Please tell me you aren’t seriously thinking of “hiding away” your baby in a windowless closet. You don’t need a large space to raise a family, but you do need some common sense.

If it’s a priority to have the office out of the public areas, put a desk in the closet. Then figure out if you’ll share a bedroom w/ the baby or if you or the baby will be bunking down in the living room.

Do not put the baby in the closet. Your baby will get sick. I'm guessing your closet is unventilated. Are you planning on putting the diaper pail also in there? Even if you weren't a non ventilated room with a baby that has pooped in their diaper has serious health risks. All living rooms need to breath, especially bedrooms where you spend 1/3 of your life. Some babies 1/2 their first year. between naps and nighttime sleep my baby is in her room 12-14 hours a day.

I think that she means that they'll take the door off the closet and use the recessed space for the crib. I've seen this done before and it's been a good solution in those cases.

Keep in mind that if that closet is off the bedroom then the baby's schedule might interrupt your partner's work day. While I agree that it would be great to keep the living room/kitchen area for socializing and relaxing, there's something to be said for keeping the bedroom purely for sleeping.

Do you have pics of the bedroom? Try to get your partner to seriously pare down on any office equipment. Less is more with an at-home office. It might be worth investing in a low profile Mac laptop, since that will allow your partner to work from whatever room is best.

Also, if your partner will be working from the bedroom, is there any bedroom storage that you can move to the living room? That might help to make space there.

Good luck!

You should try and watch HGTV! haha :)

But seriously, how about just rearranging the entire apartment?? Not sure if this is really your style or not, but maybe you can make the fireplace as a focal point, put your couch/chair/coffee table in that area. Then you could move the office area closer to the window or the wall opposite of where it's at.

But it's really hard to tell since there isn't a floor plan or more pictures of the space to see what you can really work with

I must agree...do not put the baby in the closet, no matter how large that space may seem now. Especially as they get older, babies make all sorts of mess in their cribs that must be aired out. It is just not possible to get good circulation in a space like that, and funstraw is right- My youngest is five months old and sometimes sleeps upwards of eighteen hours a day. They sleep the best when they have a nice breeze in the room.
If the closet seems big enough for a crib, then it is definitely big enough for an office space. Or, if you can figure out a way to have a desk that folds up against the wall, you can install that in the bedroom and some shelves and you should be straight.
Just, whatever you do, leave the baby out of the closet. Please.

let's not jump the gun here, people. i'm sure courtney will take the necessary measures to make sure the closet is adequately ventilated. besides, the baby will most likely end up on the bed with her parents the first few weeks or months anyway! (if that's the case, you can always get a co-sleeper to attach to your bed to save on space.)

having said that, i suggest incorporating your office into the living/dining space instead of the bedroom. maybe it's just me, but i'd want the bedroom committed completely to sleeping and relaxing and... other activities. also, if you have the baby in the bedroom, you probably wouldn't want to risk bothering him/her during the daytime.

how about replacing that corner bookcase in your first pic with an office armoire? or setting it against the wall on the other side of your bedroom door?

I think its better to put the baby in the closet (with ventilation etc. taken into consideration) so that the bedroom can stay private...there's something to be said for needing to maintain closeness as a couple after a baby and not having the baby take over all space and time. That being said, the baby wouldn't be able to sleep well during the day if it was in the high traffic living room.

If the closet is off the living area, I would put the baby in there and the office in the bedroom.
If the closet is off the bedroom, I would still put the baby in there, and move the furniture towards the fireplace and set up an office area (possibly sectioned off somehow) by the windows in the living area.

I would use sound machines to keep everything peaceful if noise becomes a problem/distraction for either the baby and/or the worker.

Whew! Courtney here -- everyone gets so worked up about the baby in the closet thing! It really touches off a nerve, I'm not really sure why. I'll be 75% a doctor by the time a little one might come around, so I feel pretty confident that I'll find a way to keep mini-me healthy and happy. Also, as with everything else with children, they are a) all different, b) will do things that are totally unexpected. If he/she hates whatever we set up (closet or not), we'll just change things.

Anyway, here is the floor plan, via flickr (hope this link works!):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22723415@N00/2491861687/

No photos of the bedroom where you can see anything -- it's too small to get much perspective.

It's a good point about the baby's schedule interrupting ours, but I wonder -- won't we be interrupted anyway? I figure I'll be waking up constantly to breast feed in the beginning (plus, the offspring will probably be in bed w/us in a basket early on, I'm lazy.) Plus it's hard for me to imagine my partner being un-bothered by his child crying, even if he were working in the other room. But it's true that we have to decide the best division of space. Ideally, it'd be nice to have quiet things (work, sleep, sleeping baby) in the bedroom, but it sounds like everyone's leaning away from that.

I like the corner armoire idea. It never occurred to me because it would block our living room heater, but we could always get separate plug in heater.

sidestepping the baby/closet debate...when you say "keep work/living space separated" I would think about two things: visual and aural. Will there be stacks of papers, projects that need to remain out on a table top for several days/months? Does your partner need a certain level of quiet to do their work? Or are they particularly noisy when doing work (on the phone a lot etc.)? Also - how do they work? Do they dig in and stay focused for hours on end? Do they need to move about in a dynamic workspace?

My partner works from home and needs to leave out stacks of books (he is a bookseller/restorer). We have a work "corner" in our living room that has a wooden partition. That way he can leave books out but I don't have to look at them when I sit on the couch. He is a pretty quiet worker and isn't distracted if I have the tv on, so sound bleed isn't a problem, but if he were on the phone all the time, we would have had to build some kind of wall to insulate the sound. He can sit for quite a long time in the corner with his computer and so to encourage him to get up and move about he made a secondary work area where he restores and packs books. It is a slab of plywood he takes out and puts on the kitchen table - there is lots of light, he is up and about, but it isn't a permanent feature in the kitchen and he always puts it away by the end of the day.

good luck!

I would never put a workspace in the bedroom: it's just a bad idea, and not conducive to rest - yours, his or the baby's.

If the closet is large enough, why not move your bed in there (we've seen this many times on AT) and put the baby out in the main bedroom with a little sitting area where you can get away while your hubby is studying??

yeah I must say the people who are freaked out about the baby in the closet really sound like they are not new yorkers/young parents! I know 3 couples who are new parents and every one of them converted their walk-in closet to the nursery! looking at your floor plan though courtney, I relaly don't know how, apart from a murphy bed, you could convert your bedroom into a dual purpose space. I mean you could obviously move the chair out and put a desk there, but that seems so cramped to me! If it were my place I might stick a desk on the other side of the door by that shelf, but that's about all I can come up with. good luck!

I like the idea of reorienting the living room furniture around the fireplace and having the office area by the windows, perhaps partitioned off a bit by the expedit. I would also move the dining table out from the wall to create more flow around that area.

Thanks Enamorada and FromThe Future! It's nice to know not everyone thinks I win worst-future-mother-of-the-year for wanting to put my munchkin in the closet.

So I played around with the floor plan to test out some suggestions:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22723415@N00/2492125089/

In blue: Selena's suggestion for a corner office armoire. It looks workable, but a little crowded next to the couch (which, unfortunately, is just too big to go anywhere else in the room -- trust me, when we moved in, we tried every possible combo.)

In green: An idea based on aesteve212's visual separation strategy. We double up the Ikea bookshelves to section off an office in the middle of the living space. Partner says this will look ridiculous, but I'm not sure. This is my favorite solution right now.

In pink: I love the idea of the living pods I always see on AT (like Tony and Hilary's place on Small Cool -- love it!) So I was thinking we could spin the bed around and loft it to the exact right height that allows us to both walk upright to the closet and sit up in bed (this is a delicate balance; our ceilings are high, but not monstrous.) The baby still goes in the closet (still the most peaceful place in the house), the closet contents move under the bed, and there's some breathing room next to the window.

The drawback to the loft idea is that I wouldn't feel comfortable bringing mini-me into bed with us that high up, so would need an option for sleeping next to the offspring on level ground during the first crazy months. It looks like we could just squeeze in a futon lounger. Then when we don't need it, we have space for a desk, a rocking chair, or even a crib (if the closet thing falls through.) But I'm worried that the bedroom will be just ridiculously crowded like this. Oh, and that it will cost a ridiculous amount of money.

I like the dining table suggestion, Danger Dorge -- it's free and I can do it tonight!

Courtney -- I also know several people that were able to make a completely fine sleeping area for a baby the way that you are planning; you will be able to ventilate it. And you totally have the right attitude about being flexible/willing to change things up! It never goes exactly as you plan with a little one, sigh...

sounds like we are/were somewhat in the same boat. I had my son right before graduating med school (15 months ago), took a year off, and am now a resident...

anyway, ahem, back to design...mind if I ask where you got the beautiful blue shade in your living area? Been looking for something like that...

I have a few ideas for you. I'm sure that your bath has an exhaust fan. Your kitchen may have one as well. So that you can get flow-through ventilation in the larger living area, but not so much in the bedroom area.

The baby is the top priority, and the baby will start off with simple demands. Eat, sleep, excrete. Hygiene is up there too, bathing the baby. So, where will those things be taking place?

In and about the kitchen and the bathroom. Right? So, swap the bedroom and the living room spaces.

Head of bed goes against the fireplace wall, where the brown chair, the typewriter table and the plant stand are.

Eyeballing the space, you'll have enough space for the crib at the end of the bed against that wall where the cat bed and the Madison shelf are currently.

Swipe ideas from many of the Small, Cool contestants. And hotels. Ha! You can have a suite appearance, like the hotel rooms and studio apartments that have a kitchenette, sofa, table, and bed all in the same room.

How often do you really dine? Seriously. Dining tables in small spaces are a luxury, in that for folks that are working, they aren't home for lunch 5 out of 7 days. Breakfast may or may not be on the go, so that may not be used at all, except for dinner.

Check out the posts on the coffee/dining table combos, that switch from being a coffee table to a dining table. Or dining tables that have a gateleg. Or that expand and collapse. Or get rid of the dining area altogether.

That opens up that WHOLE area by the kitchen for a desk. It's far enough away from the bed that it's not like you're working out of your bed. You can have the desk face out, with the back to the kitchen, so it would be sort of like this:
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/real-estate/queens-rowhouse-the-new-york-times-51108-050597

That leaves the whole center area of your apartment AND your entire bedroom available to rearrange the remaining furniture.

The "loud" room or the "quiet" room can then be the bedroom. You could even do this with one of your chairs:
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/sf/sf-spring-cure-week-eight-check-in-049719

You can have the sofa facing the fireplace.

For the bedroom to be the quiet room, you could place the Expedit and one chair, like the image, by the window. Desk for work where the wicker something is located.

The reason the bed can work in the main living space is that you aren't entertaining while sleeping. You aren't cooking while sleeping.

Having the office space set off with books to read and other "quiet" things is a good idea. Because someone MAY have to work while the other person is trying to sleep.

Having the Expedit closer to the closet could provide a small "dressing" area on that side of the room. While the area by the window could be used for the office and reading area.

Having the bed against the fireplace wall means no one has to walk around it at all to get to any other part of the home. People do tend to gravitate towards windows. But if you don't want people sitting on the bed during an evening with friends, get one of those signs from the department stores that says "Bed for display purposes only, do not sit or lie on bed".

It would be funny and it would get the point across that you don't want people sitting on the bed. Even though YOU can when other people aren't there.

Cribs don't have to be behemoth items. There are lots that are portable or lightweight that will allow you to easily move the crib from one room to another. Having people over and going to get a little noisy? Roll it into the office room.

Working late and your partner is taking care of the baby? Roll the crib into the main room.

The space you have can be defined in any way you see fit. Adapt the space to your needs. You don't have to buy anything new.

True Blue -- your suggestions and photos are AWESOME. I totally am impressed by how much you're thinking outside of the norm. I have to pick them apart and see which changes would fit into our lifestyle (mostly my lifestyle, which will have erratic, 4:30am type hours) but I think it's a very cool way to scrap what think a house *should* look like and design it to fit our needs. I've also been assuming that changing our space will take $$, but you're right -- we should try to adapt what we have first.

JeanieFR -- Design stuff first: Blue lamp shade is from Pearl River on Broadway. It's hung on the Regolit lamp from Ikea. The shade is cheap, but also... we have a ton of those blue lanterns leftover from our we-got-hitched party a bit back, and I'd love to get them out of the closet. Are you anywhere near Boston or NYC? Free lantern in exchange for freeing up some closet space! On a side note: Found your blog via one of your old posts, and LOVED reading about someone making the kids / medicine / life thing work (while staying calm and happy! I don't think I'm that calm now, pre-child!) Anyway, super inspiring, so nice to know it can be done and done well :)

The answer to your problem depends on how much of a commitment you are able to make to your apartment.

Your living area would work much better if the seating area were centered around the fireplace, which is now out of place and irrelevant. In order to make that work though, you would have to sell your current sofa, and find one that fits the space.

Changing and moving sofas would then free up the window bay for a lovely office area, or area for the baby (a nice light-filled play area).

If you would like a truly separate office, check out these wall beds -- (you could always make your own, as the components are available)

This one would work on the wall opposite your fireplace
http://www.bonbon.co.uk/clei/lgm_007.htm

http://www.bonbon.co.uk/clei/lgm_desk.htm

http://www.bonbon.co.uk/clei/ulisse.htm

or this could work in the bedroom, making it a dual office/bedroom

http://www.bonbon.co.uk/clei/ulisse_desk.htm

http://clei.it/

As for the baby, I would not recommend using a travel crib/play pen as a permanent bed -- they usually have a central post that makes the bottom quite lumpy and uncomfortable, and the mattresses supplied are very thin. We avoid them with our kids even when we travel.

Get a Stokke crib -- although not cheap, you can probably resell it for a good price. It is ideal because it can start as a tiny bassinet that you can move around, and then grow as the baby grows:

http://www.stokkeusa.com/sleepi.htm

(save money by not buying any dangerous and unnecessary bedding sets)

One last tip: your kitchen/dining area would flow better with a long thin rectangular table. I've seen some lovely antique ones (not expensive, as they do not work for most people) -- keep your eyes peeled. It would also enlarge your prep area.

Courtny --
You will make my MONTH (at least!) if you donate one of your extras! (and congrats on the hitching!)
And I'm glad you found the blog and liked...I hope it gets more interesting when I actually start residency in July. So far, it seems to have worked out well, med-school baby and all!...I am in the NYC area...ok to email you at your blog? Or feel free to email me via my blog (jripton at gmail dot com) -- I will definitely buy you a coffee for a free lantern!

Hi, I was reading all the comments about the baby in the closet. I have a huge concern about this, I went on the EPA website to see the concerns about dry cleaning products and how harmful the chemicals are. I just arrived home from visiting a friend who has her 3 week old in a huge closet which is air conditioned, heated but tons and tons of shoes, mens and womens suits and dresses with plastics on them and just tons of clothes. I am just so concerned about the chemicals this newborn is inhaling by sleeping in the closet and with it closed at night. Has anyone done in research in to this?