"Living in a 700 square foot, 1 bedroom condo, did not stop us from creating a cute and functional "room" for our 4-month-old baby girl. We converted our dining room nook into her room from Ikea stuff, and created tons of storage for all the things babies entail, with room to grow through her crawling and tolddling years.
Total cost: $250
Ikea Expedit bookcases, 2 ($130)
Ikea Crib: Used (Free)
Ikea Malm Dresser ($35 on Craigslist)
Ikea Komplement Boxes, 6 ($40)
Ikea Branas Basket, 2 ($16)Paint, 3 colors: ($4 each for little samples from Home Depot)Frames: ($10 on Craigslist)
Frame mats: ($5 on Craigslist)
Pictures: Free (Walmart screwed up and had to give me my money back!)
I built a box out of spare plywood and secured it to the bottom of the Malm dresser for two reasons:
-To create a storage area for toys that the baby could get to herself when she started crawling
-To raise it up to proper changing table height
I painted the bookcases to match the walls and flipped them on their side to utilize all the vertical space of our 9-foot ceilings. The wall hangers that come with these bookcases are a joke, so I secured them with 8 L-brackets screwed into the studs, and a 2x4 underneath the shelves to act as a bottom support. The baby seems to love it, as she slept through the night in her new room. What else can you ask of a 4-month-old?"
