More Nursery Updates!

Okay, this is probably going to be a long post, but I am SO excited to share all of the work we got done this weekend in the baby's room! I'm not going to lie, I have been putting off decorating Baby W's room and really been dreading it. I'm not great at decorating, but I always have these great visions of how I want something to look. Things never really work out how I have envisioned. Last weekend while we were hanging out, I spent quite a bit of time writing down things we needed to do/buy for the baby's room and looking up pictures online of ideas for the room. This week while I was out running errands, I spent a lot of time looking around for things to buy for the room. I have a habit of looking around for decorations but not buying them thinking something else better may come along. I didn't do that this week and I'm so glad I bought the few things I did! 

We had a couple big projects we were working on this weekend.

1. Making/painting bookshelves to hang.

2. Cleaning, organizing, and adding shelves to the closet.

3. Cleaning, folding, and organizing all the baby clothes {and baby gifts we've received}. 

Project #1 - Bookshelves

I found a couple different bookshelf ideas on pinterest that looked fairly easy to make. Kurt and I went to Lowe's on Friday night to buy the wood and paint for the bookshelves. This project was pretty cheap and I'm so glad we attempted it. We probably spent around $25 with all the materials and now we have plenty of room for the baby's books...we actually need more to add! :)

Lowe's cut the wood to the size we wanted for free so we didn't have to do anything but assemble them. Kurt borrowed the nail gun from his dad {and now wants one of his own!} and it made putting the shelves together a breeze. It took us no longer than 10 minutes to put all the shelves together before painting. 

We used three pieces of wood and nailed them into an L shape. Each shelf is 2 feet long and there is plenty of space to put a bunch of books on each one. 

This is what each shelf looked like before we sanded, primed, and painted. Pretty easy. After Kurt stapled them together and helped sand them, he went upstairs to work on the closet while I primed and painted the shelves. {I also managed to do 6 loads of laundry while we were doing all this work!} 

I didn't take any pictures of the bookshelves in the middle of painting because I was on a mission to get them finished as fast as possible...not to mention the paint that was on my hands that I didn't want on my camera! Thank God it was so warm on December 1st or I wouldn't have probably been able to do this project on my own. I think the paint fumes would have been a little much for me if we had to do it inside. Plus it was much easier to not have to clean up a mess inside!  

This picture was taken after one coat of primer and two coats of paint had been applied. Since I was out in the sun, the bookshelves look MUCH more yellow than they do inside and on the wall in the baby's room. I was a bit worried about the color when I was painting yesterday, but I really do love them in the room now that they're up. I'm guessing you're wondering what the yellow W is that is sitting on the cardboard as well. I found a project on pinterest that I did yesterday and I went ahead and quickly painted the W while I was painting the bookshelves. You'll see a picture of that project in a bit...

So here's the finished product...

What do you think? We love them! They were SO easy to make and really inexpensive. We plan to put the chair we bought next to the bookshelves so we can grab a book to read while we're sitting with the baby. Now we just need to buy some more books! 

If you look below the bookshelves, you'll see one of the things I bought this week while I was out and about. I wanted one place to put all the baby toys to keep them somewhat organized and accessible for when the baby is more mobile. I found this grey wicker basket at Home Goods this week for $20! I love how the grey matches the room and is big enough to fit a bunch of toys. Keep your fingers crossed that neither of our four legged children get into the basket and play with some of the toys! :) {We left the room open today while we were gone for 3 or 4 hours and everything was okay.}

Project #2 - Closet  

I didn't take a very good 'before' picture of the closet yesterday before Kurt starting working. I thought I had one, but not really. Here's a picture I took awhile ago before we even painted the room. You can kind of see what the closet looked like before... 

Anyway, the closet had only one shelf. The top of the shelf was FULL of our stuff that we had been throwing up there since we moved in. The half that you can't see in this picture has some of Kurt's clothes and shoes. We had already cleaned out some of the closet when this picture was taken, but I couldn't believe how much stuff we had stored in there when we took everything out yesterday...

Not too long ago, we spent a ton of time cleaning out this room and this is what it looked like yesterday when we took everything out of the closet {and before I was able to put all the baby gifts away...}! You literally couldn't move in the room! Where did we get all this crap?!?

So after we got the closet cleaned out, Kurt moved the one shelf that was in there up a foot or two. If you look closely in this picture, you can see the holes from where this shelf was originally hanging. 

 While we were at Lowe's, we bought another long shelf to add into the closet. We hung one of Kurt's shirts from the top shelf to make sure that he could still use some of the closet before hanging the second shelf. We also had an extra shelf in our garage that Kurt cut in half. The plan was to put two half shelves in the closet on the left side to have more room, but we ended up only hanging one. That way, we have quite a bit of space at the bottom of the closet to store baby things that we don't want out around the house. 

 Here are both sides of the closet. I wish I would have taken a picture before Kurt put the doors back on. Either way, we feel like we have a ton more space/storage and we were actually able to put a lot of our crap back on the top shelf! Kurt can still use the right side for a few of his things that can't fit in our closet and the left side has a bunch of room for baby things. We've put a lot of baby things in the closet that will probably be left out once the baby arrives, but it feels good to have them out of the way for now. Let's see how long we can keep the closet this organized...

Project #3 - Organize

I love organizing things. It makes me feel less stressed out. However, I wish I was better at keeping things organized. I was having a hard time starting this project. If you asked me to organize my clothes, I'd have an easy time doing it because I know how I like my things organized. I've never had to organize baby clothes before so it kinda stressed me out. I want to make sure I have things in places that make sense and are most accessible. I'm probably not making any sense, but it stressed me out. I made myself finally start getting things put away yesterday. Here's what I've decided on so far...

I didn't take a very close up picture, but next to the changing pad you can see another cute basket I bought from Home Goods. It's perfect. It has a little yellow in it and I think it's a perfect size for the changing table. I put some diapers, rash ointment, hand sanitizer, and a few other things we may need on a regular basis when changing Baby W. 

In the top three drawers, I tried to think of things we'd use a lot. In the left drawer, I started putting burp cloths, swaddling blankets, and Boppy pillow covers. In the middle we have lots of extra diapers and wipes. And in the right drawer, I put onesies.  

Underneath those drawers, I started putting outfits. In the left drawer, I put all the sleepers and in the right I started putting outfits. There are a few things that are hanging. We have tons of hangers and space in the closet that we can use when we need it.

What's so great is we have SO many more drawers for other things. I'm so happy we bought both dressers because I know we can use the storage for so many things. So I know things are pretty organized right now, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do once we have more outfits in a variety of sizes. How am I going to keep different size outfits organized...stress. 

While those were our main projects this weekend, I thought I'd show you a couple other things in the room. 

I'm not quite sure this is where all of these things are going to permanently live, but here are a few fun things we've gotten for the room...

From the left to the right:

-That is the W from the picture above with the bookshelves. This week, I bought a wooden W, one piece of scrapbook paper, and a picture frame {$12} from Michaels. I painted the W the same yellow as the bookshelves. When it was dry, I set it on the glass, cut the paper to fit in the frame and put it behind the W, and closed up the frame. It was a quick and cheap project! 

-The owl is something I bought from West Elm. I've been eyeing it and knew it would be a cute addition to the room. 

-Paddington Bear is SO cute. My mom bought that for the baby while they were in London this Fall. We need to keep him high up so Coop and Olive don't eat him. :)

-The frame on the right is from my aunt. That is not a picture of us...yet! It says on the top, "One Lucky Baby, One Happy Family." I can't wait to put a picture of us in it soon! 

Kurt and I are not huge stuffed animal people. However, while we were cleaning out the guest room this fall, we found three that we knew we wanted to keep for Baby W. They are currently waiting in the crib...until they need to find a new place until the baby is older. 

The dog on the left was a gift from Kurt to me one Christmas. He bought it for me because it kinda looks like Coop. The IU bear in the middle is Kurt's from when he was a baby! We absolutely love it and can't wait for our baby to have it. The bear on the right was a present that I bought Kurt when we first started dating. I'm not really sure why I thought it'd be good to buy him a stuffed animal, but Kurt kept that bear in his room all through college. 

On the front of the crib, we have this little sheep hanging. {Thanks Peck!} Not only is the sheep cute, he is a sound maker. Kurt and I sleep with our white noise app {crickets and water to be exact!} so we thought our baby would like some noise, too. 

If you look behind the lamb, you'll see the new bedding! The crib skirt is already on and the two sheets we bought are washed and folded on top of the mattress. I'm waiting to put one of the sheets on until we get a waterproof mattress cover. 

The latest addition to the room is above the crib and I absolutely love it. My friend Lauren lives in San Fran and obviously couldn't come to my shower today. She is so thoughtful and sent Mer some decorations for the shower today. We loved this little banner so much, we decided to hang it above the crib! It's so perfect. 

 I was kinda dreading having to buy more things to fill the wall space above the crib and now I don't have to worry. And, it will always remind me of how much fun I had at my shower today and Lauren! 

 It may not look like we got much done, but it feels like we did SO much yesterday. I'm actually starting to fall in love with this room and absolutely cannot wait to spend time with our baby in the room. We still have some things to do and do have quite a bit of things to find places for {see corner of the room in the next pictures}, but we're getting there! I'd like to also buy a fun mirror to put somewhere in the room. We have a few more projects we'd like to do, too. 

So what do you think? I think I'm ready for a baby to be in this room! :)

Weekend Shopping

This weekend was spent running errands {we're good at that around here} and buying lots of things for the baby's room. We did a really great job procrastinating on cleaning/organizing things around the house! However, we did end up getting a lot accomplished. 

Saturday was spent looking at nursery furniture and bedding for the first time. We found a great deal on a whole set that wasn't my favorite and I definitely wasn't ready to commit that day, even though it was tempting. When we got home from a crazy afternoon, I spent quite a bit of time going back through our Baby Bargains book to check out the ratings of the furniture we saw. We narrowed our choices from Decor 4 Kids down to two that we wanted to go back and look at. We also found two choices at Buy Buy Baby online that we wanted to go look at. Kurt priced all four sets out to see what we were working with. I also spent some time looking at different bedding fabrics at a company that Decor 4 Kids sells called New Arrivals. They have THE CUTEST stuff and tons more gender neutral options than anyone else. You can custom order using any of the fabrics which is so nice. We narrowed down those options and planned on ordering some bedding when we went back up to Decor 4 Kids. 

On Sunday, we met my mom at Buy Buy Baby to check out the furniture sets we found online and planned to go back to Decor 4 Kids after. After debating, we finally decided to bite the bullet and buy the crib, tall dresser, long dresser, and bed conversion kit from Buy Buy Baby. The bedding from Buy Buy Baby was already quite a bit more inexpensive AND they gave us 20% off each item!! We couldn't pass up the deal on furniture that is just as good quality as the ones from Decor 4 Kids. We knew we're still going to need to spend quite a bit of money on other things for the nursery, especially a glider. 

At first, I thought the color of the furniture had too much of a reddish undertone. We found some grey bedding at the store {we'll probably use some shades of grey} to see how the color looked with the furniture. Looked totally fine! What I really like about the crib is that the front swoops down. I've found it difficult to put down/pick up babies from cribs before because I'm so short. I think the front will allow me to reach in easier. 

We plan to put the changing pad on top of the long dresser. We like how the drawers pull out easily and don't slam when you close them. We're hoping that there will be plenty of room for baby things {and possibly some extra for our crap!}

We also bought the conversion kit/rails to change the crib into a full bed. We plan on using this furniture for a long time and like having the option of a larger bed for the future. Either this furniture will grow with baby #1 or it will be the nursery furniture for all our kids. We'll have to wait and see! No matter what, the bed will look great whenever we decide to use it!

I wanted to add some more things to our registry while we were there, but picking out/ordering the furniture took a long time...we were ready to get outta there! However, I did show my mom the two strollers we're debating on. Ugh, such a difficult decision! Why can't the more practical one look as cute as the other one!!! 

After eating a much needed late lunch, we decided to go ahead and make the trek up to Decor 4 Kids to try and get the bedding picked out and ordered. They didn't have all of the swatches we wanted to look at, so they are going to order all the swatches and send them to us. We are for sure going to order a bed skirt and I think we'll get a matching sheet. My mom wants to buy us a bumper pad. We're not sure we're going to use one...some people say you should and some say you shouldn't. We're going to wait to see if our baby is a mover and a shaker while sleeping and might need some protection from the crib rails. We can mix and match any of the fabrics, so I know it's going to be a tough decision! They have all sorts of room accessories to match fabrics/bedding sets. We may look into ordering a pillow for the glider once we have that picked out. So many options...stressful!!! Here's what we're thinking about for bed skirts and sheets {all swatches from New Arrivals}. 

Bed Skirt? Probably our last choice. Would pair neutral sheets with it until we know the sex and then would buy blue/pink/yellow/etc. colored sheets to make it more gender specific. 

I think this is my favorite so far. I like that it's not too modern but not too traditional. We could pair it with tons of colors/patterns of sheets and room accessories. 

 I do love the chevron, but I'm thinking it's a bit too modern and trendy. My hope is that we'll use this bedding for all of our children and I don't want this to look funny years down the road because it was a fad. 

These two sheet options we would consider putting with either of the grey bed skirts. I really like the polka dot with the first grey skirt. 

We've pretty much ruled out the blue/green skirt. We went ahead and ordered the swatch in case we had a change of heart, but we love the grey and love how many different colors we could pair with it. Only difficult part is going to be picking out a paint color for the room. 

Because we're pretty sure we're going to use grey bedding, we went ahead and bought the changing pad and one cover while at Decor 4 Kids. The pad is a cozy fabric that is a dark charcoal grey. I can't wait to put it on top of the dresser! 

Now that we have all of the furniture ordered and the bedding will {hopefully} be ordered in the next month or so, we need to get our butts into gear and get the nursery cleaned out! We set some dates to get things cleaned and get everything moved out of there. We also planned when Kurt will paint the room and the day we're going to pick up the furniture. Hopefully having dates for when things need to get done will help us stay on schedule for getting this room put together! Fingers crossed, the room will be pretty much finished before the holiday season begins {I'm really hoping it'll be done by the end of October}. 

So, what are your thoughts?!? What bedding would you choose if you were picking? I'm horrible at making decisions, so any advice would be appreciated! :)