Getting Ready

It's December!  Ahh!  This could be the month I have a baby!  On average though, most first time pregnancies go past the 40 week mark so instead I should be saying, "this is probably the last month of my life before I have a baby!"  My "to do" list for baby related items in the next few weeks is proof of how close we are getting to the big day.  The only things left on the list are things like:

-install carseat
-preregister at the hospital
-buy items left on registry that we need before she gets here
-pack bag for hospital

The nursery is pretty much finished, I'm still keeping an eye out for a few more decorative things, and would like to put up some newborn photos of her on the wall which I obviously can't do yet.  Before I show you how adorable her room looks now, let's take a look back to what it looked like before:

We used this bedroom as Matt's office because it had a built in desk in the corner.  He always said the corner was pretty cramped and not really the best spot for a desk.

The rest of the room became sort of a junk space and overflow area for my old childhood furniture.  My twin bed, desk, dresser and bookshelves were in this room and the closet was packed with old bridesmaids dresses, wrapping paper, and other extreme miscellaneous items.

The walls were beige and boring, we never got around to hanging the first thing up in this room.  I always wanted it to be a nursery from the first time we saw the house, and I think Matt always wanted the bonus room to be his office so it never seemed important to make this room look particularly nice.

Back in June I mentioned on the blog that we were installing central air conditioning in our bonus room over the garage to make it a more livable space.  Of course the real reason (unknown to anyone but as at that time) was that we needed to free up the bedroom across the hall from ours because a baby was on the way!  In case you forgot about that ugly room, here was the before:

And after some rearranging, painting, and climate control... here is the after:

Matt has much more room at his desk, and he can turn around to watch TV.  My bike is set up as a stationary bike in front of the TV too which is a nice, safe way for a pregnant woman to get some exercise.  This room will also be a great playroom for the baby, and a convenient remote location to watch basketball games when she's napping where our shouts won't wake her.

Back to the nursery... once the bonus room held all of Matt's office and computer stuff he went to work removing that desk from the nook.  The previous owner went a little overboard securing the thing to the wall, there were nails drilled in at every centimeter.  After getting it out Matt had to repair some drywall and then it took several layers of spackling  until the hundreds of holes were filled.  We were both amazed at how much larger the room instantly felt once that the corner was free:

By the first week in September, Matt was busy painting the room.  I felt a bit useless since I wasn't allowed to be around the paint fumes, and I attempted to be crafty and create some wall art after I couldn't find anything I liked in stores.

I got some ideas on Pinterest (of course) but in the end, the designs were completely free-handed by either me or Matt, then I just cut them out of scrapbook paper and added some creative touches.  Luckily, you can get away with anything in a baby's room, even very basic cutout shapes that look like a 5 year old did them.  I thought my finished products turned out very simple and sweet, exactly what I was going for:

And now for the fun part... here's how the room looks today, ready for us to bring home our precious little girl!

I've already shared a peek at my favorite corner (probably in the whole house).  I love my glider and I go sit in it often and talk to the baby telling her about all the fun we will have together.  It's hard to remember that just a few month ago this cozy navy  corner was where Matt's computer was!

Before

After

A nursery has definitely been the most fun room I've ever been able to decorate.  I love how the pale pink and navy turned out and know I'll be spending a lot of time in there very soon.

Today I'm washing the 0-3 month sized baby clothes and then I'll try to get them sorted so all the tiny PJ's she'll need when she first comes home are clean and easy to find.  She's gotten many cute things, and we've also been very fortunate to have several friends offer us hand me downs.  It may seem like a lot, but I've been told that babies are quite messy and we'll end up going through several outfits a day (and night)... which means today is the first of many, many times that I wash these sweet clothes.

I think she might already own more clothes than me, and definitely more pink than me... however my clothes last for years, and by summer nothing in this basket will fit anymore.  That thought already makes me sad.  They really don't stay tiny for very long.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, there isn't much left to do before she gets here.  The ticker is quickly counting down and very soon our nursery will be occupied!  After next week I'll officially be considered full term and she's welcome to come anytime after that.  Until then though, we'll try to have a normal holiday season and enjoy the peace and quiet.