My Extremely Tiny 69SquareFoot Nursery Makeover

My name is Erin. I am a video producer here at BuzzFeed, and I am going to be a mom for the very first time. There are so many gorgeous nurseries on Pinterest and Instagram, but when it comes to doing a makeover in my own space, I have limitations, and I'm sure a lot of you do too. My limitation is space. My husband and I live in Brooklyn, which is great for pizza, but really tricky when it comes to square footage. Okay, we are starting on the baby's room. The space is currently my husband's office. Even though the room is so small, it's such a weird shape that it's kind of hard to get it all on camera at the same time, but basically, all it fits right now is a desk, some bookshelves, and that's it. Kind of just like the junk around our house, to be honest. My goal is to recreate the look of a big, beautiful nursery in my teeny Brooklyn apartment before the baby arrives. I have about 69 square feet to work with and a few weeks of time. So with that in mind, I'll probably use a mixture of store-bought items and things that I DIY myself to save time, money, and space. These kinds of projects and makeovers are my full-time job here at BuzzFeed. You might see me with a mask on or on my little stepstool. Also, you might not see my husband. He doesn't love being on camera, so you might hear his voice. ♪ I'm a big, strong man ♪ Or see his feet, but if you're wondering where he is, he's just a little camera shy. I'm really lucky that my parents live close by and that my dad is super-duper handy. He taught me everything I know. My dad is on his way upstairs to help me start on the wall in her room. So we're gonna take down the shelves, fill in those holes, prime the wall, and then start thinking about paint. I wasn't anticipating that it takes a lot of primer to cover basically a black wall. You can still pretty much see the charcoal through it, so I think I'm gonna have to add another layer or two myself before I add any color. I hope this doesn't set us back too much because we're on a deadline, people. I wanted to use Faro & Ball paint. Their whole thing is that the paint is eco-friendly, it's low fumes. They have a shop in Brooklyn. I went and bought a sample. It's like this perfect dusty pink color, but when I put it on the walls, you know when you go to the store and someone has tried on clothing before you when their huge makeup stain is on the collar? It kind of looks like that, right? So I went back and picked up a sample of a color called Middleton Pink, which just seems a lot lighter, a lot pinker, and probably closer to what I'm looking for. The same day that my dad came over to help with the wall, he helped me totally transform the closet into something that I feel like is super cool. For the back wall of the closet, I bought this really cool removable wallpaper from Urban Outfitters. The crazy thing is, walls aren't all straight. You think they would be. So if your wallpaper isn't matching up exactly, it might not be you, it might just be your walls. An easy way to fix that, keep the top edge as straight as possible, and then use an X-Acto knife to trim away whatever excess you need in that corner. I really liked the idea of going to the container store and buying one of the Elfa custom closet systems. We had one made for our closet when we first moved in. I could actually show it to you. He has some, I have to go on his side to show you, some of the drawers. Not gonna lie, it was a little pricey for what it was, so I kinda did a little cheap trick instead. I bought two door systems, which were relatively inexpensive, and then instead of doing custom shelving that was installed into the closet, I just bought these two drawer systems. Honestly, this is exactly what I would have wanted, but about half the price. You get a crib after all, kid. Of course it wasn't until after we finished everything in the closet that I realized, hey, it would be super helpful for there to be light in here. I ran over to Home Depot and actually found this amazing battery-operated, motion-censored light. I just drilled some pilot holes and put some anchors in, and now we are going to attach the bracket. When I look up at it now, it looks like a hardwired fixture that might have come with our condo, but it's actually this super sneaky, secret, battery-operated thing that I installed for less than 30 bucks. Ooh, yeah, motion-censored light. Looks good, right? For the crib, I love how this one looks from crate and barrel. It was really easy to put together, and it converts into a toddler bed. The instructions on the crib say to make it with another person, but when it arrived, I was way too excited, so I just threw it all together myself. Honestly, I think I finished in an hour, and I think I did a good job. Somebody's crib is all done. Even though I'm a first-time mom, I know you're not supposed to have pillows or blankets or stuffed animals in the crib when the baby is sleeping, but that doesn't mean that you can't have fluffy things in there when she's not sleeping. The Pillow Time Girls had exactly what I was looking for. It was this gorgeous, like, corally, pinky pillowcase. A few things arrived for the nursery, some of which I am excited about, others of which I'm a little disappointed. I was feeling so confident that I bought another one from a different store. This one was a beautiful light blue. It had an eye cap pattern. I was super excited, but then it showed up, and the blue was so much darker than any of the pictures online, so I decided to put on my DIY hat and figure out a way to make it work. I am going to try and bleach some of the blue color out. I put a splash of bleach in the bottom of a bottle and filled the rest with water and just sort of tested it on a small corner to see whether or not it could lift the color enough to make it look like the picture on Etsy. I was really surprised by how well it worked. I'm gonna move this to the bathtub, and I'm gonna do the whole thing now. Of course I had to wash it, like, a zillion times afterwards in order to A, get the bleach smell out, and B, make it safe for the baby's room. I think I finally got it to where I wanted it to be. I ended up going with this bunny mobile from Restoration Hardware Baby. Might be a little too rustic for the room, so I decided to give it a little tiny makeover with a fresh coat of white paint. I think the bunny mobile is so sweet. A little bit of paint can help you transform something into something that feels perfect for your space. The crib is done, the closet is done, the rug is down, which I actually got at Rugs USA back during the holidays because there was a mega sale. I also got a chair from Article. I saw it for the first time on Instagram because that is where I spend my whole entire life, and typically I'm really hesitant to buy furniture on the internet, but this chair had so many positive reviews, and Article is one of those companies that if you don't like it, they'll come pick it up for you and you'll get your money back. Her chair arrived. The material is so nice. The brass frame is just gorgeous. It looks so much more expensive than it actually was. What I did do to make the corner a little bit more cozy is that I found a poof. I have been such a big fan of the Instagram account Babasuk for so long that I kind of forgot that it was a store. Babasuk sells these amazing leather footstools, and they happen to have one that had a teeny tiny flaw that you can barely notice, but they were selling it at a discount. Typically you would fill one of these poofs or puffs with some kind of batting, but because this is a teeny tiny nursery, I decided to fill it with the pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals that I needed storage space for anyway. Because space and storage is such a big issue in this room, we decided to use a dresser instead of a traditional changing table for her diaper area. The tricky thing is the room is so small that the dressers that you find in stores are actually too deep and too wide for the tiny wall that we have. My dad and my uncle are coming today. My uncle has gotten really into furniture making lately, so I sent him our Dilemma and the Dimensions, and he's going to make her something really gorgeous. I feel like this will be an heirloom that she can keep forever. Oh my gosh. You have those little soft feet, buddy? Look at that, this is perfect. I still actually have a few weeks before my due date, and all that's left to do are the details. But for me, those are sometimes the hardest things to pick out. I actually have a couple things in mind that I would love to frame for her room. I'm gonna use a company called Framebridge. What I love about these guys is that you can upload pictures directly from Instagram. Makes my life so much better. I think that'll look good with the pinks and the blues. The colors look good together. You can also send them a baseball glove, a onesie, a lipstick, something special to you. They frame it and make it look amazing, and then they send it back to you. I actually have this really cool piece of fabric that I made, and if they could frame it nicely, I think it would be kind of like a nice statement piece for her wall. And her mom made it, so hopefully that's kind of special too. I was kind of shocked by how large the piece of fabric was framed. It's definitely stunning, and I'm so glad that it's big, but it's my first time hanging a really large piece of artwork like that. Luckily, it came with instructions for exactly how to hang it up. I actually added an extra step, so I added pilot holes and anchors into the wall just to make sure that frame isn't going anywhere. It's perfect. Four inches on that side, four inches on that side, and it's perfectly straight. I think part of me has been really comforted by the process of setting up this room for her, and the idea that that could be over soon makes me really nervous. I am running out of energy to finish the last couple of things. Yeah, these last couple weeks have just been tricky. I'm so excited to meet her, but I'm nervous. I'm getting tired, and I feel different, so I hope that there's enough time to finish. I hope that whatever isn't finished, I'm able to just kind of let go and have it be what it is. There's decor and other stuff to do, but I am just, and huge, and pimply. Thanks, hormones. I just waddled all the way to Soho for the planter, and it turns out you can't buy a design within reach in stores. You have to order it online. Ugh, I'm so pissed. Ugh. This'll have to do. I've gotten to the point where the lights are just the lights. These are just two random lamps that I have from Target, and they work, so they're just gonna stay there. I am heading to the Nifty Studio to shoot a quick DIY project. I found these bookshelves at Ikea, and I'm going to spray paint the front rail with the high-gloss white paint to make them look kind of modern. I feel like the whole vibe is like a cozy, modern, minimalist room. I'm gonna let these dry, and then I'm going to assemble them, and when my dad comes over next, he's gonna help me put them up because I'm too big for the stepstool. There's this little piece of blank space. This is a spot. I could either do a big plant. I could do a hamper. So, when I was at Marshall's yesterday, I started getting contractions when I was waiting to check out and ended up at the doctor's office, and they said to take it easy. So, we'll see what happens. So, I was buying this hamper when the contractions started, so I'm not allowed to walk around and get something else. I think I'm going to give it a quick makeover instead of trying to return it. I'm gonna cut off the gray pom-poms because I don't love the color, and maybe make something that's this color and paint it white. Garbage bag and tape is way easier than taping the whole thing, so let's see. This is going to seem totally crazy. This is why I should not be allowed to go to Target. Once I got the hamper there, I realized I need a spot for her humidifier and her noise machine, and maybe a table is better there than a hamper. I'm not gonna get rid of the hamper. There's actually a spot for it right next to her diaper pail, but I just think I can use that space better and the table might be the solution. Had a few scares, but we are now six days away from the due date. Still no baby, but her room is done, so we're ready whenever she is. I know that babies don't need much. She could have been perfectly fine with some diapers, a safe place to sleep, and food, and she might not even remember this nursery, but it has been a really special thing for me to set up this space for her, and even if it's just in pictures in the future, I hope she looks at it and knows that we were so excited to meet her and so excited, gosh, sorry, and so excited to carve out this little teeny space for her in our home. It's been the most special project I've ever worked on in my whole entire life, and I hope she loves it.