Hey, remember that time that I surprised you with news of a baby and then revealed the nursery afterward? Well, baby turns 1 year old this week, which means we’ve had an extra human and all of his stuff with us for a whole year in the cozy cottage. It’s been a year of adapting how we live in this house to accommodate a growing, living, crawling, thing that puts everything in his mouth!

I was a little nervous about what it would be like living in the cozy cottage with all of baby’s stuff. I just hate clutter and mess and knew that having a baby would mean having both of those things. I’d say, for the most part, we’ve managed to keep things in check, but it gets harder and harder the bigger he gets, the more gifts he receives and the more he likes to play and crawl around. The bigger the baby, the bigger their stuff!

Here’s a breakdown of how we manage all of baby’s things in our small house:

The nursery closet holds a lot of things. Or, I should say, it hides a lot of things! We may have to figure out better organization as he grows bigger, but this is working for now.

The smallest room – the full bathroom – has one of the largest items, the baby tub. For most of the time, we keep it out of the way, hanging on a hook high above the toilet. We bathe him at night so the tub can air dry in our tub and then we can hang it up again the next morning. This has been easy and worked well the past year. We’re soon going to get rid of his tub and he’ll just use ours, so we’ll get back some visual space in this room.

Whenever we let him roam upstairs, we just put up the baby gate at the top of the stairs and put up Molly’s water bowl, and let baby crawl around the three bedrooms upstairs. We have barely baby proofed, though, so we’re constantly seeing what he’s getting into and then moving something dangerous to a new place or getting rid of it. Right now, he’s into playing with the power cords on the nightstand easiest for him to reach (not great, I know) and the door on the dog crate in our bedroom.

Downstairs has seen the most change and is constantly in flux. We have two living rooms (we got rid of a dining room before baby was born). In the TV room, we’re constantly removing coasters and other tabletop items out of the way since he is reaching for everything. We also move the coffee table in this room to a corner and just let him have all the space he wants in here to crawl, play with toys, or cruise along the sectional. We’ve had to get rid of candles that were decorating the fireplace hearth, but that’s been the only thing we’ve really had to change in the TV room. I’m sure, baby will discover something soon for which we’ll need to find a new space or store elsewhere.

In the second living room, we got rid of our bar cart and have given up the bottom row of shelving to baby toys and books. I got tin cases from World Market to store toys and keep the room from looking a total mess, but on weekends during the day, the room basically looks like the above photo.

The entryway has his stroller at all times when it’s not in use. While this isn’t the most annoying thing, it does make this small area more crowded. I wish there was a better spot for it, but there isn’t since I leave with the baby every morning out of the front door to walk him to daycare. This is the easiest, most logical option, but ugh, it takes up so much room!

The kitchen is definitely the most cluttered, most crowded spot because of baby. We have a bottle warmer and Nutribullet that live on our countertop as well as a bottle rack next to our dish drying rack. Those three things take up space but are necessary as we use them every day. But we’re transitioning off of bottles (good-bye bottle warmer and bottle rack!), and toward finger foods (Nutribullet can go elsewhere soon). But the Stokke high chair will be around for a long time and we’re still getting used to how much space in the center of the kitchen it uses up. We have a small kitchen though so we’ll just have to deal.

We kept his infant car seat in the mudroom every day and this took up room, but we could tuck it in a spot that it wasn’t a trip hazard. But, baby recently graduated to the car seat he’ll have until he graduates from having a car seat at all and this new one stays in the car, so we just got this little corner of our mudroom back.

I am very happy to report that the cozy cottage has managed to stay mostly clutter free even though babies come with stuff! I wonder what I’ll report on this topic a year from now…

Do you have any clutter tricks? Any advice on how to keep kid stuff at bay, especially in a small space? Let me know in the comments below!

In case you missed it: 2020 house tour / recent fixes / 2020 design trends