Make Room For Baby

Check!  This week I wrapped up decorating the nursery (for now) and I think we're as prepped as we can be for Mr. Baby's arrival.  Everything that remains on the "to do" or "to get" list will have to wait until we meet the little fella.  Let's take a little tour of the nursery.

Come on in!

Hanging right from the door is Mr. Baby's diaper bag.  This won't be its permanent home, but right now the corner of the door at eye level means we're more likely to remember to grab it on our way to the hospital.  Steve very kindly shaved down parts of that door as well so now it opens and shuts completely and softly.  The tub full of bath time goodies and the dresser Steve's grandpa Mel built (read more about it here) have been joined by the diaper pail and two Ikea spice racks turned bookshelves.

Wonder how long it'll take before I can remember what baby things go in which drawer?

Our little changing area got some fun upgrades as well.  The mis-matched storage at the top of the closet bugs me a little, but not enough for me to make something to cover it!  This is another area that won't be dealt with until after Mr. Baby arrives, because the bins are holding newborn and 3 month sized clothes, and we're not sure he'll be small enough to wear any of them (Steve wore 6 month clothes as a newborn)!

The baby buns station.

I made some fun little orbs to hang above the changing station.  I took at 1.5" circle cutter and made short work of a bundle of paint chips (yay free materials!), folded the circles to make an equilateral triangle (once a math coach, always a math coach), used glue dots to attach all of the bits and hung them with fishing line.

Fun colors!

This little sign was made from an 18" x 24" canvas frame, leftover crib skirt fabric, and iron on letters.  Best of all, it covers our fuse box!

Cue the hormones.

Steve cleverly added hinges to the same side that the fuse box swings open on.  This means easy access when it's necessary, and we could attach them frame to the wall on the side of the fuse box rather than risk hitting wiring by hanging it from above.  We used velcro on the other side to secure it to the wall.

Steve is tricky.

We finally got a little storage ottoman for the rocker, so now it's very easy to rock- my feet barely touch the floor because we added the rocker skis!  I've loaded some fun magazines for me in elastic side pocket of the ottoman.  Tabi made the whale quilt that's on the back of the rocker.  Just like everything else she has made for Mr. Baby, it's adorable.

I don't think this is what LMFAO meant by "Party Rockin."

I elected to use all of the sweet cards I got at Mr. Baby's shower to decorate the wall behind the chair.  It's nice to look at all of those cards and think about how many people love him even though he hasn't arrived yet!  The twine and clothespins were part of a shower gift and they're held in place with some fun push-pins I ordered on Etsy.

Mr. Baby's affirmation wall?

Most of this side of the room has stayed the same.  The Pack N Play has been shifting around the room, looking for a permanent home when not in use.  And then there's the blow up air mattress my in-laws used last time they came for a visit.  We still haven't managed to walk the 30 feet to the shed to put it away.  Because we're lazy awesome.

Gotta move the air mattress to get the baby in and out of the crib.

The only other additions here are our filled-out bookshelf (thank you Paige, Anika, and Grant!!) and the video monitor we snagged for super-sale on Amazon perched in the upper left.

So many books!!

I am loving that most of the decor for this room was very inexpensive (or gifted or re-purposed), and Steve maintains that it's his favorite room in our house so far.  So at this point, I'm sticking a fork in Mr. Baby's nursery.  I'm happy enough with it, it's as functional as a person who's never been a mom before can figure to make it, and it feels like a place that I'll be happy to spend a lot of time in (even if it is in the middle of the night).  Now all it needs is a baby!

Dipes, Wall Art, and Bookshelves, Oh My!

Slowly but surely the nursery is getting a little more "finished."

Although my goal in this post was to get the changing station all fixed up and ready to roll, I've really only made small changes in this corner of the room.  We finally got a changing pad and cover and attached it to the dresser.  I took the mirror from the office and spray painted it orange and hung it above the changing station to bounce some more light around in that little alcove.  I found a secondhand wipes warmer that will be great for storing cloth wipes and a cute little bin on super sale at JoAnn Fabric.  I also finally got our diaper pail set up.  This is my first simplehuman brand garbage can and I have to say that I totally love it.  It doesn't show fingerprints, has a handy feature for tucking in excess liner, and has a soft-close lid.

Almost ready for baby buns.

My favorite update in this area is something I actually had nothing to do with.  My very crafty and creative sister-in-law, Tabi, found a pattern for making cloth diapers online and last week she brought me this darling handmade basket full of 9 newborn sized cloth diapers she had made.  It kills me that they are color coordinated.

The whole kit 'n caboodle.

How cute are these??  Mr. Baby's going to be styling some cute buns, for sure.  PS, Tabi is thinking of selling cute dipes and accessories like these on etsy- I'll pass along a link once her shop opens!

"Rawr" means "I love you" in dinosaur.

On the opposite side of the room, I made a no-sew crib skirt for Mr. Baby.  I love that I got to choose my own fabrics, but I especially love that the skirt is attached to the crib frame with velcro.  This will make it really easy to take off and reattach when it needs to be washed, and it'll also make shortening the skirt as the crib gets lowered a cinch.  Plus we now have some handy hidden storage under the crib, woo!

The result of a couple hours of quality time with hem tape and an iron.

On the wall above the crib, I used some scrapbook paper and pins to create some whimsical wall art in the form of pinwheels.  I really wanted something that would have a big impact but be super-cheap.  That way I won't feel guilty if/when things need to be changed up again in this room.  The smaller pinwheels actually spin!

Handmade wall art that costs less than $5.

I spray painted some Ikea spice racks and attached them to the wall above the bookshelf.  I'm intending to use these for the books we'd like to keep in Mr. Baby's collection but not be handled without supervision, like books that have been signed by the author or are being passed down from my mom's collection.

Ready for bedtime stories!

I'm so excited that things are coming together in this room!  Makes me feel a little bit more ready to meet this little guy!

Only 3 weeks left til Mr. Baby's due date!

The Nursery Now

Oh hey there.  I have a blog?  Oh yeah.  I suppose now that the school year is over, my brief stint of jury duty is over, and I don't have to worry about setting up a first grade classroom in July at eight months pregnant after all (three cheers for Dave Ramsey, FMLA, and careful financial planning!), maybe I could update this blog thingie.

So let me get up to speed with where Mr. Baby's nursery is now, since I haven't posted about it here in over a month.

We decided to repurpose the mantel Steve made when we first moved into this house into a header for Mr. Baby's window.  We knew that there would be a lot of painted items in this room, so it seemed like it'd be nice to have some wood tones.  Also, the mantel is special because it's one of Steve's first woodworking projects.  And can't beat a little extra display space for sentimental and decorative items like Steve's firetrucks, Grandpa Mel's old binoculars and the toy revolver he whittled and painted.

Boy stuff.

Next, I tackled refinishing the dresser Steve's grandpa made him when he was a boy.  In our last discussions, we were considering doing some kind of a distressing treatment, but after stumbling across this camp dresser in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog, I was completely sold on going blue.

{via}

After removing the drawer pulls on our dresser, filling the holes and sanding them down, and repairing some minor damage like reinforcing some slides and re-nailing in some spots where things were pulling away, everything got four coats with a small foam roller of the same blue that is on our back door, Behr's Twilight Chimes.

Lookin' sharp.

The body of the dresser got four coats as well, and everything got a couple passes with water-based poly to protect from the damage regular use is sure to inflict.  I loved the color when everything was put back together, but it still lacked personality.

Missing something....

It wasn't until we got the barn-style pulls attached that things really came to life for the dresser that Grandpa Mel made.

Campy.

The turquoise tub was a shower gift and is currently holding all of Mr. Baby's bath time things.  The baseball plaque was Steve's when he was a kid (the back of it is held upright with wire, string, and tape).  The bowl is a melamine cereal bowl from Target and is holding Mr. Baby's collection of pacifiers and binky straps.  I love that this piece essentially became a pottery barn knockoff for all of $16- we purchased the pulls new but had everything else on hand.

Mr. Baby's changing table is still about in the same spot as far as being "finished."  Our only update there is that the drawers have filled with diapering supplies and baby clothes since my baby shower.  More diapering supplies are on their way, so I'm hoping to make more progress on this area in the next week or so.

On the opposite side of the room, Mr. Baby now has a bookshelf!  I re-purposed this cheapo Wal-Mart shelf that had previously been holding math manipulatives in one of the buildings I worked in.  The lamp and the orange wire basket are both from Target; everything else is from my childhood or was a shower gift. Eventually I'd like to hang some narrow forward-facing shelves on the wall above for books that need to be handled carefully.  Rain gutters and spice racks seem to be popular options for this, according to Pinterest.  Maybe I'll have room for some art there too?

Fun times ahead for Mr. Baby and Grammy, who loves to read to littles.

The most recent updates in this room are the ones that are starting to finally make this room feel a little finished.  I finished staining the rocker skis for our wingback chair and Steve attached them earlier this week.  The chair is nice and tall.  We're actually considering getting a little pouf or ottoman to make it easier to rock Mr. Baby while in a lounging position.  The skis added a couple of inches of height to the chair, so my feet don't rest flat on the ground unless the chair is rocked all the way forward.  We also added some light-blocking drapes around the window in a really pretty navy with subtle aqua stripes  (from Target, found here).

Looking better!

Although I am feeling a little panicky about not having the room "done," I keep having to remind myself that we still have six weeks before Mr. Baby is due to make his grand entrance, and he's not going to care a whit if the room doesn't look exactly like I want it to.  And I'm very happy with how the room is coming along so far.  Steve is too- a few days ago he wandered into the nursery and then remarked that it's his favorite room in our house so far.

I hoping to have another nursery update within a week (pending a giant shipment from Amazon arriving here), so cross your fingers for quick shipping!

The Ikea Fairy

The Ikea Fairy visited our house last weekend and now Mr. Baby's room is starting to look like a legit nursery!

We purchased a 3-drawer Hemnes dresser to serve as our changing table in a closet (read more about why we decided to do that here).  The bi-folds came off and the dresser was put together and anchored to the wall.  We also grabbed some under-cabinet lighting and mounted it inside the closet so that we'd be more likely to see what we are doing for middle-of-the-night diaper changes.  We got a couple of small wall-mounted sconces too (the Hektar) that will eventually be incorporated in this area.  The boxes and baskets had been stored in our guest bathroom or guest bedroom and will likely get used somewhere in Mr. Baby's room.

Ready for a changing pad and (eventually) some cute-ing up.

We had originally planned on painting the changing table the same moody near-navy blue as our back door, but we both decided it'd be better not to.  For one, we love the gray-brown tone the Hemnes is already sporting.  For another, once we set up the chest of drawers Steve's grandpa had made for him as a boy, we realized what rough shape it was really in- some trim work coming off, numerous scrapes and paint splatters, and lots of places where the stain was simply worn through.

Lots of sentiment, but not our style... yet.

So, Steve's hard-and-fast line of "I don't want you painting that" turned into "That would look really cool with some white paint and distressing, don't you think?"  And then, "Let's change out the knobs for better pulls."  So now the dresser Grandpa made for Steve is going to be getting a minor makeover.  I think we're going to be incorporating Steve's idea of white with distressing, and I am really dying to use that blue...  perhpas we'll end up with a white chest and blue drawers?  As far as the knob replacement goes, we're leaning toward either an apothecary-style pull (think old card catalogs or bin pulls from an old-timey hardware store) or something reminiscent of nautical cleats.

Fortunately for this small room, the chest of drawers isn't that big, so we'll still have room for a diaper pail next to it, and with a little makeover it'll take up less visual space in the room and add a fun dose of personality since it's the first thing you see from the hallway.

The view from the hallway.

The next item the Ikea fairy brought us was the wingback chair that will eventually be a rocker (in this case the Ikea fairy is literally Steve's parents... this was a Mother's Day gift from them!).  It's super-comfortable, and the back is high enough for both Steve and I to lean our heads back while sitting in it.  The skis for the bottom have been ordered and should be shipping to us any day now.

We also impulse purchased this super-cool rolling cart in a fun turquoise/aqua color.  I had been wondering what would be most useful for a small table beside the rocker to stash some necessities, and this little guy not only fit the bill of small/a ton of storage, but was also a color we wanted to incorporate into the nursery, there's high lips on every side to prevent spilling/falling,  AND IT ROLLS.  Of course it was coming home with us.

Future rocking station.

So here's everything on Mr. Baby's stripey wall- rocking chair, side table, and crib (which is rapidly filling up with more baby clothes cuteness thanks mostly to Mr. Baby's grandparents).

Getting closer!

Obviously we've still got a lot to do in this room, but I'm so glad things are coming together!

Crib Notes

Plans for Mr. Baby's room are coming together, and so is some of his furniture.  Let's take a little tour of the nursery at this point.

First, we hit a big milestone in prepping for Mr. Baby by finally putting his crib together.  As Steve and I were assembling it, I had one of those surreal "We're Really Doing This" moments that I continually experience as someone whose life plans only recently included having offspring other than furbabies.  Pretty sure that mental image of Steve assembling crib parts will be burned into my memory forever.  The few baby accouterments we've accumulated so far are hanging out in the crib in order to keep them off the floor (and out of puppy dog reach).

Definitely not MTV Cribs.

I also finished up caulking and painting all of the crown, and completed touch up painting around the stripes and a few other parts in the room.  It's always amazing to me how just a few little details can make a room look so "finished."  This corner between the window and the crib is where the rocking chair will go.  I have some grand plans to convert a standard wingback chair into a rocker.  I've heard only good things about Ikea's Strandmon wingback, and found this fabulous tutorial for converting it into a rocker.  I think a wingback will look stylish and obviously the wings will come in handy for when my head gets heavy during middle-of-the-night rocking sessions.

This spot will rock.

And so will this wingback.  {via}

Across the wall with the window is Mr. Baby's closet (which obviously I have not yet cleaned out. Or painted.).  Everything will be coming out of that closet and being relocated or re-purposed.  In its place will go a changing table.  This wasn't our first choice, but the footprint of the room is so small (9.5' x 10' at its largest) that working around other necessities- the crib, rocker, and the chest of drawers Steve's grandpa built- we wouldn't be able to fit a changing table in the room without butting it up against the front of the crib.  Aesthetically it'd be icky, but we're more worried about the point in time at which Mr. Baby gets old enough to try escaping from the crib... we definitely don't want to give him any handy places to give himself a boost up and out of there.  So the bifolds will be coming off the closet.  The changing table will go in there as well as some lighting, overhead storage, and perhaps some extra shelving.

Future tush-cleaning station.

And wouldn't you know it, an Ikea Hemnes 3-Drawer Chest will fit perfectly in that closet.  Since there's going to be so much gray and white in the room, and the linens we registered for ended up being based mostly in aqua with some apple greens and navy (it's hard to find nursery linens that have orange as an accent color!), we're considering painting it a deep blue.  Handily, we've got some extra dark blue paint from my recent door painting fun.

Imagine me in dark blue with some fun drawer pulls.  {via}

Which means that Steve's grandpa's tallboy dresser, which can be seen chillin' in our closet, will end up on the wall between the changing station and the door to the hallway, along with a diaper pail and hopefully some fun artwork.

I don't mean to brag, but that crown looks awesome!

Obviously the two Rubbermaid bins of my non-maternity clothes and Steve's FDNY blanket, which by the way are butted up against the front of the crib, will be relocated.  To make sure we'd have enough room for everything, I used a free room planner to try it out.  Everything in this rendering is to scale, including the furniture.

Pretty small room, eh?

And just for fun, here's a little 3-D version.

If a giant ripped off our roof, here's what he'd see.

Obviously we're lacking some details still, but it feels nice to at least have an inkling of what this room will be like, and to know for sure that we can fit the essentials in!

Nursery Progress

Over spring break, Steve and I started tackling the nursery.  Since we decided we'd like the room to be neutral so it could easily grow with Mr. Baby, we went with a light grey paint (Gray Owl by Benjamin Moore) and rolled the ceiling with the same light blue that's in our master bedroom (Rising Tide by Valspar).  We had both paints mixed at Sherwin Williams in their Harmony line, which offers the great benefit to a pregnant lady of being no-VOC.  It took two days to get two coats of paint on each wall and the ceiling.  We left the longest wall unpainted, since we planned to tackle our stripes there.  But before we could do our stripes, we needed to install the crown molding so we'd be able to measure accurately enough to ensure our stripes wouldn't look uneven or turn out to be different widths.

We chose the same crown that we had used in the master bedroom to keep things unified.  And although we are more skilled DIY-ers than we were when we moved into this house almost three years ago (!!), we still opted to use pre-fab "cheater" corners rather than mitering our own... partly because we wanted to keep things looking unified from room to room and our master bedroom's crown also has "cheater" corners, and partly because we are lazy (just tellin' it like it is).

 Pre-fab mitered corners from Lowe's. {via}

Once the crown was installed, I caulked it along the wall where the stripes would go.  Our wall ended up being almost exactly 90" from the base molding to the crown, so we opted to make nice wide 15" stripes across the wall.  Starting at the crown, I measured 15" down and penciled a line on the wall, repeated this every 2 feet or so, and then used Steve's long level to connect the dots so I could be sure my line was level once I taped it off.  I simply repeated that process all the way down the wall until everything was taped off, and then it was time to paint!

Yay math!  Please excuse the pile of junk in the middle of the room.

I ended up using a brush on this whole wall for fear of drips and leaking under the tape.  Frog Tape is amazing stuff and my product of choice when taping off for paint jobs, but I had never tried taping off a straight line in the middle of a textured wall, so I expected a little paint to seep under the tape in spots.  I did three coats of the Grey Owl before re-taping for the white stripes and starting in with three coats Glidden's no-VOC formula in off-the-shelf white.  And when I peeled the tape off, I was ecstatic with the results.

Yipes, stripes!

The stripes looked sharp and lent interest but didn't seem to overpower the room.  The crown did a nice job of making the tone of the blue on the ceiling and the grey on the walls a little more differentiated, but still subtle (which we were aiming for).

Hurrah for crown molding!

Now that the body of the room is painted, we've got a few last bits to check off the list before we can say we're completely done painting this room and can start decorating:

• Touch up the few spots around the stripes where some paint seeped under the tape
• Caulk the rest of the crown molding in the room
• Paint all of the caulk white in a semi-gloss finish
• Sponge-paint clouds onto the ceiling
• Paint the interior of the closet (might take us a while since we're still trying to empty that closet out)
• Replace all of the outlet covers and the switch plate

Overall, the room is starting to feel soft and a little whimsical without being girly, and I am really excited to wrap up the painting end of things so we can start setting up the crib and decorating!

Nursery Plans

It's official, people.  Baby Williams is a boy, and he's due to arrive in about four months.  It's time to start thinking about a nursery.

We're actually a little ahead of the game.  When Steve's grandmother moved to a new assisted living facility in January, she upgraded to a full size bed.  The full size bed that had been in our guest bedroom, to be exact.  Since all of her linens were intended for a twin size bed, we went ahead and sent everything with the bed- the linens, the matching curtains and rod, the matching dresser and night stand, and the library table.  The end result is a rather bare room- perfect for starting from scratch.  Well, almost bare... we used a gift card to purchase the light-diffusing cellular shade for privacy reasons shortly after the curtains made their way to Grandma's new place.

Nice and bright, but neighbors can't see in.

The one thing we do have in this room at the moment is a box full of crib and another box full of crib mattress.  You can get a sense of scale of how small this room really is just by looking at the boxes on the floor.

Crib stuff.

There are very few things we're sure about with baby's room so far.  Neither of us really like the idea of a theme, so we're going to aim for a color palette instead.  We've got our crib picked out, and it's white.  Steve really wants to use a tallboy dresser his dad built in baby's room, and it's a light maple color (Steve is opposed to painting the dresser).  We'll need a rocker and a changing table and some room-darkening curtains.  We want to install crown molding in there.

Closet and the door to the hallway propped open.

Pretty much everything else is up for negotiation.  We love the idea of painting a sky and clouds mural on the ceiling.  Right now we are leaning toward a color palette that is mostly grays and whites with aqua blues and a few fun kicks of orange.  We are thinking the crib will end up on the longest unimpeded wall (not the wall it's pictured against now).  I'm totally digging the idea of doing a striped accent wall, but not sure how it would look with a busy ceiling and in such a small room.  We are struggling with what to do about the fuse box (I've said it before and I'll say it again- who puts a fuse box in a bedroom??!?) and we're feeling the need to go through the closet, which is packed to the gills with seasonal items, gift wrapping supplies, and random odds and ends.

So for now, here are some of the images that are serving as points of  inspiration for our nursery.

Love how calming this room is, with the fun pops of orange. {via}

My absolute favorite inspiration photo.  {via}

Gorgeous subtle cloudscape ceiling.  {via}

Obviously I am digging the striped wall thing.  {via}

Should be fun to get our little boy's room put together into someplace functional, peaceful, and a little whimsical.