This Couple Has a Second Bedroom — But They Built a Nursery in Their Closet Instead
Although Amanda Heald and Josh Hull moved from a 300-square-foot Brooklyn apartment to a more expansive two-bedroom Kansas City home, they brought their small-space mindset with them.
While their current apartment has two proper bedrooms, the would-be nursery is close to the stairwell (which can be very noisy), has no windows (or natural light), and includes a door leading out to a shared outdoor space. Amanda wasn’t okay with her baby (or herself and Josh) claiming that room as a bedroom. So, the couple looked to the 9-foot-by-3-foot closet in their primary bedroom.
“The only option I was comfortable with was to share a bedroom with our child, and I have always loved closet nurseries, so I was so excited when I realized we were able to make it work,” Amanda explained in her House Tour on Cubby’s sister site Apartment Therapy.
Amanda and Josh didn’t mind making over the closet anyway, as it was “very basic, outdated, and a bit drab before,” Amanda said at the time of the tour. It had an IKEA closet shelving unit, gray walls, and two boring white sliding doors on the exterior.
Amanda wanted the room to be “colorful, whimsical, and eclectic with no mass-produced items.” The couple’s first step was removing the sliding doors and half of the IKEA system. Next, they painted the walls the same soft pink as the rest of the primary bedroom, and hung an ABC tapestry — the star of the space and Amanda’s “building block” for the room’s design — along with a wooden plane and some DIY clouds. Lastly, they installed curtains that help create a boundary between the two rooms and block light during naps.
The closet isn’t a perfect rectangle, so the couple had to get creative. “The right side comes to a point, making about 3 feet of that space virtually unusable,” Amanda shared. “We just put a small table in that corner to prop up our nursery camera and fan for air circulation.”
While the main sleeping area is inside the closet, the couple expanded the nursery into other parts of their bedroom. For example, they created a changing station against another wall, and they turned an awkward, empty corner (the “opposite” of the closet’s pointed section) behind the bedroom door into a cozy reading nook with a piece of carpet custom cut by Amanda and shelving that holds books and special items. “Finally,” said Amanda, “we added a blue hanging chandelier that hung above the altar at our wedding to tie everything together.”
It didn’t take much time or money to complete the nursery closet makeover, as Amanda’s only new purchases were paint and a few small furniture items; she reused or repurposed everything else.
“I love the closet nursery and the hidden reading nook so much,” Amanda said at the time of the House Tour. “I definitely design with my inner child at heart. Those spaces just feel so cozy and magical to me.”
To see more of Amanda’s colorful, eclectic home, visit the full House Tour on Apartment Therapy.