Before- Newlywed Nook

By the time I celebrated my one year anniversary- I was 4 months pregnant. My life as a newlywed ended before we ever used most of the stuff we got for our wedding. I had so carefully utilized this wonderful built in bookshelf in our small apartment. It had all the things people joining their lives together might have- photo albums, yearbooks, CD collections, games, pictures, and liquor leftover from our wedding.

Once I was pregnant, a lot of things had to change. There was no room in our apartment for a nursery. The crib would have to be at the foot of our bed. The stroller would have to be in our living room.  And the wonderful built in shelves would have to become “the baby nook”.

In order to make room for baby, we had to deal with our own stuff. Yearbooks and never looked at photo albums were boxed up to store in the closet. Cds collections were wittled down. Liquor was given to friends. Things we no longer used were given away. It was a lot of work, but soon I had a blank canvas to create the baby nook!

After- Baby Nook

What fun I had! I got an assortment of bins from Target, Lowes, and The Container Store to meet my needs.

• I used big pull out cube drawers along the top row for things like sheets, extra toiletries, 6-9 month clothes and 12 month clothes.
• Medium pull out drawers for towels and washcloths and breast pump supplies.
• Bins for bibs & burp cloths, toys, teethers and blankets.
• Small baskets for diapers & wipes and lotions & soaps.
• Little drawers for grooming, hair accessories, medical necessities.
• Shelf space for pregnancy books, picture books, diaper bags, slings, extra diapers, and wipes.

To complete the nook, we bought a white dresser from IKEA that was the perfect height and size for a changing table and we securely attached a baby changing pad to the top. The drawers were divided with IKEA Skubb boxes which are great inexpensive drawer organizers. I labeled them with things like “short sleeve onesies”, “long sleeve onesies”, and “pjs”.

The baby nook worked out really well. Everything was labeled making it easy for other people to help with the baby. My husband, who was new to the whole world of organizing, had to admit that this really made things a lot easier as we learned to be new parents. We have moved on to a bigger space and a bigger family, but that baby nook proved that small spaces can be highly efficient when properly organized.