Since Miriam was born, our family has lived in ten houses/apartments and we've never once had a proper nursery. The baby (whoever it has been at the time) has always slept in whatever room worked best. Sometimes it was in the wooden IKEA crib/toddler bed that Jeremy's parents gave us. Sometimes it was in the cheapest-possible portacrib we bought in 2007 before we went to Jordan. Sometimes it was in our room; sometimes it was in another room. In our particular living situations, it just hasn't make sense to dedicate an entire room + furniture + decor to the smallest member of the household.
These days, Sterling sleeps in the portacrib we bought in 2007, which has been dragged around the US (coast to coast and in between), Jordan, Syria, and the UAE. And the "nursery" is the laundry room.
It's the perfect location. Nobody uses the laundry room at night, so it's an available space that was otherwise underutilized for 12+ hours of the day. It's the next door over from our own room, which makes my nighttime trips there convenient. It has a door that shuts. It does not have any windows that could allow light and outside noise to disturb baby during the night or in the early morning. And it is just his size.
During the day, I move the portacrib to a corner of our bedroom for naps, and the laundry room becomes the laundry room again.
So it's not a fancy nursery. But it works for us.