Living in NYC in a one bedroom apartment, my husband and I always assumed when it came time to start a family, we would either find a bigger space, or make the move to the suburbs. However, while expecting my oldest son, we found larger apartments to be out of reach price wise, besides which we loved our neighborhood and building so we decided to ‘make it work’. We hired New York Wall Company to put up a pressurized wall, carving a tiny (5X7) ‘room’ out of our master bedroom. A ventilation fan did double duty as a white noise machine and we choose a French door to let in some light. We converted the interior of an Ikea Pax wardrobe to function as clothes storage and a changing station. When my second son came along, we were still in love with New York and our building. At this point, we switched our standard size crib to a portable crib and fit a toddler bed in as well! I found the world map mural and thought it was a cheeky little nod to the size of the boys’ space. Toys were kept in a toy chest in the living room, and was covered with cushions to provide seating space when needed. We sought out all products foldable, collapse-able and made sure everything we bought could be easily stored and did double duty when possible.

The most significant manifestation of my small space obsession came to be when our building received a fire code violation because our stroller was parked in the hallway (fire hazard=illegal!) I searched hi and low for a stroller storage solution and found nothing in the market to do the job. I set about inventing the StrollAway. After a year of R&D and focus groups the StrollAway was invented and hot the market! Made of steel the Strollaway hangs over a standard width door, has adjustable arms to hold most any stroller model up to 50 lbs! So that small space also served as invention inspiration!

Living with this space made us realize how little you really ‘need’ with babies and how urban living meant most of your life is spent outside the walls of your apartment. It’s been some time since we’ve finally moved (third baby!!) but I will always have wonderful memories of this little home where we started our family!