L and K Play Cafe Brings the Upper Cumberland’s Only Tiny Town to Livingston TN

When Claris Dailey was pregnant with her first child, Kollyns, she knew she didn’t want to return to work the way she had before. She was a nurse and she enjoyed her career. But she also knew she wanted to be present for her children, not from the sidelines, but fully involved in their everyday lives.

“I just wanted to spend time with my kids,” she says. “But I’m not the kind of mom who can just sit. I’ve got to be doing something.”

After Kollyns and later Ledger were born, Claris and her husband Lucas began praying intentionally about what that might look like. They explored building options in Livingston and nothing fit their purpose. Then they walked back into the old CrossFit space that had been part of their relationship for nearly a decade.

“It just fit,” she says. “The layout made sense.”

What she envisioned at first was simple, a play cafe. One room. Play equipment. A small coffee area. A safe place for moms and toddlers.

Then the idea evolved.

During a conversation with her mom, Lee Copeland, Claris mentioned the idea of creating a tiny town. Lee suggested something even more specific.

“What if it was a Tiny Livingston?”

That conversation changed everything.

Today, inside L & K Play Cafe, children move through a scaled-down version of their own community. A courthouse modeled after Livingston’s stands at the center. Around it are miniature storefronts sponsored and supported by local businesses. The structures were built by hand, framed like real houses, sturdy and designed to last. Even the roads are carefully measured to scale.

But what makes L & K more than a creative play space is the reason behind it.

Claris didn’t just want to build something for herself. She wanted to build something that benefited other families.

“There’s nothing I love more,” she says, “than seeing a mom come in, her toddler runs off to play, and she gets comfortable on that couch with her new baby.”

The seating was intentional. The layout was intentional. The entire environment was designed to be safe, calm, and imaginative rather than overstimulating. It’s a place where kids explore with purpose and parents exhale.

Getting there wasn’t easy.

There were overnight work sessions. A now-famous 5 a.m. McDonald’s run after an all-night building stretch fueled by an energy drink she’d never tried before. There was a last-minute call to a local painter who stepped in and finished the space just in time.

And there was the weekend before opening.

Claris’ dad, Jimmy Copeland, became ill. The evening before opening day, she told her mom she wasn’t going to do it.

From the background, her dad called out, “No. You’re going to open.”

So she did.

That moment, fragile and determined, is part of the foundation of L & K.

The Nursery Finds Its Forever Home

While L & K was being built, another story was already unfolding within the same family.

Claris’ parents, Jimmy and Lee Copeland, had spent twelve years as foster parents. Six of their children were adopted from foster care and for years, Lee had quietly prayed:

“How do we bring awareness to adoption?”

“How do we show the beauty of foster care?”

“How do we plant seeds in children’s hearts so they grow up understanding it?”

One evening, she felt prompted to post some extra babies they had on Facebook. There was no storefront. No business model. Just obedience. Within thirty minutes, every baby was adopted.

In two months, seventy-two babies were adopted, not purchased. Adopted.

It was never about selling dolls. It was about language. About awareness. About normalizing adoption in a joyful, celebratory way for children.

Little Mama’s Nursery eventually moved into Master’s Designs, operated by Claris’ cousin, Erica Masters. The adoption experience expanded to include weigh-ins, birth certificates, and celebration moments.

But it was L & K that gave the nursery its forever home.

When Claris and Lucas opened their play cafe, they didn’t just create space for imaginative play. They created room for Little Mama’s Nursery to live permanently inside a setting designed for families.

It wasn’t just a business decision.

It was family.

It was legacy.

It was trust in what God was building across generations.

Now, inside Tiny Livingston, children can shop at the market, climb into a fire truck, style hair at the salon, and walk into a nursery where they adopt a baby.

Two dreams share one roof. Claris and Lucas built a space so they could be present with their children. Because they built it, Lee’s mission to raise awareness about foster care and adoption now has a permanent place to grow.

Rooted in family.

Rooted in community.

Rooted in faith.

And right in the middle of Livingston.

Follow L&K Tiny Town on Facebook for more information.

by Shannon Cantrell, photography by Miranda Nowell