Living Room Reveal

Here’s a look at our current New York City living room. In our apartment we have one big rectangle room (29′ x 12′) that we use for three spaces: living room, dining room, and play space, so I’ll include sources for this whole area. It took a few tries rearranging this space to come up with the current setup, and it now works really well for us. Our dining area is right off of the kitchen, the “living area” is in the middle, and the play area is near the windows and across from Wyatt’s nursery. I love being able to hide his toys behind the couch so even though we don’t have a designated playROOM, we can still maintain a somewhat adult area in this one large space.

To take a peek into our bedroom click HERE and into Wyatt’s nursery, HERE.

Baby Proofing this Space

We definitely struggled at the beginning trying to baby proof this space. I really didn’t want to put ugly gates everywhere, so instead of blocking baby un-friendly areas, I made them baby-friendly and visually appealing to adults.

Luckily our apartment has self-closing outlets similar to these, so we didn’t have to buy anything for socket safety. However, we do have a lot of cords and cables everywhere, and babies LOVE those. We bought a few of these cord keepers to protect little fingers from power strips and hide them under couches and behind TVs. I also try to hide the outlets that anything is plugged into because Wyatt loves unplugging and trying to replug things in. Again, luckily we have safe-close outlets, but if it’s out of sight in the first place, it’s out of his mind.

All of our large furniture that could be a tipping hazard (including the TV itself) is tethered to the wall with these. They go behind the unit so you can’t even see they’re baby proofed. Toddlers climb up onto anything they can and things like dressers can tip in a second.

We don’t own too many sharp pieces of furniture. Our coffee table has been one of our most baby-friendly pieces of furniture to date. It’s acrylic so it wipes clean and won’t shatter, it has rounded edges, is the perfect height for a newly standing baby to pull up on and cruise around, and suction toys like this stick to it. Who knew it be so great for kids when we bought it 4 years ago! I wedged our round side table between the couch and the wall, and there is a basket of blankets behind it (blocking the outlet and Wyatt’s access to the lamp and Alexa), so it shouldn’t tip.

We used to have a tray, some coffee table books, and flowers on our coffee table, but Wyatt likes to rip out pages of books and just throw everything so those all had to go. Now we have this tray that is not breakable (actually a cheese board), and we style it minimally with wooden coasters he can throw as much as he wants, a boxwood that he’s over playing with, and a Chatbook that he loves looking at because it’s mostly just pictures of himself.

The TV unit used to be a place we stored odds and ends (tools, craft supplies, etc. need to get creative in small NYC spaces) and some decor (candlesticks, vases, etc.) that proved to be not so baby friendly, so we switched those out for simple white rope and rattan baskets that we store more toys in.

I love neutral, light furniture and decor (as you can also see from our bedroom and the nursery), but we’ve definitely noticed that is becoming trickier now that we have a baby on board. Our couches (with these legs) are slipcovered…I probably won’t be buying non slipcovered couches for a WHILE. Every few months, I just take the covers off, spot and pre-treat them in the bathtub, and throw them in the washing machine.