This Adorable Nursery Makeover Has a Clever “Room Within a Room”

Many homeowners and renters love rooms where natural light pours in from the windows, but, in rooms like bedrooms and offices, there can be such a thing as too much sun, and in homeowner Reilly Dowd‘s home, her son’s nursery had so much light that it was making nap time challenging.

Reilly’s young son Leo’s room has several windows and skylights that boast natural light and gorgeous mountain views, but the abundant sun wasn’t great at all hours of the day. 

“My goal was to create a fully blackout room so that Leo could nap during the day, but it was nearly impossible to cover all these windows,” Reilly explains. “I considered just adding traditional walls and making a room with a door, but it would have interrupted the whole flow of the space — so the idea for a freestanding structure was born!”

It’s no surprise that Reilly decided to create a miniature room inside Leo’s nursery — after all, she’s reimagined an entire airstream before. When brainstorming the freestanding structure, she looked to beach shacks in Normandy (think: little huts where people change into their swimsuits) and the circus. The goal was to make it “both functional, but also playful,” she explains. 

Even though the structure would be aesthetically pleasing with blue and white striped curtains and handmade hot air balloons (inspired by the New Mexico desert where their home is), it needed to be practical and be a space that Leo could grow into, too. 

“My goal was for Leo to associate this space solely with sleep,” Reilly shares. “But I wanted him to feel like he had a space that was entirely his own, one that eventually he could crawl in and out of, and one that he could have some ownership over.”

A trip to a hardware store’s parking lot proved fruitful for finding a blueprint for the structure. After spotting a pre-made shed, Reilly took the measurements and ensured copying the roofline perfectly. She took those measurements, adjusted them to fit the nursery, and purchased the wood. 

A carpenter helped Reilly cut, construct, and install the miniature house in the nursery. From there, she painted it in Benjamin Moore’s Eggshell and sewed the Ballard Designs curtains. “We added the trim, and lastly, I hung the hot air balloons from fishing wire. The house took a full two weeks,” she explains. 

The project cost around $2,000 (most of that budget went to labor costs), but it was likely well worth the money and effort. “It’s just so much fun! Such a special space. I love putting Leo to sleep in there,” Reilly says. “And he loves looking up at the hot air balloons. We say goodnight to them every night after reading Goodnight Moon.”

• Chair — Juvenile Shop
• Crib — Kathy Kuo Home
• Curtains — Ballard Designs
• Side Tables — RH Baby & Child
• Armoire — Vintage
• Changing Table — Pottery Barn Kids
• Handwoven Changing Basket — Design Dua
• Handwoven Bassinet — Anzy Home
• Diamond Blue Dhurrie Rug — Seret & Sons
• Baby Camera — Nanit
• Paint — Benjamin Moore’s Eggshell

This post originally ran on Cubby. See it there: This Parent Built a Sleeping Hut Inside Their Son’s Nursery (Complete With Hot Air Balloons!)