I have given birth to 8 babies. I’ve never had a nursery.
Oh, I’ve drooled over plenty of pictures of fabulous rooms designated solely for baby, but I’ve never had one. Our family has always grown faster than our space, thus no nursery has ever materialized.
The truth is that babies don’t need nurseries. They’ll never remember them, anyway. And while mothers may LIKE nurseries, all that mothers really need is sleep. This means that mothers need their babies to sleep. At night. When the rest of the family sleeps.
My #8 was the best sleeper I’d ever had, up until a month ago. Suddenly she was waking up every hour or two. First it was constipation and then teething. Earlier this week, at 3 a.m., in a moment of desperation we moved her bed into our closet. Ta Da! She slept!
Well, it appears that she has found her new bedroom, because for the past 3 nights I’ve had 5 hours of solid sleep. I’m still exhausted, but it’s a start. The problem is that her little pack and play bed was in the middle of our closet, with about 8 inches on either side for maneuvering. Today’s project was to organize the closet WITH the baby’s bed in it, so that I can do laundry and we can find our clothes.
This is what I came up with. Please remember that the lighting in these photos is horrible because this is, well, a CLOSET. It never has and never will see the light of day. I did my best (which I readily admit isn’t great. I haven’t the courage to learn how to edit photos yet, but when I finally do, I’m sure I’ll regret not doing it sooner).
This view is looking into the closet through the doorway in my bathroom. On the right hand side of the picture you can see the doorway leading from the other corner of the closet into my laundry room. The wall that has now become my “nursery” looked like this when I started:
I’ve always tried to keep that wall open so that I can keep my ironing board there. Today the ironing board moved out so that the baby crib can sit against that wall. I hung a huge vintage tablecloth on the far left to cover my clothes and define the space a bit. Then a plant stand came in from the front porch to hold the baby monitor, and a lamp came up from the basement. I hung her blessing gown on the wall, and propped a long, thin mirror on the plant stand.
The mirror I added because we all know that every room needs a mirror. Just kidding. I made that up. But I think I believe it. Have you ever seen a space that wasn’t made more beautiful by adding a mirror somewhere? They add so much light and beauty to a room. I guess I put it in because if this is going to be baby’s room, then I might as well have a little fun!
On the other side of the crib I hung a baby themed embroidery that I completed a few years ago. Nice light switch, huh! Hey, it’s a CLOSET!
I grabbed a very old artificial hydrangea garland that’s been kicked around by my kids for 3 years now, dusted it off, and wrapped it around the hanging bar to make the bar a little less obvious. Then I hung a canopy (also from the basement) from the bar to cover my iron holder on the wall and to sort of enclose the bed a bit.
Finished. 30 minutes. Not a penny spent. Not too bad!
You see, sometimes decorating is glamorous and gorgeous, but most of the time it’s just figuring out how to make real life work and then adding in a bit of beauty. I’ll never get that nursery I’ve always wanted, but now I have 6 feet of wall in my closet that resembles one. I’m making do with what I’ve got, and turning it into something I like. And that, my friends, is the whole point of “making home.”
Now for the laundry! (Ugh.)
Have a great weekend.
