This Family Reimagined Every Room in Their Kansas City Apartment to Fit Their Life

“It was a huge gamble, and we definitely don’t recommend others do this, but it really paid off for us because we have an amazing landlord — two words I never thought I would put together!” Amanda shares. 

The couple welcomed their first child in a 300-square-foot Brooklyn apartment that was bursting with unusual small-space solutions and creative style ideas — there wasn’t a white wall in sight.

They ended up turning the apartment’s one “bedroom” into a combination of lofted primary bedroom with a miniature nursery carved out below their bedroom. It was proof of Amanda’s incredible commitment to creating a personal home that is not only brilliantly functional, but also beautiful to look at.

Moving to Kansas City from Brooklyn was a challenge, but they feel like they lucked out with this apartment, which is located in a building that used to be a warehouse built in 1880. It’s a bit larger than their Brooklyn space, and they also love the apartment’s location.

“I think what attracted us to the apartment the most was the location. It’s located in the historic River Market District in downtown Kansas City. The apartment is right off the streetcar route, which is so charming and convenient,” Amanda continues. 

“The streetcar drives right past our window every 10 minutes and when we want to take the streetcar, we just crack our window so we can hear it coming and we have just enough time to leisurely walk to the stop to catch it once it loops around to head back towards Union Station.”

“The apartment itself is really stunning because of its concrete floor, high ceilings with wooden beams, and exposed brick wall, and because it was so well-maintained, we didn’t have to do any repair work before we could start decorating,” Amanda continues. 

Although the apartment came with lots of industrial architectural style and potential, Amanda also describes the look before they started decorating as a bit “cold and industrial with millennial gray walls.” 

Having rented the space for two years and added their personality to the space, it’s now “warm, colorful, cozy, and eclectic.” But the task of personalizing the space wasn’t without any difficulties.

“Our biggest challenge with decorating this space has definitely been having a small child. This was the first apartment we decorated since our baby was born, and it has been a massive adjustment to not be able to get lost in home projects anymore, or to be able to leave materials out for days or weeks at a time while we finished a project because they are a hazard to our toddler,” Amanda explains.

“Because of this, every project has taken exponentially longer to complete and we have a lot of unfinished projects that we won’t be able to get around to because we are moving overseas soon. This has been really difficult for me because I want to finish what I started, but I’m able to find comfort in knowing that I will never truly be finished anyway.”

“We also weren’t willing to take as many risks with DIY projects as we were in our last apartment because of our child. The more risky projects we did in our last apartment, such as building a lofted bed with a staircase, were completed several years before our baby was born, so we had time to test everything out for safety ourselves, and then we also had an inspector come check our work before our baby arrived for added assurance,” Amanda admits. 

“This wasn’t a luxury we had this time around because we’ve had a toddler actively living in the space, so we’ve been very limited with what we could do. There is definitely a lot of untapped potential in this apartment.” 

There are two bedrooms in the apartment, and they originally intended to make the second bedroom their toddler’s room, but Amanda says the “second bedroom was not ideal as a sleeping area because it borders the stairwell and you can hear every sound so clearly from that room.” 

“The room also has no windows so it gets no natural light, but it does have a door that leads to the shared deck and people have banged on our door late at night; I assume they were thinking it was someone else’s unit, so it just wasn’t something I was comfortable with for ourselves or our child,” Amanda continues. 

Her solution was to instead transform the main bedroom’s closet into a nursery. “I have always loved closet nurseries, so I was so excited when I realized we were able to make it work,” she admits. 

The nursery transformation ended up being a low-cost project because they had most of the decor and just needed to paint it. They removed the existing storage system and the doors to allow the crib to fit. And then they added curtains to the outside of the door frame. The final result has made it Amanda’s favorite area in the whole apartment. 

“My whole nanny career, I wanted so badly to decorate a nursery for my nanny kids and now we have our own and it brings me so much joy,” she writes. 

Using the closet for a nursery means they aren’t able to store their clothes in the bedroom, but they were able to carve out a walk-in closet/dressing room/mudroom in that second bedroom that wasn’t suitable for the nursery. 

Using a closet as a nursery isn’t the only unique way the couple uses their home. “One, is that we have a pizza oven shaped like a fish that was used as decor on the balcony of our last apartment,” she explains. 

“I love this fish so much and was determined to display it in this apartment but it needed to have a function so it now sits on our large kitchen island and we use it as either potato and onion storage or as a catchall for important things I need to see to remember but don’t want displayed, like mail and vitamins.” 

“We also have a beautiful bread box that I love to display but we don’t store our bread in it. We store things we want quick access to that we don’t want visible like our de-choker device and books we are currently reading,” Amanda continues.

“Our apartment has two full bathrooms, but we have never needed to use the shower in our second bathroom so that’s where I store my bicycle. It fits pretty perfectly and it’s so close to our exterior door so it’s really convenient,” Amanda writes.  

Just like in their last Brooklyn space we toured, this home is highly personalized to how the family themselves needs it to function. And it absolutely looks “warm, colorful, cozy, and eclectic.”

This tour’s responses and photos were edited for length/size and clarity.
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