WOWOWOWOWOWOW 🤭 I’m 39 weeks pregnant as I’m writing this!
I feel like this pregnancy progressed at a chill pace until October hit, and then BOOM – all of a sudden I’m due in 6 days…likeeeee whuutttttt??! 🤯😳 But, I’m definitely excited to finally meet this baby!
Anyway, I didn’t exactly have plans of making a full post about the new “kid’s room,” but after sharing how it turned out with you on my Instagram stories, I couldn’t just ignore your responses 😅😂…
So, in this post, I’ll be sharing:
Why we decided to swap the home office and the kid’s room
How we came up with the design (without spending a sh*t ton of money)
Links to everything we purchased
The swap process
Future plans/ideas for each space
Let’s get into it, shall we?!
Deciding to swap our (current) home office with our (current) kid’s room…
This room (in the photo below) wasn’t originally intended to be the “kid’s room.” But, we bought our house as a 2 bedroom, 1 bath at about 800 square feet. Soooo, yeah, most would consider it “small” 😅🤣
While I was pregnant with my daughter, Alex, I told my husband I thought it was “necessary” for us to add another room (primarily because both of us work from home). That way, we’d have our bedroom, her bedroom, and an office space. For any of you who don’t know this about Darius and I, we met in architecture school and both have design backgrounds, so naturally, we couldn’t help but draw up some plans for our garage takeover. 😅
The idea was to convert our small garage and outdoor patio space into a loft-style master bedroom with a bathroom. Butttttttt, after presenting it to the contractor and talking money, we realized it was doing way too much and we had to scale it back significantly. 🤣 Plus, I was already pregnant and we didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of construction with a newborn. 😬
So, we went back to the drawing board and designed a space that could fit into our current garage. The garage was about 160 square feet (sooooooo yeah another “small” space 🫣) but we still managed to design it to where we could squeeze in another full bathroom, hehe. 👀🤭 Hellooo new office space!
We kept it pretty simple, and the majority of our money went towards the bathroom. We purchased two new standing desks (base and top separately) and installed IKEA Besta wall-hanging cabinets so we could transfer everything from our current office built-in (in the 2nd bedroom) into these.
Standing Desks (just the legs/base)
The plan was for the current office to become Alex’s room and the current garage to become the home office. And, that’s what it was…
Until I was pregnant again a year and a half later 😅 Here are some more process photos/videos below!
Swapping the rooms to make space for our second baby didn’t become a conversation until about midway through this pregnancy when we started thinking about where Baby Bounds No.2 was going to sleep and how the f*ck we were going to configure the space to fit another crib. 🤣
Adding another crib into this room was going to be challenging because of all the built-in furniture we had designed back when we first bought the house in December of 2018. There’s a closet on one wall, a bench with drawers on another, and built-in shelving with a desktop on a third. Plus, a full-size “bunk bed” (that has now become additional storage) above it all. We managed to fit one crib in there once Alex was born, but 2? Without demolishing what had already been built in? Not exactly possible. 🫣
That’s when Darius suggested we explore the possibility of moving the office BACK into Alex’s room and moving both kid’s into the new office we just finished (what used to be the garage). When we first discussed it, it seemed kind of crazy?! 🤯🤯🤯
Likeee…we had literally JUST been at IKEA buying some lamps for our office space the week before us having this conversation. But, it seemed like the best (and only) option.
Soooo ONWARD! 😅
I measured the space, the cribs, and the standing desks, and came up with some ideas. It was going to work! Phew! 😮💨
Here are the major things it was going to require:
Getting rid of the long butcher block top and the solo piece of the built-in desk we had in Alex’s current room, so we could fit both standing desks we purchased (and the dimensions couldn’t have worked more perfectly, phew) onto that wall.
More storage in the current office. All we had in there (because it’s all we needed) was the wall-hanging IKEA Besta cabinets above our desks, so adding more storage was a non-negotiable to keep toys, books, and clothing for 2 kids (there is no “closet” in here).
Not too bad, right?! 😅
The Design Decisions
Let’s break down some of the simple design decisions a little more below…
For the Office:
We repurposed the long butcher block top and the built-in shelving in Alex’s room that we had to remove to fit our standing desks and installed them out on the back screened-in patio as a cheap, temporary solution to our laundry area.
The standing desks moved in along with a small rolling cart we already had between the desks and our desk chairs. This was the easy part. 🤣
In removing the long butcher block top, we now had a portion of the built-in (to the left) with no top. So, we had to buy a new piece of butcher block and take it to a friend’s house to cut it to size in his “wood shop” (the advantage of knowing people in the design space 😂). We then moved in our pegboards and installed them on the wall beside each desk along with some of the new mood lighting we had purchased at IKEA (and by “we,” I mean Darius haha). The last thing we had to transfer over was the Peloton Bike, so in it went (although we’re now thinking about selling it, so it probably won’t stay here for long).
IKEA ACKJA Table Lamp (we spray-painted this gold)
The closet in here has become a closet of miscellaneous items: I’ve got clothing in here, some of Alex’s clothing is in here, and there are bath towels, beach towels, sheets, and office supplies. But, everything is at least organized in bins. 🤣
For the Kid’s Room:
Storage, storage, storage was priority #1 and then making sure it felt like a “kid’s room” without having to spend a sh*t ton of money or do even MORE work…😅😆
The room was already painted half white, half black, so we thought of ways to work WITH that. This led to the idea of some sort of graphic on the black wall (either decals or wallpaper). I looked through Etsy and saved LOTS of options, until finally deciding on this Safari one (linked below). I wanted to make sure it’d last a handful of years before needing to change it, so I didn’t want anything too “baby-ish” (there was a lot of this), and I also wanted to keep it neutral for both kids (so nothing “too girly”). Alex LOVES animals, so it seemed like the perfect fit! 🥰
Was it a pain in the BOOTY HOLE to install? Absolutely! 🤣😂 I don’t know if I’ll ever install wallpaper like this again; but I gotta admit, it was worth it and looks really f*cking good! Haha. 😏
Now, for the storage.
Because of the bathroom, the space is laid out as an L-shape with a “hallway-like” entrance. This long, narrow space made for the perfect storage wall and play opportunity (plus the top cabinets were already installed all the way across).
After days of scrolling and saving images on Pinterest, I decided the IKEA Trofast units would work efficiently here below the existing IKEA Besta cabinets on the wall. I measured it out and purchased 3 knowing I also wanted space for a dresser and the changing pad beside it (to store diapers, wipes, lotions, and clothing).
IKEA Trofast Storage Combination (bottom row)
Carter's by DaVinci Colby 4-in-1 Low-Profile Convertible Crib
Since you can never have too much storage (and there was a significant amount of space between the wall cabinets up top and the ones down below), I bought more wall-hanging Trofast storage to fill in the gap.
IKEA Trofast Wall Storage (above)
For anyone wondering, here’s what I currently have stored where:
Lower Bins (Trofast): Toys
Middle Bins (Trofast): Art supplies & Clothing for Baby No.2
Upper Bins: Baby Carriers, Diapers, Wipes, Books, and other miscellaneous items
Some Additional Details:
Bookshelves: Alex LOVES to read books. If it were up to her, she’d have us read until she fell asleep before every nap and bedtime (and who knows how long that’d be 😅), so we usually cut her off after about three, haha. I keep all her books stored in the top Besta cabinets, and rotate the ones on the shelves down below, so she can see them and select the ones she wants us to read to her before she goes to sleep.
Wooden Animal Hooks: I knew when I designed this room, I wanted there to be some sort of hanging opportunity near the changing pad because it just gets messy otherwise. I like the idea of having somewhere to hang her PJs and Sleep Sack after she wakes up in the morning, so it’s there to change into again for a nap, and again at bedtime with ease.
Owl Lamp: When we were shopping for moody office lamps, I saw this at IKEA and thought it was so cute. It’s perfect for bedtime when we’re changing her after bath, reading her books, etc. to set the sleep time vibes. 😴
Magnetic Night Light: I saw something like this in an IG reel (go figure lol) and thought it would make for a cool wall light beside the bookshelves. But, when it arrived and we put it up against the wall, the proportions weren’t right and it looked puny 🤣. So, we mounted it near the changing pad and figured it would come in handy for any late-night changes with Baby No.2 (because the owl lamp is much brighter).
Future Design Ideas
I still don’t feel like either room is “finished,” but if I waited until then to share it, you’d most likely be waiting for months (especially since I could be giving birth to another baby any day now 👀🤣). But, I will share some of the things I’m hoping to get done to each space soon-ish…
In the Kid’s Room:
Change up some of the artwork. These were hanging in Alex’s room previously, but I’m not a fan of them in the new space, so I’ll probably switch out the artwork in the frames to match the new aesthetic (probably something more neutral).
Add a wall sconce beside the bookshelves (unless we think of something else). There’s empty wall space left between the bookshelves and the picture frames that I’d like to eventually fill with something—maybe a wall sconce. Mood lighting is always a vibe, but we’ll see…😏
some ideas…hmmm. Add something to the black wall above their beds. I’m not sure what it would be yet – maybe wooden name signs? But, right now, it’s feeling empty.
In the Office:
Find a new spot for our Peloton Bike (or get rid of it entirely) to move our leather bean bag chair and ottoman back in and create a “cozy nook.”
Add a combo of wall-mounted floating bookshelves and frames displaying either artwork or photos on that empty wall.
Andddddd…that’s a MUTHAFRIGGIN’ WRAP! 🚀🚀🚀
Wooooooweeee! 😅😂 that was a lot, but I hope I delivered for you!
If you have any additional questions for me, or if there’s anything I missed, comment below! 👊
