organization – Hunt & Gather Home

A few weeks ago I was able to finish converting my youngest child’s nursery into a big boy room/guest room, suitable for a wildly independent two year old and the occasional houseguest. The conversion has taken a bit longer than I planned, but that’s due more to my reluctance to admit that we’re ready to move the baby bed to the attic than the actual amount of work that was done in the room.

You all asked for additional photos of the vintage crib, so I’ll indulge both your curiosity and my sentimental heart with these final photos of a family heirloom that has nurtured three generations of sweet, sleeping infants.

This side latches and folds down making it easy for adults to get baby in and out of the bed, but nearly impossible for a toddler to unlatch both ends at the same time. Yes, that is screen between the wood frame.

This is the “lid” (for lack of a better word) that folds over the top and latches. We never used it, but the idea of screening your child in their crib actually makes pretty good sense to this Southern Mama who enjoys the outdoors but detests mosquitos. Judging by the vintage advertisement below, that’s exactly what the Trimble Company was banking on.

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As you can see, my child thought his crib was a pretty novel idea, too!

I will not lie, even after rearranging the room, I left the crib sitting awkwardly in the middle between the bed and the chair, obviously out of use and out of place, but not quite ready to store it away for good. However, this past week, my husband finally hauled it up to the attic, and we decided to fully embrace the “little boy” years. He’s ready and so are we!

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I wanted to keep a hint of the “sweetness”of P’s nursery in his updated space. He is a sweet child and a calm and pleasant room suits him well. Like any good mother on a mission to clean up and clean out, I chose to tackle the closet first.

Cleaning out the baby things was the difficult part. The actual conversion was simple. I simply lifted off the front half of the changing table that my husband installed, moved the hanging rod from the bottom bracket to the top, moved the baskets to the top shelves, and adjusted the side shelving to accomodate toys. Toys are kid-accessible and clothes are not. You like how I planned that, no?

I lowered the adjustable shelves are repurposed baskets (oops! forgot to re-label) to make room for toys.

The center and right sides of the closet store larger toys that I’d rather not have displayed in the room. He can actually play with his tools inside the closet!

Looking up to the top of the closet. Plenty of room for several seasons of hanging clothes as well as two shelves of bins and baskets.

Having an organized and functional closet for my kids makes mornings easier and cleanup time bearable. The little one is loving his new closet. He feels like the big boy that he is by being able to choose his toys and put them back by himself. I consider it a winning design when a closet can aid in teaching kids to have fun and be responsible for their things.

In the next few days, I’ll post more about changes to the rest of the room, but here are few glimpses of the fun!

Can’t wait to show you more!

I’ve been reflecting this past week on the fact that my youngest will turn 2 in six short days. I can hardly believe it. My heart is full of joy at the beautiful child he is becoming, yet at the same time it aches for him to remain a precious babe just a little while longer. Such is the wonderfully complex love of a mother’s heart.

The realization that the past two years have flown by even faster than I remember with my oldest son has made me want to slow down these last few days of of my Sweet P’s second year of life just to make sure I have every little precious detail of his babyhood ingrained in my heart and mind so that I may ponder over them when I am old and gray.

So, bear with me this week as I sentimentally celebrate the life of my almost-two-year-old. What better place for me to begin than by sharing photos of his nursery.

I have fond memories of creating this space especially for him. Even though he is my second child, this was my first nursery to design. (We were renting a small, four-room shotgun house when my first son was born and had practically no flexibility in space or paint color.) My desire was for this nursery to be sweet yet boyish with hints of vintage and modern elements.

I chose the wall color before I knew if le bebe would be a boy or a girl, intending to accent it with navy for a boy or coral for a girl. It’s been fun to find the perfect navy accents, mostly stripes and polka dots. They give the room a playful air.

The small wardrobe dates to the 1950s and was originally used by my mother when she was a child. She even scribbled her name on one of the drawers in crayon. My Grandmother handed it down to my mother, who handed it down to me. It has now been used by three generations.

The sweet outfit and baby shoes framed above the wardrobe were my husband’s when he was a baby. My Mother-In-Law thoughtfully passed them down to me when my first son was born. A collection of 12 vintage and modern silver frames are ready to capture the sweet smiles of our little one as he grows so quickly his first year.

This crib has also been used by three generations: my mother, myself, and my two boys. It has been restored and repaired for each child and continues to hold up well. I love that it rolls easily. Should we have guests, it is takes little time and effort to roll the baby’s bed into our room for a few days. Above the bed hangs a darling print by Sarah Jane Studios. It reminds me of one of my favorite childhood movies, a short French film called The Red Balloon.

The room is large and doubles as a guest bedroom, so it also has a double bed. My husband helped me cut plywood to form the headboard frame. I found the blue and white stripe fabric on the remnant table at the fabric store and knew it would be perfect for the room. The quilt at the end of the bed belonged to my husband’s great-grandmother. It is soft, perfectly warm, and introduces a bit of color into the room. The navy polk dot crib sheets pick up the same hundred-year-old pattern on the quilt.

We had recently relocated the original wood shutter closet doors to the exterior of our home. Because I knew we’d be using the closet often, I chose to hang simple white curtains at the opening to make the closet easier to access.

My husband built the cornice and I covered it using leftover fabric from the headboard project. He also added the removable countertop and lower hanging rack. We use the countertop as a changing table and baby clothes are neatly hung below. Two rows of shelving hung along the top of the closet, along with four shelves tucked neatly on the left side, give us plenty of room to store everything from diapers to socks to outgrown clothing in neatly labeled navy cloth bins.

As children grow and change, their rooms must change to suit their needs. Soon, the closet will be converted from a changing station to a toy rack, the baby bed will move to the attic, and framed hand-me-downs will be packed back in a box. Of course, I have plans for tweaking and updating this space, but before I begin, I felt it only appropriate to document the space that nurtured my little one during the first precious years of his life.

Tag: organization

Farewell Crib, Hello Closet!

Life with Little Ones: Nursery + Guest bedroom