I love thrifting, tiny things, cute things, naps, small spaces, coziness, forests, sleeping, art, cats, and my baby. Combine them all together - we’ve got the baby closet. While our apartment IS actually a two bedroom, why would this new tiny person need a whole big room? We figured we’d much rather use the big room for storage, projects, an office, an art space, and guests, and give the little space to the little baby. So far there’s been no emotional damage from being put in the closet every night and it has become my favorite room in the whole house. Time to share!
The baby closet is roughly 4.5 feet by 7 feet in size. This is the view you’ve got of it from standing in the shower. Yes, I’ve put him in there while I’m in the shower. It’s a walk through closet - the other door leads to a spare room.
Sometimes we turn the ULTRA NOISY POSSIBLY BROKEN bathroom fan on as extra white noise for him. Well, we did until the neighbor complained about “a vibrating noise on the wall all night long” -_- Have tried to avoid using it since that.
Look at that. THIS CLOSET WAS MADE IT FIT A CRIB.
This blanket was a baby gift from our dear friend Loie. She crochet it herself! Loie was kind enough to let me pick the design and colors. I like the look of those Hudson Bay blankets so she made it similar to that! I sewed the pine tree pillows from a thrifted green bed sheet and strung the pom pom strand myself. I was listening to a depressing podcast episode about Elvis as I put the garland together and that memory still comes to mind every time I look at them. It’s weird.
This little gallery wall opposite the crib is the main reason it took me almost ten months to share these pictures. It’s just never DONE done, you know? I finally had to say, “Okay, it’s done enough that I should take some pictures” but I can definitely see myself adding to it here and there when inspiration strikes.
We actually never have the overhead light on in the closet like you see in these pictures, partially because the light switch is inside the spare room rather than the closet itself. Too much effort. The Hatch nightlight/white noise machine is what you’ll typically find going on and it the coziest, most soothing little closet space at night.
There are a couple of cat elements to the room (how could it not?). As a tangent, why are cats found on baby GIRL things but not baby BOY things? This huge grey striped cat was a baby gift from my sister who honestly didn’t know how huge that cat was going to be when she opened up the pattern. We are incredibly grateful for its great size!! We found this nightstand at our beloved fake Target thrift store in downtown Minneapolis.
That’s us! Just know that getting Jason’s hair perfectly accurate is probably the thing in this whole room I’m most proud of. On the right is Spencer’s Korean name, which is legal middle name. In English it’s spelled Taeyoon. Jason wrote it down for me on a piece of paper so I could practice writing it in Korean to make this little framed piece. My ignorant American brain looks at it and sees “EH” followed by a smirking face with a halo.
And there he is!! I found a little mini decorative cutting board at the thrift store, took off the loop of twine from the top, and painted it over with the cutest little baby face in existence.
I received this gold foil print from a past photography client who opened the most beautiful church-themed print shop! The shop is W Paper Co and I knew it would be perfect in a baby room!! The frame, and all the frames in his room, were thrifted and painted white. So. Many. Layers. Of. White.
While we’re on the topic I’ll tell you these striped jammies are also thrifted.
This cat has a nice little backstory. When I was in my second trimester, one of my grandfathers passed away in Connecticut (see his wedding picture in this post). We didn’t fly out to attend Pop Pop’s funeral because coincidentally we had already booked a trip to CT for a week and a half later. So when we arrived, the funeral had already come and gone but my mom had a bag of Pop Pop’s clothes she was going to donate after we went through them for anything we may like. I took two old, soft, polos - one orange and one blue. I brought them back to Minnesota and carefully turned them into this cat you see here. I was very nervous to mess up and ruin the fabric forever and knew I couldn’t just ‘wing it’ like I usually do (and often fail) so I purchased this cute cat pattern on Etsy. Pop Pop didn’t vocalize many strong passions or opinions, except that he absolutely loved his cat. In an additional homage to his time in the Air Force in the Korean War, there is an airplane on the back of the cat’s blue shirt.
I loved creating this little space bit by bit, usually by hand with a paint brush. The little mushroom and acorn paintings were finished literally two days before he was born! I love when art, even just simple decor for a baby room, means something. A connection to a story, a family member, or even just an interest. I hope one day Spencer will ask, “What’s that?” about the space around him and I can share all the reasons I made this space for him.
