The Nursery Tour

Well, it's almost done. We still need to hang a few things on the wall, but I want to take pictures of her and we'll have a few family photos to frame once our professional newborn photos are done - so we are waiting on that stuff. For now, it's looking pretty cute.

When you enter the nursery, I added some hooks on the wall for our diaper bags and her little coats. Above the hooks will be a collage of framed family photos once she decided to make her entrance :)

On the next wall to the right, we have our changing table/dresser and the painting that my girlfriends gave us at our baby shower. (I accidently deleted the photo of our dresser, so I'll fix that tomorrow)

Next, on the right, we have our crib and her name decal. We decided not to hang letters above her crib because we wanted to do something a little different. It was Jeff's idea to make it more "kid friendly" with the tree limbs and animal decals.

(Again, I need to take pic of the crib)

Moving right along, we have the closet that we DIY'd with some fun chalkboard paint and opened up to keep us accountable for clutter and messes. Right now, it holds our swing and bouncy seat, that will more than likely move into the living room.  And don't forget the fun pendant light!

Next to the closet and below the massive window is a daybed. We put to box springs together and topped them with a twin mattress. I sewed a bed skirt (seen above) to match the closet, and also made some matching pillows from leftover fabric. This is for guests who stay with us, or even for Momma after a late night feeding :)

(Note to self - get a new lampshade!)

Kenley also received a sweet framed invitation from her baby shower - it matched the room perfectly, and we added a little birdie decal for fun.

For storage, we purchased this shelving unit and lots of straw bins from Ikea. Hopefully this will store tons of goodies for her. And yes, we bought a small flat screen for the nursery. It's for me to watch during 45 minute feedings (since we will have lots of company and nursing in the family room is not an option), and for guests.

So that's the nursery for now! Hopefully once we get some great photos of our little girl, we can update a few things on the walls. Until then, we'll be patiently waiting for her to arrive!

Let There Be Light!

We FINALLY got the pendant light installed last night. I've been putting it off, since replacing light fixtures is always so tedious. I hate trying to figure out which fuse is for which room. Luckily, we got it on the first try last night- score!

I am still trucking along at almost 25 weeks now. Next week, we leave for our babymoon in St. Kitts, and I cannot freakin wait! A relaxing week on the beach and riding in the boat is going to be right up my alley. Last week, our little girl was as long as an ear of corn...

Can you tell? Sheesh. She is kicking all the time, and Jeff felt her for the first time last night, which was really special. I'm feeling great so far, but my feet ache after long days of running around. Other than that, I have no complaints!

Last night, while Jeff made dinner (YES!), I started to work on the pendant. It had about 100 pieces (no joke), but it came together faster than I had thought. We loved this when we spotted it at Ikea, and we love it even more in the nursery.

Isn't that SO much fun? (PSST - Please ignore the box springs to the right- they will soon become a day bed.)

We had such a dim light in here before, so it's much brighter now, but still not overwhelming. We will add a couple of small lamps next to the glider and changing table for some extra subtle light, too. When you close the blinds and remove your "working" lamps, here is what it looks like:

I love the reflection of the big flowers on the walls. I imagine our daughter will too!

Who needs a mobile or projector when you have such a cool pendant, right?

Paint is my Best Friend.

This is a long post, so hold on to your hats.

I am notorious for loving paint. I have probably repainted every room in my house AT LEAST two or three times. It can change the mood of the room, make it look cleaner and fresher, and really update older rooms (like every one in our house).

The rooms in our house that haven't been tackled by my paintbrush only consist of the garage, and about half of the closets. Make that 40% of the closets now, because the nursery's closet just got a makeover. Take a look at what we were working with:   

Dingy, dirty, scuffed up, and just ugly. I couldn't let our baby girl store her adorable, new clothes in such a nasty place. Not to mention this stuff:

YUCK. I will never buy another house with the original BROWN wood baseboards, doors, etc. It's taken me 5 years to paint them all by hand, and it's still not done. Over. It.

I knew a little paint could fix this problem, but I also wanted to make it a fun place for our daughter. Sounds odd to have a FUN closet, doesn't it? Take a look what happened when I mixed together some light turquoise paint with some crisp white molding paint, and added a large section of surprise paint.

I removed the doors and they will stay off. I want this to be a part of the room, not a place to hide clutter. I'll get to that big black wall in a second.  

     Our whole goal in this room is to have storage, storage, and MORE storage. I know how kid's clutter can pile up, but I'd like to contain most of it to her room. It's literally right off the family room, so there is no reason we can't put things away at the end of the day. So, we also purchased this wall storage unit from Ikea:

Right now, it's just holding things that will go into her dresser when it comes in (MORE storage!), gifts for others, and my sewing materials, but I'm positive that we will not have an issue filling this thing once those are removed. We also plan to pick up more baskets for hidden storage. Aunt Tiay even has her own cubby, filled with the books and toys she has already given our little girl, for easy access on her visits :)

Okay, so back to my open closet plan. That paint on the bottom isn't black paint, but this:

Chalkboard Paint!! How fun is that? I'm hoping when she's old enough, this can keep her entertained while I pick up her room, fold and put away laundry, or stuff cloth diapers...since these will be an almost everyday occurrence. Once the room was put back together and a couple outfits (only the ones that have yet to be washed) were hung, I decided to write her a little message to test it out. Here is the final product:

Look who popped into my shot...little rascal.

Only a Mom can love that sweet, droopy face :)

Let's go back to the before:

And now, the AFTER:

Bye bye ugly, dated molding!

This project cost me around $10 for the pint of chalkboard paint, since I mixed together some dark turquoise with the white molding paint, both of which I already had on had. Jackpot.

I also got a little paint crazy with this 16 inch "K" that I picked up from Hobby Lobby. The gold HAD to go.

All it needed was some white, spray primer and a coat of light turquoise leftover from the closet.

Not bad for 3 1/2 hours of painting, right?

She Has A Place To Sleep!

Hi Friends and Family!

This weekend, we got some really fun things done in the nursery....and it makes this whole having-a-baby thing seem very real. I finished painting the room and assembled the glider on Friday night, only to find out Saturday (from Jeff) that I did it wrong. Boooo. So he will have to take it apart and put it together again....I'm sure he's pumped.

On Sunday, while I was in school all day, Jeff had a little surprise up his sleeve. I came home for lunch (Jeff was at the pool with his family) and walked into the nursery to find this...

The crib all put together! But do you spy something? How about now?

Those little bunny ears caught my attention, and as I got closer, I saw this:

How cute is that? Jeff is such a thoughtful guy....always thinking of little, special things to do for people. He is going to be an amazing Dad.

Naturally, when I got off school, I immediately got to work on putting the bedding in the crib. I could hardly wait!

Ahh....I love it so much.

This is the DaVinci Kalini 4-in-1 Crib from Target. I was pleasantly surprised with how sturdy and nice it is! I love the curves and rounded edges...

I decided to put her friends and boppy in the crib for now. They are just keeping it warm for her :)

We are working on a ton of other stuff for the nursery this week as well....it feels so nice to have some things ready though.

The Start of the Nursery Remodel

Oh WOW. This has been a long week. We started to clean out this room, removing things from the walls, deep cleaning the baseboards and windows on Saturday. I thought this would be an easy process to get molding and paint on the walls. It was not.

Here's what we started with in this room. A whole lotta grey and an old, wonky light fixture:

This room has been grey for over 3 years now, and I was so sick of it. Part of me knew that it would be our nursery someday, so I put off painting it until that day. So glad it's finally here! At first, I imagined a light turquoise on the walls. Even though it's pretty close to our living room color:

But, here is the bedding we picked out for our little girl. Turquoise walls AND bedding might have been a bit much.

And I am in LOVE with this bedding. There was no changing it, just so I could have turquoise walls. Instead, we decided to pick up the green in the bedding (orange and yellow were out for us), and paint the nursery an apple green with white board and batten molding. Alas, it was not the best color choice. These were taken when the sun was going down, so it was not as dark green, but you get the picture.

Don't mind the closet. We removed the doors for another little project in there...more on that when we get to it :)

Those pictures were taken when the bottom of the walls were primed for our biggest project yet....the molding. Oh, lord...THE MOLDING. This was done with a hand saw and hammer and nails. No automatic tools for these proud parents. Only blood, sweat, and tears.

We knew the molding would EVENTUALLY look great after the bones were up. Just needed some caulk and semi-gloss white paint to make 'em look classic. But the color was bad. Remember, we actually want our baby to SLEEP in here, right?

So, after 6 hours of installling molding and painting, we took a break. I finally re-visited this project on Wednesday night, when I caulked and painted the molding, and then decided to repaint the room on Thursday night...again. Now, we are left with soothing grey/tan walls (same color as our kitchen), and nice, white molding. Yessssss....

I cannot wait to show Jeff tonight!

Because of these neutral walls, we will have so many fun pops of color in this room. From the bedding, to art, to furniture, to lamps and even an oversized area rug, this is still going to be a playful room for our baby.

More updates to come...wait till you see our new pendant lamp!