nursery #2

i think one of my favorite parts about having a second baby is actually getting to do something what our third bedroom.  currently there's a ladder, a tv stand, and a closet full of things that we shoved in there when we first moved into the house and it drives me crazy every time i walk up the stairs.  henry does like to sleep in the room so i wouldn't say it's completely wasted space.  just like avery's room we're planning on doing this one on a budget and shopping around the house for things that we already have and can use.  the two things that we'll have to buy are a dresser and a crib, but everything else will be from the rest of the house.

the walls are a really light cream and we're not finding out the gender of this baby, either, so i want lots of color but nothing that screams 'boy' or 'girl'.  i also already have some aqua items that we'll be using, and i love the idea of mixing those with some yellow and orange.  i'm hoping that i can find some orange accents that are on the lighter side, more peach and coral than bright orange, but we'll see what i can find.

here's what i have in mind so far:

1.  baby mod modena crib -- i can't decide if i should get this in white or grey.  i have a feeling i'll chicken out and go with the white.  i originally wanted a different crib, but this one is almost $100 cheaper so it wins.  unless charlie wins the bed vs. crib debate or avery starts climbing out of her cir we'll be ordering this from walmart in the next few months.
2.  orange curtains -- i definitely want light orangish curtains for the room.  i have a feeling i'll be making these from fabric i have yet to find.
3.  colors and tissue poms -- the previous owners of this room left lots of hooks in the ceiling and we didn't remove them and paint the ceiling.  i'm thinking of making some of these to cover up and use those hooks.
4.  a DIY mobile -- i've seen these circle mobiles everywhere.  they look cheap and easy.  also see above about needing to use some of those hooks.
5.  ikea hemnes dresser -- we already have 2 of these dressers and i'm thinking the smaller version would work great as a changing table/dresser combo.
6.  ottoman/pouf -- this is currently in avery's room and we use it as an ottoman with the rocking chair.  i'm hoping she won't mind donating both to the nursery when the baby finally arrives.
7.  animal art -- i made a moose picture for avery's room when she was born and i'm hoping to do something similar in this room, too.

we'll see how it turns out.  these things never end up looking like i pictured in my head, but as long as we end up with a place for the baby's clothes and diapers we should be fine.  we're planning on keeping the baby with us for the first few months anyway since it was so much easier with middle of the night feedings.  although charlie did say that he wasn't looking forward to sharing a room with a baby again so we'll see how long we last before moving the kiddo into his or her own room.  who knows, maybe we'll get one that likes to sleep this time.  

avery's room v.2

lots of versions lately.  

when you start looking for houses when your baby's 2 weeks old, you end up with multiple 'nurseries' for your daughter before she's even 6 months old.  when we finally bought this house i was so excited to finally live in a place where we could paint the walls.  avery's room was high on the priority list because i wanted a room where she could safely sleep.  sleep is also a high priority for me these days, which is why our bedroom and avery's bedroom were the two rooms i wanted painted before we moved into the house.  

we ended up hiring someone to paint a few rooms before we moved it.  something i feel slightly guilty about since we're perfectly capable of painting, but when we finally closed on our house i was freaking out because it was dirty and ugly and i had no idea how i was going to manage to pack our apartment, work, and fix up the house.  and honestly after trying to paint with a baby, something we've done plenty of after moving in, i'm glad that we had a few things done before moving in.  

i had a vision of a really, really pale pink room like so pale you almost can't tell it's pink.  that didn't work out at all.  i found a pink i liked, asked the paint mixing people in home depot to put in half of the color, and thought it would be good.  instead it ended up looking more pink then the chip so i bought some white and asked the painter to cut it with 50% white.  i still think it's too pink, but i'm getting over it.  

after the walls were done i wanted the other color i used in the room to be something that would tone down the pink a bit.  i ended up going with aqua, which i've really liked.  

all of the furniture was either in her previous room or something we had around the house.  i made a new crib skirt, curtains, and some art for the room. 

the crib skirt and the curtains i made from sheets i found at target.  i wanted a ruffled crib skirt this time since i thought it would hide some of the imperfections a little better.  it's not perfect but it looks a lot better than the first one i made her.

the canvas above her dresser is a quote from oh, the places you'll go by dr. seuss, which we read to her about a million times when she was a little bitty thing and we were trying to get her to fall asleep.  i hate the way it came out but love the quote.  she'll have to live with it until she can learn to talk and tell me she hates it, too.



the bookshelf is really the only furniture that's changed in her room.  we had this small one that was serving as extra storage space in our kitchen but no longer needed it in this house.  i didn't want to put that huge bookshelf in her room and i liked that this was white instead of an ugly blue that i need to repaint. i put only books on here that we reguarly read to her.  all of the other books, for when she's older and holiday books, will go on the bookshelf in the living room.  so many books.  not enough storage.


the three 'prints' above her crib.  the first was a quote i found on pinterest when i was pregnant and fell in love with.  the second is a print of 'star light, star bright'.  and the last is the lyrics to bob dylan's forever young.  i had those lyrics up in her other room and just changed the colors to go with this room.  i fell in love with that song a few years ago after watching parenthood and my dad actually gave us the lyrics at christmas time: completely coincidental but making them more meaningful.  i also sang that song to her about a million times during the first 2 months of her life when i was trying to get her to fall asleep.  well that and chicken fried by zac brown band.  there had to be some sort of balance.

overall i really like how the room turned out.  the curtains made the biggest difference and it was sort of fun decorating a room after knowing her for a bit to be able and fill it with things that are meaningful to her life and not just to us.

mr. moose

in an effort to have less stuff in the house i've been trying to get rid of things.  

i had this blank canvas that i got at big lots for $2 over 2 years ago and i figured i should either do something with it or throw it out.  

since i absolutely cannot paint i wasn't sure what to do with it.  

then a few weeks ago i saw this on pinterest and decided i could make something similar for free. 

i made a moose since apparently we have them in colorado even though i'm probably one of the few people who's never seen one.  also, i like their antlers. 

after some paint and scrapbook paper:

now i just have to figure out where to put it.  i probably should have thought of that first. 

my initial thought was to replace some of these picture frames with it.

but i tried that and it looked really out of place.  so for now he can hang out on top of the bookshelf.

bad cat.

this weekend i started washing all of the clothes, blankets, and everything else that we have so far for the baby. 

not 30 seconds after i put the mattress pad and sheet on the bed this happened:

the cat cannot resist clean sheets.

it's a work in progress

we've slowly been accumulating things and figuring out where to put everything.

but here's what it looks like right now:

eventually a rocking chair/glider will end up in front of those windows.  and the middle two won't be tied together because i swear the point of hanging curtains was to actually use them.
i got those baskets for the bookshelf that hold receiving blankets and clothes that are currently too big, but that probably won't be for too long.  and once i figure out a way to hang that mobile up it won't be hanging on the bookshelf.


same thing really, just another angle.

here's the one usable wall:

those pictures aren't finished yet, i'm still moving them around and we still need a changing pad for the dresser.  eventually there will also be something above the crib.  once i decide what that is. 

you've already seen the awkward corner. and the closet/office is still a work in progress.  it's currently where i dump all my papers before i file them about once every 3 months.  

table vs. chair

pretty much everything in the baby's room (except for the crib) has been furniture from other places and rooms in the house.  i've mentioned before that the room has sort of an awkward shape.  there are 3 doors:  a closet door, a bathroom door, and a door to the hall.  and each of the doors is on a separate wall.  oh, and there's also a wall of windows.  

anyway, there's a weird corner of the room that i'm planning on either putting and end table or a chair because they both need a home.  

here's the end table:

and here's the chair:  

i like the end table because it's bright, means extra lighting, and more storage but i think it would be nice to have an extra chair in the room.  

things.

so aside from the usual:  work has been crazy, i've been napping, it's crazy hot outside right now, i'm getting fatter every day, there hasn't been a lot else going on.  

i went home 2 weeks ago for our baby shower and it was so nice to see family and friends.  my mom and my sister put a ton of effort into making food and banners and wrapping presents, which was really nice but mostly it was just nice to hang out.  the weekend flew by way too fast, and i was more than a little sad to leave on sunday.

we were very lucky and received tons of gifts from people, which i've been trying to find places for in our house. the baby's room is where we've been storing everything so far because it just doesn't make sense to clutter our whole house with things 15 weeks before the baby's due.  we've also been trying to slowly get all of the other things that we'll need before the baby comes.  the biggest items that we still need are a stroller, a rocking chair, and a breast pump, both of which are expensive.  we also still need lots of clothes, but i'm waiting for stores to shift to fall/winter clothes before we get those.  

last weekend we hung the curtains in the room, and i'm not completely crazy about them yet, but they keep growing on me.  we also hung some pictures, we're doing a gallery wall above the dresser/changing table, although i still have to fill the frames.  

here are the curtains. i was using a 50 mm lens so i could only zoom out so far.  i'll have to take a bigger shot of the whole room once we clear some things out of it.  

we were supposed to go camping this weekend but changed plans when we found out that we couldn't leave until saturday for a first-come first-serve campsite that's 3 hours away from everything.  originally, we thought we would stay the night in either glenwood springs or steamboat springs if we couldn't get a campsite but the lake we were planning on camping at is over 3 hours away from either town.  i'm hoping to plan a weekend away in september just because it'd be nice to get away with charlie one more time before the baby comes.  

ever since i saw the movie julie and julia i've been wanting to make the bruschetta that they ate in the movie.  i just used tomatoes we had around the house, but we did fry the bread like she did in the movie and it was delicious.  it's definitely not a whole meal but it makes a great appetizer even though it's pretty messy.  

i've been walking the dogs later at night, as in right before it gets dark, because it's been so hot.  if i tried to take them walking when i got off of work i'd only make it a block or too.  honestly, as much as i'm wishing the weather would cool off just a bit, i'm really going to miss flip flops, late night walks, green grass, eating outside, and long days.  henry has been generally unimpressed with all of the 'getting ready for the baby' stuff that's been going on.  he just wants massive amounts of attention, long walks, and a few rabbits to chase.  

progress.

things are far from being close to finished but i've been working hard on cleaning things out and getting things together so here's what we have so far.

a new dresser for our bedroom:

ps. how cute is ollie in this picture?

we moved our older dresser into the baby's room for a few reasons: 

1.  it's the perfect height for a dresser/changing table

2.  i wanted room in our bedroom for a pack n play/cosleeper if we decide to share our room with the baby for a bit.  (i'm still not 100% sure about this one, but we'll figure it out once we bring the baby home and can find what works for us)

here's what the old dresser looked like.  so happy to have those windows back!

we have a crib and it's all set up.

that skirt is not yet really a skirt but eventually it will be.  

we have a baby money tree.

charlie and i got one of these when we first moved in together.  it's now huge.  i'm hoping we can figure out how to keep this tree from falling over like the last one.

and i made some 'art'.

i found this on pinterest and could not find the source anywhere despite a lot of googling.  

i'm not sure exactly where we're going to put it, but i like it.