apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Ours was more of a pre-emptive replacement. We moved into our home a few months before baby 1 was born, so we turned one room into a nursery, but it meant there was no room for my craft room. I did manage to kidnap the tiny closet in the office, but it's usually so stuffed I can't open the door.

It looks like this is a room without a window? How do people feel about that? We have an area at the top of our stairs that would be great for a nursery, other than the fact that there's no window. We are hoping to build out a dormer eventually and make it a bona-fide room, but that's probably won't happen until the baby's a bit older. Does that seem awful?

Our spare room/guest room/home office/craft room is a windowless cave and will soon be a nursery. My thought is that other than sleeping, the baby will be spending very little time in the actual nursery. I mean, how much of your day do you spend in your bedroom? Most of my life is spent in the living room and kitchen, and I expect my baby will be with me in those places.

Plus, echolocation isn't too bad of a thing for a baby to learn, right?

My husband's office/ guest room/ storage space/ workout room/catch-all room is in the process of being turned into a nursey. The guest area #2 with the sleeper sofa and my craft space is now my husband's office with my craft space is cramped in the corner. Storage is our big issue and we are working on making it all come together. But the nursery is looking cool!

our guest room - which really operates as my closet, ironing station and overall purgatory for household laundry...i HATE laundry - is slowly transitioning into a nursery for our 1st. thankfully we have another room (my husband's office) that will get the "office-slash-guest room" treatment. and hopefully i can cure my poor, poor laundry issues before the baby comes otherwise co-sleeping may become an excuse to turn the crib into a clothes hamper.

i did see this really cool "displaced room" nursery over on offbeatmama last week - http://offbeatmama.com/2009/10/walk-in-closet-nursery

We're lucky -- we moved into a four-bedroom house a year before I got pregnant and had an empty bedroom waiting to be used. But with our second, it'll be a tossup between office and guest room. Since ALL of my family and friends live out of town, my vote is to displace the office to the basement -- but we'll see!

jackson, why not have baby in your bedroom until the dormer is done? that way you won't have to relocate baby during the remodeling.

I agree with fancyd, my small children (2 and 4) use their bedrooms only for sleeping right now. They like to play where I am so their toys are kept in the living areas of our home. Hopefully you won't have to worry about the kids waking at 5am if there's no sunlight peeping through the blinds to wake them?!

One nice benefit of not having windows in a nursery is it is very dark for napping. Obviously a nice-sized room with lots of natural light would be nice, but it can be a small space just used for sleeping.

I'm the one who's walk-in closet/nursery was linked a few comments above -- it's definitely a small space, but we're hoping it'll work for a few years!

I don't think a nursery lacking a window is mean, but I do think it is unsafe.

In most states, there needs to be some possible exterior egress in a bedroom. This means an exterior door (which doesn't happen much) or a window of some minimum size.

Home inspection sites for your area can be specific about window size and placement requirements. One good summary I found is at:

http://accutech-homeinspections.com/index.php/resources/47


Few understand the reasons and requirements for windows in bedrooms. Natural light and ventilation, mandatory in current building standards, is easily accommodated with a window. Equally as important, a bedroom must have a second means of escape in the event of an emergency. This standard is most often met with the installation of a window. Specific dimensions of the window opening exist to not only ensure that the occupant can escape, but also to allow a firefighter with his equipment on to enter.

Some older homes were built before there were any egress window requirements. Many more homes were built when the egress window net free opening size was much smaller. Yet even newer homes often lack proper egress windows. Some interior spaces were changed into family rooms or offices (which didn't require egress windows) then later converted into bedrooms (which now do require them).

The following is a summary of current bedroom egress window requirements:

* Must be a minimum of 20" wide and 24" high.
* Must have at least 5.7 sq.ft. (821 sq.in.) minimum clear opening.
* Window sill must be no higher than 44" from the finished floor.
* Security bars, if present, must have approved quick release hardware and not require any tools or keys to operate them.

When I moved in to my husbands 1600 sq ft home, the majority of my 1 bedroom condo went into the guest room and catchall room. I transformed the catchall into a cozy office/den/craft space. When our son came along my stuff was dispersed making the guestroom considerably more crowded.

One leftover in the little guys room - his closet is packed full of items my husband inherited from his mom - her 1950's wedding gown, fine china, and silver included. It's getting harder and harder to not have that closet space!

We moved into our three-bedroom house before our son was born. We used one bedroom as a guest room, and the smallest bedroom as a home office (the largest is the principal bedroom). During my pregnancy we discussed which room to give up to make room for the baby. Ultimately we decided to squeeze our office stuff into the guest room and transform the smallest bedroom into a baby's room.

Our son is only in his room for sleeping, diaper changes and reading stories, so a small room is no problem at all. The guest room/office is actually more cramped, with a full-to-bursting closet. We're hoping to relocate the office to our basement after we renovate it. By the time we have a guest room again, it will probably be time to consider converting it to a bedroom for a second baby!

my son and i lived in a small 1 bedroom apartment in NYC when he was born - after a few months, i moved him into my bedroom and moved my bedroom into the living space (which was a long open space) and carved out a "bedroom" for myself with a bookshelf divider. it actually made the whole apartment feel bigger, and was a relief to have a place (even a small one) to put the baby stuff that was taking over everything!

but once he started crawling i gave up and we moved to a 2 bedroom, which i have to say was a huge relief. i did give him the bigger room again though - it's his playroom and bedroom, and it works out really well for us.

I'm the mother of the baby who sleeps in that nursery (and the lucky wife to a very handy man!), and her room does have a window. You can see it (and two additional projects created for her room -- the radiator cover and the changing table topper for the dresser) here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/queso/2303502618/

We are expecting our first in March, and will be modifying our 2 bedroom rental to meet several needs- right now our "Master Bedroom" is my office and studio, while our bedroom is the smaller "2nd Bedroom."

We'll be moving back into the MB and turning half of it into a nursery space, and then downsizing the office into the 2ndBR, and splitting that with a small nook for a guest bed...so I guess we're making 4 rooms out of 2...Wish us luck!! :D

The nursery will be in what once was the "closet." We've removed the doors, so it's now just a nook- perfect for the crib and a dresser, and we're replacing the closet with a large IKEA freestanding closet. We're also limiting our furniture- turning our bed into one with a deep headboard shelf so we can do away with nightstands. Hopefully this will leave extra room for a comfy nursing chair.

We're also turning the closet in the 2ndBR into the nook for the guest space, with a small sleeper sofa that can be folded out for guests, and a convertible table from C&B that folds away for my workspace.

I am really excited for the decorating challenge!