Decorating and accesorizing the Nursery

Holy moly!

What a ride. This week has seen the end of the preparations in the nursery. Today we are at 39 weeks and with the exception of one picture that will be put in a white frame above the crib that our great friend is creating for us, the nursery is complete. I sat down in the glider in the corner and looked at the room as we placed the final items on the newly installed shelf and said to myself "wow, this looks great". That was followed up shortly after with "I don't think I will ever put this much effort into a room again.

Sorry second child.

Here is sneek peek of the room along with my very pregnant wife. Enjoy!

I will be posting more pictures of the nursery eventually...

Final Christmas "Alone"

As we close out the holiday season 2011, I have to look back and say that the last few weeks have been very nice. We were unable to travel home for the holidays due to my wife's advanced pregnancy so we were lucky to be able to have both of our parents and the Wife's sister join us over the holidays.

A few weekends ago, my parents were down for a visit. We hung out and talked a lot and they shared their excitement in meeting their new granddaughter (their second grandchild, our nephew Carson being their first). It was a quick visit but a great one.

The weekend after, the in laws were down with Sondra. It was also a nice visit. I believe they were here for four or five days. Had lots of fun, great food and lots of junk. Oh Christmas!

It was nice that we were still able to see a lot of family over the holiday's even though we were not able to go home.

The last few days have been the nicest for me. We removed Christmas (took down the tree and decorations) and are now able to focus solely on the final preparation for the arrival of our little lady. We were also able to take a bit of time for ourselves and sit back on the couch with some hot chocolate and have a fire in our fireplace for the first time. It was quiet and calming. I suppose the calm before the storm.

Today also marked the last day of me working at IKEA. I am now back down to one job. That in itself is a relief.

With tonight being the end of 2011. I wish everyone a happy new year. All the best in 2012. I know it will be the best year yet!

Finding time

In working two jobs and still trying to have a bit of a social life before baby comes, I'm finding it challenging to keep up with things I want to get done at home. I will be home for the next two nights after work, not having to work at IKEA and I plan on actually starting to get the nursery ready for paint. We've had the paint for weeks and I just haven;t got around to doing anything. Our place is also just a mess. Simple things like dishes have been put aside for sleep and one day of fun on Sunday where I was finally able to sit down and watch football all afternoon.

And, I'm not really interested in hearing the "just wait" comments. I know it's going to be tough when the kid gets here, but I also won't have two jobs. The child will be my second job. We'll adapt.

Sorry for the sour tone today.

Good news... the wife is getting blood tests as we speak and next week we enter the third trimester. It seems to be going so quickly and moving so slowly all at the same time.

New Items for the Nursery!

The in laws were in town this weekend and went shopping for a bunch of nursery stuff.

First they brought up the crib bedding. We chose it ahead of time and they brought it with them as they picked it up back home. It looks like it's going to be just perfect for the room.

We then went and picked up a bunch of hook, some decorative pillows and the curtain rod. Everything looks lovely.

My parents were also in town a few weeks ago and got us the dresser for the nursery. My dad helped me put it together.

The wife has already started filling it up.

Thanks family!

More generosity!

As soon as we found out we were having a girl, one of my co-workers was SOOOOOOO excited. She was leaving on maternity leave and was about to have a boy. She had a girl a few years back, in fact her girl just started school, very cute pictures.

She decided that she wanted to give us ALL of her girl clothing. She didn't want to donate it as she feels like she was giving away her child and we were grateful to receive anything.

Holy Moly, I could have never imagined the amount of stuff she was giving us. In fact, here are some images of us sorting through our new found treasures...

Onesies, pants, shirts, shoes, bathing suits, coats and snow pants, bedding sets, blankets... you name it and it was in there. Three big microwave boxes FULL of stuff. We are very grateful.

So thank you Veronika for you generosity!

Organization... The Hall Closet

I've heard about it many time, I have also seen it first hand but until you actually live it, it's hard to realize.

Kids take up a lot of space.

We aren't even close to having half the things (thank you again family and friends!) but already I am questioning where we are going to put everything.  The Nursery is in complete disarray right now. Everything we have received has just been placed in there with no order. It doesn't help that the closet in that room (which isn't that large, but definitely bigger than many I've seen) is currently housing our shoes. We don't have any other place to put them.

This made me realize that the main culprit for this problem resides in the hall closet. Our hall closet is very small and very inefficient. It is a basic closet with a a rail along the top and a shelf above that. At the bottom, there is also what looks like an old step which you can flip up to reaveal a hidden cubby of sorts. The door is not helpful at all as it is one of those white folding vinyl things. I hate it. You can't hang anything from it.

So I have decided to tackle that closet. Now, remember that we are only renting and as such are limited in the changes we can make. The landlord, when looking through the house initially, made sure to show us the versatility of that step at the bottom so I cannot take that out. I also won't want to as I believe if I did, I would need to repair the surrounding wall.

The first thing I will do is remove that stupid door. I will wrap it and put it in the shed in the back. If they decide they want to put it back on after, they can.

I will clean out everything that is in there, remove the shelf and the rail, measure it up and come up with a plan that will still allow us coat hanging space along with some shoe storage space.

It will be great! I will do a before and after post about it when I actually get started. The wife is away for the weekend in a few weeks, so I think that will be the weekend I do it.

Stay tuned!

Nursery I

I am calling this post Nursery I as I am sure that there will be a few posts about this as my wife's mood changes along the way.
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The talks of what to do for the nursery have begun. When we moved into our new place (a rental unit) we painted the entire place (with the landlord being nice enough to pay for the paint). For the middle room, which was slated to be the office knowing that it would quickly change to the baby room should that situation be presented, we just used whatever paint was left over. It was a light green and a light yellow, colours that are favourable for our unborn child's room.

I suppose I could not have been more wrong.

It is just not what the wife wants. So in the coming months there will be much deliberation on what the look will actually be. All I know is that I will have some painting to do.

In the meantime we are busy clearing out the space. It became our dumping ground when we moved in as the other two rooms were our guest room and bedroom.

The guestroom has now become the guestroom/office/library/wine cellar. It sounds like a lot but it actually works out quite well. Whereas our room has now been overrun by Mat clothing with our friends and family have graciously donated to us... more on that in another post.

The nursery is nearly clean but between the two of us with school and three jobs, there is very little time left to get things done and when we do have time, we often choose to spend time enjoying each others company instead. I think it's working out well.