Sam's Nursery Pictures

Finally, the finished product!  To really appreciate the transformation, be sure to peek back at the before pics.  I love how the room turned out and I love spending time in here.  Truly, a dream come true.  It's so sweet and perfect for our little boy.  I couldn't be happier!  Enjoy...

The gorgeous built-in shelves that have been in my head for years turned out great!  One of the hub's best friends built these.  We were blessed to have so many talented friends and family help us out with this beautiful room.

Definitely one of my favorite parts of the room is the wall and ceiling paint.  We went very neutral, but bold at the same time.  The crib wall is striped with two shades of taupe.  But the real kicker is the ceiling - it's a very striking metallic bronze.  My absolute favorite part!  We did the paint ourselves.  The stripes were the most challenging - the hub handled those!

The rocker was a gift from Sam's Mimi! And the fabric closet "door" was sewn by my sweet bestest!  And I'm not sure if she remembers this, but KK also gave us that oval mirror that hangs above the crib as a wedding gift (ahem, nearly ten years ago).  Yeah, we hadn't used it till now!  We added the wooden "S" and voila... insta-nursery decor.



She also made the lovely basket liners for me!  See her tutorial on these here.  The hamper (which you can kinda see there by the crib) was a bit of a challenge.  I didn't like any of the ones I saw at BRU and the like.  This was actually my grandfather's hamper.  Yeah, kind of a weird tribute, but it's cool to have a piece of him in the room (even if it used to hold his dirty underwear).



Had a ball filling these shelves.  And it's a work in progress!  Lots of sweet gifts from friends, but also a few things from my childhood make an appearance too.



Filling the drawers was also fun... they're our main source of storage in the room, besides the closet.

This little caddy was used to hold cake pops at one of my showers... now it holds diapers!  The little night light back there is one of my favorite baby items.  It'll be included on my list of must-have's that I'll post soon!  That bird house is just a random item I found at Hobby Lobby for filler.

Our beautiful DIY cornice board!!!  One of my very favorite pieces in the room.  Dad and the hub built this together.  And my sweet friend, Melissa, monogrammed the fabric before it was assembled.  A very easy project.  And simple to change the fabric... like if it needs to be pink at some point! ;-)

Our gorgeous bench seat cushion... I did have a designer friend make this for me.  Definitely one of the few "splurges" in the room, but it totally makes the bench - which really is the focal point. LOVE it!  That seat also lifts to reveal a big storage area underneath.  Currently it is housing our diaper supply!



Some sweet details...  the pillow (and all crib bedding and extra fabric) was ordered from a GREAT local company called Carousel Designs that does affordable custom crib bedding.   I will use them again and again! My friend Melissa also monogrammed this pillow for me (and did the applique "S" on the one above). 



Another must-have - the Sleep Sheep!  Yeah we have this full size one and the travel one (attached to Sam's car seat).  Love!  This little toy bag was something I already had from my samples kit when I was selling Javis Davis bedding.  It just happened to match almost perfectly!

The main print used in the room - this gorgeous paisley.  It was definitely love at first sight when I found this.  Which is not what I originally imagined for a boy... I always thought I'd do something bright and funky!

Wall decor above the changing table.  Found these fabulous safety pins at Ballard Designs.  They were featured as a cute addition for a laundry room, but I thought they'd be perfect in a nursery!  The lovely name plaque was given by another sweet friend.  Also one of my very favorite details in the room.  Sam's name has such special meaning for us, so this was a perfect gift.

Oh and how I adore the finished bathroom... I told you how much I love baby and kids' bathrooms, so we put a lot of work into it.  My dad and the hub did the beadboard themselves.  That medicine cabinet was a random find at Home Depot!  I had one picked out at Pottery Barn for twice as much.  Monogrammed towels from Horchow, duh.  Don't make me tell you again that there is no better place to order mongrammed towels.

Cheap clearance shower curtain from Kohl's!  Mongrammed by Melissa.  :-)  Oh and all these bathroom fixtures were purchased YEARS ago at the Pottery Barn outlet.  We had never installed them till now, but we've seriously had them for like five or six years.  Glad my taste didn't change too much!

Sam's Nana got him this sweet little robe.  A baby robe, seriously... so cute!

And surely you remember the crazy orange closet!  Here it is fully loaded.  Hard to tell in this pic, but the wall color is a bright sherbet orange.  Just fun.  Not meant to match any decor in the room, obviously.  Just a happy and bright color that works well with blue OR pink.  :-)  This was our very first project in the room.  I decided on this color before we knew boy or girl or what we'd be doing in the nursery itself.  Closets are fun.  (Mine is partially painted too - metallic pink.  I mean, why not?)

Yep, all that work for a teeny little person... blood, sweat, and tears from us and so many others who love this little guy.  Definitely more time, thought, effort, and money has gone in to that one space than any other in our house!  Haha... gotta love it!

Nursery Goings On

It feels like I've put the nursery on the back-burner over the last month or so... just kinda had to for the most part because work has been so nuts.  September and October have our last big filing deadlines of the year, so it's like a mini busy season for a few weeks.  Meaning, I don't have much time for anything else!

But yesterday was the last big deadline, and I can breathe again!  AND I can concentrate on more fun things, like getting Sam's room ready for him.  Because tomorrow marks three months till his big day!  Goodness... time is really flying.  I thought nine months would be an exorbitant amount of time to get ready for a baby.  Hmmm... not so much.  I feel time slipping away as I find more and more things to add to my to-do list!

But alas, we are making progress!  We finally got going on the bathroom paint this weekend.  We got this gorgeous robin egg blue from - where else? - Home Depot.  Hard to get the true color captured in pics, but it's really similar to this Restoration Hardware color...

We're going to do white bead-board along the bottom (up to chair railing height) - so that's why we didn't bother painting all the way down to the bottom trim.  I did most of this room - my energy is still there for now!  But the hub had to help me with the hard-to-reach spots behind the tub.

This afternoon I finished up with a second coat, and it is looking fabulous!  I just LOVE the color.  And I am not normally big into blue.  But this is truly a gorgeous color.  I think Sam will be pleased!

And I know I probably will regret this... I realize that.  But I'm planning to do a mix of white and taupe linens in the bathroom.  I'm looking for just a simple white shower curtain with a monogram.  May just grab a cheap white one at Kohl's and have a friend monogram it... or I may go with this Pottery Barn one that's actually pretty affordable (only $34 including the monogram)...

I've used several PB shower curtains in the past and they've all been great quality.  So how long do you think we'll go before that thing's covered it projectile baby vomit?!  Hopefully at least a couple of weeks.  I'll, uh... make sure I can wash it easily - whatever we end up with.  We also obviously need a mirror.  Because we (by choice) did a pedestal sink in this bathroom, we don't have a lot of storage in there.  So I'm wanting to do some kind of medicine cabinet mirror, like this one (also from Pottery Barn)...

So the bathroom is definitely starting to come together!  It's one of my favorite parts of the nursery... I adore baby and kids' bathrooms.

Also in the works, a few miles away, are the built-in shelves!!!  The hub's buddy is building them for us at his house and then he'll come install them once they're completed.  I haven't seen them in person yet, but the pics have me SO excited!  This is absolutely the focal point of the entire nursery and a concept I've had in my head for the last six years.  So amazing to finally see it come together... in real life!

The shelves will be painted white and there will also be trim across the top connecting the whole thing so it's one big piece.  Our one window takes up that entire open space in the middle.  Eeeks!  Can't wait to see those installed!

On tap for this weekend is getting started on the paint in the main room.  We haven't done the first thing about paint in there!  I was initially thinking we'd hire someone to do some fancy-pants design that I didn't have the patience for.  Not a mural, but just something cool - some kind of print or design.  But then I got inspired when we were in Home Depot last weekend getting the blue bathroom paint.  I noticed Martha Stewart's metallic paint collection and picked up a little sample bottle of this...

I've mentioned it before - I love me some metallic paint.  We have it in three rooms downstairs.  But they're very bold and heavy.  Martha has this very sweet, soft pearl-like gold paint that I knew would be PERFECT to accent the nursery with.  I was already thinking of incorporating some gold in there somehow, and this was my answer.

So fast forward through several rounds of what-about-this that went through my head, and that brings us to the final painting decision... We're going to do wide stripes on the main walls in two soft shades of taupe.  The ceiling will be painted with the soft metallic gold.  And in between the stripes on the walls will be a line of small coin-sized dots of the same gold.  Let me tell you, it is gorgeous in my head.  We'll see if reality plays along!

Lastly, I'm starting to pull together some accessories like wall decor. Gosh, there are so many little odds and ends I keep thinking of!  But I'm just trying to take it a step at a time.  So this week our two  main pieces for the walls came in.  I didn't know what I wanted to do on the walls for the longest time.  I try very hard not to do what everyone else is doing... I had a longer list of things I would NOT be doing than I did of any real ideas.  But finally I came up with a plan.  Above the crib, I'm using a frameless oval mirror that bestest gave us for our wedding (ahem 9 years ago).  It's from Pottery Barn (yes, I obviously have a thing for Pottery Barn accessories) and hangs by a ribbon.  Never been used.  Always figured we'd use it in a nursery someday, somehow.  My initial thought was to have the mirror engraved if we had a girl.  No dice there.  So recently I thought of getting some wooden letters to attach to the mirror since Sam's name is nice and short.  Which brings us to this...

That's the top of the crib in the mirror's reflection - in case my pic is confusing.  The letters (from PB Kids) came in white, but I'm 97% sure I'm going to spray paint them antique gold.  A bit darker than the gold metallic paint I was just gushing about.  Then we'll hang the mirror by a large blue grosgrain ribbon.  I wanted the letters gold because (1) there's already so much dang white in the room between the furniture and the shelves, and (2) I want them to coordinate with these kick-ass giant safety pins I ordered from Ballard!

Seriously, how friggin' cool are these?  They're meant to gussy up a laundry room but I saw them in the catalog a couple of months ago and thought they'd be awesome over the changing table.  They were very affordable - only $35 for the set.  And they're all metal, they actually fasten and unfasten, and all three have different antique finishes.  Very cool.

So yeah... lots going on in the nursery!  It's really starting to come together, though I feel like there is so much more to do!  I come up with new ideas everyday.  And of course, Gertie is always there by my side to supervise...

Hope to be back soon with more nursery updates as things progress!

Nursery Bargains: Rocker & Ottoman

The hunt is over! This sweet rocker is on its way to Sam's nursery...






The fabric we ordered is actually a tad lighter than this and compliments our paisley print beautifully. And it's just a good neutral taupe color, so it will last through our whole army of embryos awaiting us. (Kidding, Mom... I promise we'll stop at 10 or 12.)

We actually noticed this very rocker first at my sweet friend Pammy's house. She is expecting and is 4 weeks ahead of me. She ordered her rocker from Babies 'R Us and I LOVED the look and feel of it. I made sure we added it to our list last week when we went on our rocker hunt all across town. After looking at all kinds of rockers in similar styles to this one, both the hub and I felt the BRU rocker was our best bet. I did like several of the Best brand rockers we saw at The Baby's Room, but for the price (as in several hundred dollars more) they just really weren't much better (that we could tell) from the Newco brand rocker at BRU. Plus, I consulted my Bible Baby Bargains book and the Newco brand chairs in general got very good ratings. I made sure we steered clear of any brands that had crappy ratings.

So how good of a bargain was it? Well I was personally stinkin' excited considering my first rocker musings were in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog, where we'd have to fork up nearly $1200 for a similar rocker after their ridiculous shipping surcharges (on top of the already high prices). I knew we could find something for less. And the good thing about ordering from a place like BRU? Coupons. The rocker and ottoman together were right at $580 retail. Reasonable in my book - about middle of the road for all the rockers we looked at last week. Plus $500-600 was the target price range in my head. I didn't want to skimp on a rocker - it's such an important piece - but I didn't want to go apeshit either. The customer service gal at BRU was actually super nice. I wasn't expecting much because I've read that customer service in these big box stores is a joke, but we had a great experience (at least thus far - we don't exactly have the furniture just yet).

Our BRU actually didn't have the exact rocker we were after, so I texted Pammy to get the item number and customer service helped us track it down and get the right set ordered. And without even asking, they did what I was hoping they'd do - split the rocker and ottoman order up so we could slap on two 20% off coupons. So we got 20% off the whole shebang, making the set only $464. Record-breaking bargain? Doubtful. But for the quality and style of the rocker, I am loving that price. And the kicker is the hub's momma is paying for the rocker as her sweet gift to Baby Sam! But don't you know I don't want anyone paying retail! Of course we got asked like three times if we wanted to save an extra 10% by opening up a store credit card. My husband's response to the cashier? "Dave Ramsey would whoop our ass." Word. You can have your 10%.

Oh and this beauty's gonna be here in only one to two weeks! I tell ya, I cannot wait to have this thing set up in our nursery so I can sit there and rock and stare and daydream. Right now there's nowhere to sit in that room... except the toilet. So it's starting to come together! Now that we've got our swatches (finally), we can pick out paint colors for the bathroom. And the nursery itself too... I'm still contemplating what I want to do on the main walls. I'm thinking a harlequin diamond print in taupe/neutral shades similar to this look (found on Silverspoon Murals)...




I wouldn't want to do something that fancy pants and not be able to recycle it for say, a girl. It looks hella complicated though and I can guarantee you I don't have the patience to do this crap...




So I've already concluded we will probably have to hire a pro to do the nursery walls if we do decide to go in that direction. And it would be the whole damn wall - not just above bead board or some chair molding. Yeah there's no way I'm doing that. I would absolutely lose my mind. We are sloppy painters in my household. We get the job done, but the process ain't pretty. So we can handle "simple" paint projects like the orange closet and the bathroom, but the main nursery walls? Yeah, let's get some help on that.

Oh and I'm thinking maybe a muted, pale metallic gold color for the ceiling. Ralph Lauren has these really pretty metallic finish paints at Home Depot - we've used them in a few rooms on the ceiling and the walls. I love them. It may sound scary, but I promise it's not. It's just a little drama in a can.

Other nursery developments? Our blinds came in, so those poor nekkid windows will finally be clothed! The sun comes in that room SO badly in the mornings, so we've got all our furniture draped in blankets right now to prevent any damage. It'll be nice to get those windows covered so we can finally start putting the room together. On the to-do list for this month is getting the bathroom painted and bead board installed. I'm uber excited about doing the bathroom too... I LOVE baby and kids' bathrooms. And the hub and his talented wood-working buddy are probably going to start the built-in shelves sometime this month. I can't WAIT to see those come together! That's truly the focal point of the room, so until those are up it feels pretty bare in there. But yeah, I guess as far as what I can really do this month, it's going to be concentrating on the bathroom and also ordering the crib bedding and accessories. Oooh how fun! Every step is so fun.

Well again, y'all enjoy this holiday weekend! It's a busy time at work with deadlines on the horizon, so I'll probably work a little from home Monday morning, but in my jammies no doubt!

Nursery Closet: The Finished Product!

I must say, we are doing a great job of getting our August nursery to-do's marked off the list. The big goals for this month were to order the crib (check), find a changing table (check), order blinds (check), paint the closet (check), and update the closet shelving (check). Look at us go!

So this weekend we added that second row of shelving I mentioned in the nursery closet, some hooks for the wall, and a couple of other organizer caddy things from Wally World to complete it all. (Hop over here if you want to see the "before" pics again.) Total spent on the closet makeover... about $120.

- Paint from Home Depot, $25
- Extra shelving and wall hook pieces from Lowe's, $47
- Canvas shelving and rolling carts from Wal-Mart, $48

And here's the end product! I'm in love. If the nursery itself is half as much fun as the closet is, I think we'll be in great shape...










Only thing left to do is add a tension rod and fabric for a "door." But I'm considering that more a part of the nursery room decor itself since we'll most likely use one of the fabrics to coordinate with the bedding. And seeing as my swatches still haven't arrived, we don't know what those fabrics are just yet! I did contact Carousel though and they sent another order out. They responded almost immediately to my email! Looks like my first batch (that I ordered over two weeks ago) got lost in the mail or something.

Alright, gotta get going. Meant to post an 18-week belly pic this weekend, but never got around to it. I'll get one up shortly! Oh also... the rocker hunt went well this weekend too! Nothing purchased yet, but we got a good feel for who has what. Probably will do a little more looking this weekend and make a final decision once our fabric swatches arrive.

Orange you glad we finally painted the closet?

Yes, us too! And it turned out SO great. And it is seriously orange - I love it! Now remember this has no bearing whatsoever on our nursery colors - it's literally just the inside of the closet. I wanted something fun, bright, and gender-neutral. Turns out orange goes fabulously with blue AND pink. And while you can't really tell in these pics, it's like a sherbet orange. Rather delicious! Once again, here's the BEFORE pic in boring beige...




And the finished product! (The color shows up best in the 2nd pic, but none of these do the orange justice.)






Oh yeah, it is ALL orange, ceiling included. It's wise to put on some shades before entering. Once we get things more situated, I'll definitely get some better pics up, but for now I'm being lazy and using camera phone pics, so excuse the poor quality.

We're still going to add one more row of shelving on that left wall, and probably some more organizer thingees on the back wall. I just bought a couple of things at Wal-mart to see what might work. So this is a start! Sam's already racking up some goodies...




And speaking of goodies, I had another "spare change" trip to Kohl's this weekend. I rarely go in there, but if they send me a $10 card, I come runnin'. Just look at these cleareance cuties...



For literally, spare change! Love it!



Hope y'all have a great week! I'm still working on getting pics of our consignment goodies up. Check back soon...

The Before Pictures

How long this room will stay in its "before" condition... only God knows! But let's just say we're preparing to be blessed. Believe it or not, this beautifully empty room was filled wall-to-wall with junk mere hours ago! In the almost four years that we've lived in this house, we've actually kept this room fairly empty and organized (well, what little was in there was organized). Since the day we started with mere floorplans, we have always referred to this bedroom as the "nursery." But earlier this year, the "nursery" slowly but steadily turned into the dreaded I'm-not-sure-where-I-want-to-put-this-so-I'll-just-dump-it-in-here room. And because I'm considerate and don't want to damage my dear readers' vision, I refrained from taking the *real* before pictures when it was in that condition. No one needs to see that... for real.

It got to the point where everytime I saw the door to this room cracked open, I did an audible sigh. Sometimes even an "ugh." My blood pressure would rise just seeing the pile of junk in there. But when to find the time to do something about it?! That was my problem. Well, as we're once again on the two-week-wait to see if this cycle was a success, I once and for all decided to get this room back in fab condition. I mean, we're trying to make babies here! Baby needs his/her room!

The hub and I were watching "Facing the Giants" a month or so ago for the first time and one of the scenes really stuck with me. One of the characters was telling a parable about two farmers who desparately needed rain. Both of the farmers prayed to God for rain, but only one went out and prepared his fields for rain. Rain came to the one farmer who trusted God to receive the rain. As said in the film, "God will send the rain when he's ready. You need to prepare your fields to receive it."

So girls, whether or not God blesses us with a baby this month, I'm trusting him and getting prepared...

This is the view coming into the room from the hallway.

A closer look at the window on the far/back wall. It sits directly in the center of the wall and we plan to add built-in bookshelves all along that back wall with a bench seat and overhang in front of the window.

Found this on the web... not exactly what I'm going for, but just so you get the idea - this is kinda what we're after in general (but ours will be much more decorative and fab!). If, however, we are blessed with twins, I have an uber cool plan B. We'll get to that if and when we need to...

This is the far side wall (to the right if you're looking at the window).

This is the front wall (with door to hallway).

This is the left side wall with doors to bathroom and closet.

Another view of the same wall... door on the far left is to the hallway, middle door is the closet, and the door on the right is the bathroom.

And a view of the far left corner.

Here's a peek in the bathroom - my favorite part! (That's a cute shower curtain, I know, but that will change. It's just there for fun right now.)

We picked fixtures especially for a baby's bath. I ADORE baby & kids' bathrooms, so I wanted it to be perfect. We chose this fabulous little pedestal sink. No mirror yet... we will probably get a medicine cabinet style one to have some storage space behind it.

Close-up of the plumbing fixtures (didn't take a pic, but the tub fixtures match this as well).

Inside the closet - which is currently full of miscellaneous stuff that we'll have to eventually move out! Some is actually baby stuff, some is what's left of the maternity wardrobe I didn't put on ebay, and the rest is... who knows?! We will ultimately put in new shelving to maximize the space. You know my kid's gonna have a closet full!

The boob light (cuz it looks like a boob) - which most definitely will be replaced with some fabulously fabulous chandelier.

The view from the window (picture yourself sitting on the bench!).

And up the street...

On another note... thanks so much for all the sweet messages regarding yesterday's mishap with the car! We are doing fine. Still waiting to get the word on the repairs, but we'll get it all figured out. Like y'all said, just glad no one was hurt!

OK... off to put some laundry up and get in the bed!