrade before baby gets here).
It helps to have something to put your feet up on, so we added a storage ottoman to hold blankets and give just a little extra seating when we need it.
On the back of our bedroom door, I added a removable storage rack to hold a few little things for baby. We didn't necessarily need the extra storage because our storage ottoman is holding baby blankets with lots of space left over, but I wanted things to be easy to reach and baby stuff is so cute when it's out on display anyway.
The print over the baby's crib is actually a bulletin board I found at TJ Maxx/Homegoods. I think it's supposed to be wedding decor because that's the section I found it in, but I liked how calm it was and I figure we'll be able to use it as a family bulletin board later on since it isn't strictly baby art.
The little mirrors were another find from the same shopping trip. I was originally going to do a small gallery wall of prints but it's such a small space I didn't want to overwhelm things. The quilt on the crib is from Just Born and it matches the Babyletto mini crib perfectly (I'm obsessed with this crib by the way!!!).
I added a little pull out tray that I found at Target under the crib to hold some diapers and wipes. We actually have a separate changing area in the house that I'll share later but it's always nice to have options in the middle of the night.
We also have our little Radio Flyer walker wagon (the only walker that ever worked safely for our kids) and small selection of toys. Eva drowned in toys when she was born and Calvin had a couple of big bins, but we learned that we really only needed a few classic favorites for those first six months because EVERYTHING is an interesting toy for babies. So, the wagon is a good place to have just a couple of things on hand waiting for baby to get a little bigger. It's also keeping the baby stuff safe from the curious, germy hands of the siblings.
Overall I'm very happy with how the space has turned out because it's a nice to place to settle but everything there is functional and can be repurposed when we don't need a nursery anymore. Most of all it just feels great to have it all pulled together now. Just waitin' on that baby!!