He wants his room back...

I've been dragging my feet on finishing the nursery. I need a little motivation. The little guy won't be able to sleep in my dresser drawer forever.

I kid, I kid!

Sort of.

Don't listen to him! He loves his drawer!!

*ahem*

Right now, the nursery looks like this:

(there is now a door where gaping hole in the wall is...)

It's bad. A little overwhelming. I need motivation.

Memo to self...

THE NURSERY IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE THIS:

The Addition

For those of you who were unaware (assuming anyone still reads this blog outside of my family), we started work on the addition for a second upstairs bathroom with the help of my husband's terrific relatives.

However, before we ever lifted a hammer, the Professor put a lot of time into planning the addition and applying for permits.

I'm glad he has the skills to use programs like Sketchup. If the plans had been left to me, they would have looked like this:
What? I do all of my best work with crayons and napkins. Bunch of plan snobs.

Ok, ok! The permit office never would have taken us seriously and the addition probably would have fallen over. Not to mention the fact that the house would have been eaten by an oversized kindergartener's flower...

Thankfully, the plans produced by the Professor looked a little more professional than my plans. His plans had actual measurements and lacked the color magenta (mores the pity).

His plans were approved by the permit office. We are officially building on top of the existing downstairs bathroom addition.

The future layout for the bathroom started out looking like this:Ooo! A toilet and a door! How exciting!

Then the layout progressed to this:Not bad, but the stairs are floating in the middle of the room and the shower's plumbing would be difficult to access.

With some expert feedback from my husband's uncles, we changed the bathroom layout to look like this:

Thank you, expert uncles! We appreciate all of your time and expertise! You saved us from the giant monstrous flower. I shudder to think what would have happened without you...

It's going to be a while before the addition becomes an actual bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower. For now, the existing platform/roof make for a great balcony!

Tree Mural Inspiration

I haven't decided to do a mural in the nursery, but I am toying with ideas and possibilities. In the meantime, here's some more tree mural inspiration.

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Cribtastic!

Even though the walls still need one more coat of paint... And even though the drywall still needs another sanding/plastering and 3 coats of paint... I decided to put the crib together. I just couldn't wait any longer. The box was just sitting there looking lonely...

Let the baby jail building begin.

I like it! Thanks Mom & Dad (on the Professor's side)!

Now, I just have to move all of the furniture to the middle of the room and throw a plastic sheet over it when we finally finish up all the plastering/painting. That dresser is my current plan for a changing table surface... I hope to have the time to refinish it and replace the hardware & shells this summer, but we'll see.

Our First Drywall Run

Here is the damaged plaster ceiling/walls from where we ripped out a sketchily built faux wall last summer.

Drywall is surprisingly easy to cut. You just run a razor blade along where you want to cut & then snap it. Cut the back and voila! The Professor lies to karate chop with his hand and yell "Hi-YA!" everytime he snaps drywall :). This actually took two pieces of drywall because someone (*cough* me!) was really tired and having severe & unusual brain malfunctioning issues and kept screwing up whenever she measured... How do you measure and inch short twice?!? Apparently, I can't read numbers and have to return to kindergarten. Oddly enough, I was still allowed to cut drywall after all of that... Drat! My plan failed! (Just kidding, love...)

Ever since we ripped out the old wall, the room has only had a pull chain. No light switch. The Professor remedied that! Light switch conveniently located for late night searching:

Once we had the drywall screwed into place, we plastered over the problem areas.

It's looking pretty good. The molding is flush with the drywall, but it's like that in several places throughout the house. It just needs some sanding, some more plaster, some primer, and a little Willow paint before it's finished... I'm worried it may have a few uneven bumps in some places, but at least there isn't scary, exposed plaster & lathe anymore!

Willow Walls (A Sequel)

Here are the dried willow walls in the daylight.

I don't know if the swing will stay in the nursery or make its way downstairs, but it sure does match the room!

Willow Walls

We're still fixing up our damaged wall/ceiling with drywall and plaster. It's going to take a few days with all of the plastering before I can show you the end product. However, I do have progress to report!

My mom came and helped out today by painting what she could of the room for the nursery (everything but the drywall corner).

Mom is a pro at edging!

I'm still waiting for the paint to dry and the walls still need another coat. However, I think the Valspar Willow will work well in the room once there are things hanging on the wall and furniture. I'll let you know how it turns out once it's dry and daylight returns.

Mark Strauss Landscapes

I purchased 3 prints from Mark Strauss' collection. They are all numbered & signed. And I love them!

The colors of this first one are a little washed out. The actual print is much brighter. I like the little frog - even if he looks scared.

Frog $37

This one is very cheerful. I love all of the colors & light.

Stone Wall $47And this one is my favorite.

Storm $47

I listed the gallery price for these prints above. I got them for the school guest speaker discount price of $20 each! Victory jig!

I love the colors and I think they will all look beautiful in the nursery together with the Willow green paint and bird prints. I have high hopes.
I don't know yet if it's going to be too much on the walls or not. But I think it will work.I'm getting really excited about this... Why? Because I've lived in this house since last August and I've only hung up a single mirror on my walls in all of that time.

Willow

It took 8 months, but I finally committed to a nursery paint color. I even bought a gallon of it. And, yes, Mrs. 5C, I stopped trying to talk myself out of it and went with Willow - a pretty light green. Take that excessive paint chip problem.
I also checked out the mistint section for the first time and discovered a little sample of a pretty teal color. It was only $1 and my favorite color, so I couldn't resist. I'm not sure what exactly I'm going to do with it, but it has a great deal of promise and complements the Willow & songbird prints beautifully. Maybe a mural? I'm not sure, but I'm thinking about it.

Here's a little mural inspiration from JC Penneys:

creditI can easily project one of those pictures onto the wall, sketch it out, & paint it. Just an idea.

In other news, I've cleared out the nursery room and we are in the process of fixing up the wall so we can actually paint it. More on that later.

Bespeckled

Two of my four bird prints came in. I'm really loving them. I think they'll be terrific in the nursery with Aunt Franny's blanket and the dark crib.
I've almost settled on a paint color. I'm leaning towards a pretty Valspar called Willow, but I have a few other options waiting in the ranks.

While browsing through another blog called The Lettered Cottage, I found a picture of these beauties:

Little, faux, bespeckled eggs. Aren't they cute? They've given me a little additional inspiration for the nursery. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for faux eggs. Or I could always clean out and decorate some chicken eggs. They might be a bit big for songbirds, but it could work.

A Glimpse of Things to Come

In preparation for our little man, I've been unpacking all of the fun things we got at our baby shower last month.

I washed all of his clothes & blankets last weekend...

Folded & put them away...

Unpacked the carseat and stroller and put them in the car...

Boiled all of the babybottles and put them away...

Now... I just have to get the baby's room together...

Nursery Plans

Two weekends ago, my family threw me a wonderful baby shower with adorable clothes lines, baby food jar candles & towel animals (Thanks Theresa!). And you can't have a baby shower without ribbons & bows:The nursery room is nearly cleared out and all of the major baby items are present & accounted for. Now, I just have to come up with a plan for the nursery. We'll start with this beautiful crib from my mother- & father-in-law:A white (ecru) crib bumper:

These GORGEOUS crocheted blankets from my Aunt-in-Law Frannie:They are so soft and cozy! I just want to curl up in them!

One of these long, skinny mirrors:And these Chad Barret songbird prints which may end up framed in one of my many old windows:I believe I'm going to use these prints as inspiration for the rest of the rooms decor & colors. They give me several colors to work with: brown, olive green, baby & turquoise blue, yellow, & orange-red. I think they have a lot of promise and provide me with plenty of gender neutral options.

The next step? Picking out a paint color. I'm waiting for the prints to arrive before I proceed with that step. That way I can put all of the players together and hold up paint swatches. As of right now, I'm favoring blues & greens.