When I got married, my husband and I found a beautiful and affordable apartment in Little Havana. The apartment itself was in an older building, and many of our neighbors had been living there since they arrived from Cuba in the 1960’s. Within walking distance to famous Calle Ocho, it was a very fun and vibrant community, full of older Cubans, Central Americans, transplants and tourists.
Within a month after our wedding, I got pregnant. While the timing of it wasn’t planned, we were thrilled to have a baby! We were not interested in moving, so I got to work planning on how to make our one bedroom accommodating for our little bean. While our apartment was small, there was a large closet in the master suite and the bedroom was large. My idea was to empty our closet, and build an open closet on an empty wall in the bedroom.
As you can see from the layout, we had very limited storage to begin with, so giving up our large walk in was a bit of a sacrifice. We didn’t even have a linen closet, so in addition to storing clothes for my husband and I, we also had to store all of our linens in our walk-in. Losing our closet for storage forced me to press into my value of simplicity and creativity more than I ever had before.
Before:
After:
The first step in this process was moving our clothes and linens from the walk-in, to the new closet space in the bedroom. Ikea came to the rescue with Algot, an affordable and customizable closet and storage space solution that attaches to the wall (which they unfortunately not longer sell). I used the online planning tool on the Ikea website to figure out which pieces I wanted for the wall and purchased everything in store. It was a fairly simple process to assemble, but requires power tools and knowledge of wall materials to properly attach to the wall. When we moved out of the space, we actually left the Algot behind because my landlady liked the set-up!
Since this closet was visible from my bed, it needed to be pretty. Seeing chaos when you first wake up is like starting your day with a bad omen, so I invested in wooden hangers (Ikea). I also purchased a variety of storage boxes and hanging organizers from Target by Made By Design. The design of these coordinated well together with Algot from Ikea, resulting in an affordable yet, pretty-to-look-at closet.
The next step in this process was figuring out how to turn the closet into a nursery. While the closet was big enough to fit a standard crib, it would have taken up the whole space, which is not what I was going for. In my research phase of the design process, I discovered “mini” cribs (who knew?) and settled on purchasing the Origami Mini Crib by Babyletto, which I found used for only $75. This crib folds together, so moving it and storing it is a breeze. I also purchased a small glider from amazon, which has been more durable and comfortable than I thought it would be. After a year and a half of using it multiple time per day, it still works well, has not stained and is one of the more comfortable chairs that I own. From a design perspective, I would have preferred something more modern, but this is the only chair that rocked, fit inside the small space and you just can’t beat the price.
To add in color, I had originally wanted to buy peel and stick wall paper to put on the one back wall in the closet. When I was pricing it out, it was just more than I wanted to spend so I kept putting it off. On a trip to Target, I found a colorful rope rug by Pillowfort that fit the dimensions for the closet perfectly. When I got the rug in place, it provided so much color that I decided against doing the wall paper. I finished out the space with a flisat wall storage shelf for books (Ikea), some pink and gray fabric storage bins (Marshalls) and some watercolor paintings. The painting in the center is from Marshalls, the two on the right are my own handiwork. The end result was turning our one bedroom into a one and half bedroom, thoughtfully prepared for bundle of joy.
When we moved out of this apartment, getting things back in order was very simple, especially since our landlady wanted to keep the Algot Closet in the bedroom. I simply put back the closet dowel rods (which I had stored under my bed) and I was done. All in all, it was a very renter friendly solution to needing a nursery for an unexpected, but very welcome new member of the family.
HOP Design 