A Quick Update

Captain Amazing (MM) and Papaw & Mimi knocked out an ASTONISHING amount of stuff this weekend. The nursery is now completely serviceable should Bunny come early. Praise the Lord!!

Here is the to-do list as it stands today. I'm over-the-moon about how everything came out. (I will post pics soon, I promise!)

1. Paint nursery trim, bedroom door, and closet door.
2. Rip up carpet and lay down new flooring. (MM has scheduled to do this with a buddy of his this Saturday.)
3. Install trim. (MM will be doing this July 4th weekend with Bunny's wonderful Papaw)
- Caulk and touch-up the paint on new trim and paint old trim.
- Hang bedroom and closet doors.
4. Install ceiling fan & window treatments. (July 4th weekend.)
5. Move all the furniture/art into the nursery. (July 4th weekend w/ Papaw & Mimi)
6. Finish packing hospital bag. (Will be done by Sunday.)
7. Purchase/pick up bassinet & sheets.
8. Purchase/pick up feeding supplies (bottles, pump, storage).
9. Pre-register at hospital and tour l&d. (Scheduled for next Friday morning.)
10. Finalize birth plan and review l&d techniques.

Now, let's pick apart what's left and figure out what needs to be done to get it done.

1. Paint & hang closet door - this is not at all a necessity, so MM is going to relax for the next week or two and take his time getting it done. Works for me! He needs a rest!
2. Finish packing hospital bag - I need to order a bath robe and some slippers, and pack up a going-home outfit for me. (I also need to get some of the "down-there" after-care products to have in the bag, so we'll be heading to the pharmacy soon.)
3. Order feeding supplies - my DEAR aunt is sending me her professional-grade breast pump, so as soon as that gets here we will be inspecting it and ordering the necessary supplies (storage, bottles, shields, etc.)
4. Review L&D techniques - there aren't any birthing classes within 2 hours of us, so I bought a Lamaze book. We will be going through it chapter by chapter over the next few weeks.

I also would like to order a rug for the nursery floor, but that isn't at all a necessity and that will depend on the budget. We are really getting there! Other than the fact that I've never had a baby before and won't have my Mama with me when it happens, I feel totally ready to meet Bunny. She's coming whether Mimi is there or not, so we'd better get ready!!

Ah, Now I Can See It!!

Things sure are moving along! Only about 7 weeks until Bunny's due date and we finally got a tangible idea of what the nursery is going to look like in the end. MM maintained his status as Captain Awesome this weekend by doing an amazing job installing the new laminate floors and trim with his buddy. I'm going to go way back and show you the "before-before" and the "current".

Isn't the transformation just amazing?! I just love it. Bunny now has the nicest room in the house and there's not even any furniture or decor in it yet! Here are some more pics of the work-in-progress and finished product.

I am absolutely in awe of what a difference about $350 worth of materials makes!! ($150 for flooring, $50 for paint, $75 for trim, & $75 for miscellaneous tools/supplies.) It certainly helps that MM is so willing to do everything himself...it has definitely kept our costs down!!


As a result of this weekend, the major things on our list have been stricken and we can focus on the little details and finishing work. Papaw & Mimi (my parents) will be here this weekend to help with all the final nursery preparation and I know that Mimi and I are really going to enjoy getting everything organized!

Here's the to-do list with a few additions I forgot about or we didn't think of before.


1. Paint nursery trim and doors.
2. Rip up carpet and lay down new flooring. (MM has scheduled to do this with a buddy of his this Saturday.)
3. Install trim. (MM will be doing this July 4th weekend with Bunny's wonderful Papaw)
- Caulk and touch-up the paint on new trim and paint old trim.
- Hang bedroom and closet doors.
4. Install ceiling fan & window treatments. (July 4th weekend.)
5. Move all the furniture/art into the nursery. (July 4th weekend w/ Papaw & Mimi)
6. Finish packing hospital bag. (Will be done by Sunday.)
7. Purchase/pick up bassinet & sheets.
8. Purchase/pick up feeding supplies (bottles, pump, storage).
9. Pre-register at hospital and tour l&d. (Scheduled for next Friday morning.)
10. Finalize birth plan and review l&d techniques.

This will be the last nursery update for at least a week, but I'm hoping that the next one will be the final one and we'll be able to see the final before vs. after shots. After that, MM and I will relax and enjoy our last 6 weeks with just the two of us in preparation for all those sleepless nights ahead!

Progress!!

Can I just tell you how awesome MM is?! He spent his first Father's Day weekend painting the nursery for his little girl and he did an AMAZING job. I'm SO happy with how it looks and the color we picked is just perfect.

This was the nursery on Saturday morning before he began. What a mess!

After several hours of painting, MM got it looking like this. Brilliant!!

I just adore the soft green and think it really fits with our coastal theme. It is going to be the perfect backdrop for all the wall art we have for the room.


While MM was being Mr. Awesome, I was doing my best to be Mrs. Awesome. I laundered all of her new clothes and linens and assembled a clothing storage unit, her changing table, her bookcase, and her toy chest. It wasn't something that HAD to be done, but there was baby stuff running rampant all over the house and I just wanted it all organized and in one place.

Here's her changing table from Ikea. (Complete with a cameo of my growing belly!) The best part of the changing table is that the changing top comes off without marring the top of the dresser, so it is convertible for Bunny and she will have it long after she is in diapers!

One of the drawers being filled with linens. Isn't that a cute little hooded towel?! Courtesy of one of our dear baby shower attendees.

The evening found me on our comfy bed in the coolest room of the house (have I mentioned that temps have been consistently in the 100's for what seems like FOREVER now?!?!). I was folding teeny-tiny baby clothes and sorting them into sizes for her storage bins. MM happened to get a few snapshots.

It was a very productive weekend, and I'm glad we got so much done, but I do hope that MM still had a great Father's Day. I did make him two special dinners, breakfast on Saturday, and chocolate chip cookies, so I think he enjoyed all of that. I also got him the neatest personalized frame to put pictures of Bunny in. I didn't get a picture of it, but I will soon. Happy Father's Day, MM! You are already an AMAZING father!!


As of today, we have flown through 32.5 weeks and only have 7.5 to go. I'm really not freaking out anymore. MM is making great progress on the nursery and I think we're pretty much set for supplies. The only things left to do are as follows:

1. Paint nursery trim and doors.
2. Rip up carpet and lay down new flooring. (MM has scheduled to do this with a buddy of his this Saturday.)
3. Install trim. (MM will be doing this July 4th weekend with Bunny's wonderful Papaw - my Dad.)
4. Install ceiling fan & window treatments. (July 4th weekend.)
5. Move all the furniture/art into the nursery. (July 4th weekend w/ Papaw & Mimi - my Mom.)
6. Finish packing hospital bag. (Will be done by Sunday.)
7. Purchase/pick up bassinet & sheets.
8. Purchase/pick up feeding supplies (bottles, pump, storage).
9. Pre-register at hospital and tour l&d. (Scheduled for next Friday morning.)
10. Finalize birth plan and review l&d techniques.

Only 10 things to do before she arrives and plenty of time to do it! I'm so excited!! I keep thinking that we're going to hit a brick wall and time is just going to slow way down, but that hasn't happened yet. I can't believe we're already scheduling 4th of July activities!

Other than that, life is falling apart a bit, but only because I'm so focused on baby stuff and have been letting the household routines slide. I will be spending tonight getting life back in order so that we can stay on top of the simple things in life, like sweeping!

It's Finally Empty!

Well, thank goodness! We finally get to cross a few more items off of the nursery to-do list. Over the weekend, MM ripped out all the trim in the room. Whoever put that trim in really did a terrible job, but now that's gone and we can continue to prepare for Princess Gummi.

Here you can see MM working hard. He's doing such a great job getting everything done!

And here's the finished product; a trim-less room! (The carpet will be coming out in May in preparation for new laminate flooring.)

After MM ripped out the trim, he painted some sample swatches on the wall. I NEVER trust paint chips, so we buy sample pots of the colors we want to consider. The cream color on the left was horrid; it reminded me of the 80's. Not good for a nursery. The color on the end, Vert, looked great on the paint chip, but terrible on the wall. We tentatively settled on the middle color, Sugar Snap Pea. It had the right tones and reminded MM of the coast, so it seems perfect.

And FINALLY, I got the room completely emptied tonight. The only things remaining are what's staying in the room or the tools we still need. (I hid it all in the closet for the photo-op!)

In this pic, you can see that I wasn't satisfied with just some sample swatches of Sugar Snap Pea on the wall. Now that 1/3 of this wall has been painted, I am 100% sure that it is the color I want to use. MM will be happy about that. I usually go through at least 5 samples and several weeks before I decide on a paint color. That piece of paper tacked to the wall is the list of everything that still needs to be done. It's a lot still, but things are steadily being crossed off.

Finally, here is a pic of the fun I had tonight. We only have the crib purchased, but I know what we're buying for the rest of the furniture so I went online and got all the measurements for everything. I got the HGTV Platinum Home & Landscape Design Suite for Christmas, so I plugged everything in and started playing with the floor plan. I thought I had it all settled, but I wanted to be sure, so I used a design tip I'd seen (on HGTV, of course), and started taping out the measurements. Well, lo and behold my original plan just didn't work. So, I played around with it a bit more and settled on something I think we'll all be able to live with. I'll leave the tape down for a while we'll see how everything works. The only thing concerning me now is the placement of wall art. Once I get that figured out, we'll be set!

For the most part, everything's going well, but we have had a setback. Our original goal date for completing the nursery was July 3, but we've had to push that back a few weeks. We'd been noticing some growing problems with our floors where they meet the walls and knew it had to be a foundation problem. MM attempted to get some of the work done on his own, but the job was just too big.

At the Home & Garden show about a month back, we met with a company that specializes in foundation repair. Well, we set up an appointment and started thinking about how to raise and/or finance the ten to fourteen thousand that an average foundation repair costs. The company came out last Wednesday and did the inspection and estimate and it's just going to be about $2500. It's still going to be a bit tough, but at least we won't need to go into debt to get it fixed!

Unfortunately, though, we can't afford to have the job done until mid-May so we've had to push back the flooring installation until after. That adds a bit of extra stress, but we're glad that the job is going to be done right and completely. It will really help the re-sell value of the house. My dad is going to come out one weekend to help us install the flooring, so it'll all work out fine.

Well, that's the nursery update for now! Princess Gummi is proving to be an active little girl and a bit of a stinker. Her schedule is backwards, so she keeps me up at night quite often. Oh well. I guess it's good practice for what's to come in four months!!

What A Difference!

Today was a really busy day for us. Okay, let me rephrase that. Today was a really busy day for MM. We had a pretty long list of things to get done in preparation for Princess Gummi today and the primary goal was to empty her nursery of all the things that will not be staying there.

My job was over fairly quickly. All I needed to do was help move and rearrange a bookcase and make some more room in the closet of our crafting/guest room. After that, MM was so kind and let me sleep part of the afternoon away. He, however, spent the whole day moving things from his fly-tying room into either the shed, the trash, or our "new" joint-crafting room. He worked so hard to prepare for his little girl and I am so thankful for that. To be honest, seeing him get rid of some of his things to make room for her brought tears to my eyes. I know neither of us will miss our material possessions once she is here, but it is still hard to let go of some things.

All in all, though, we got a lot done. Tomorrow we are planning on filling all the nail holes in the walls and next weekend I'm hoping we will be pulling up the carpet and removing all the trim in the room. If time permits, MM is also hoping to get a coat of primer on the walls.

Here are some pics of the room as it started, minus our desks which we had already moved, and the room after MM was done. It didn't stay this messy, usually, but MM had already started sorting everything and it was all left laying on the floors.



This first set is looking into the room from the hallway. What a huge difference! The door propped against the wall is the new door for the nursery closet.

The next set is the opposing shot. Those jackets still need to migrate to the guest closet, but the cute, little curio cabinet is to hang on the wall of the nursery. We got it at a yard sale and it's just perfect for the coastal look we're going for!

MM's drum set has been sitting in this corner of the room since we moved in. He had it set up for a long time and used to jam out several nights a week. It's now been stacked up and stored in the guest closet and will soon be sold. This is one of the things I'm really bummed he has to give up. I pray that one day we'll be in a bigger house where he can have a room to himself for his music and fly-tying. As long as he doesn't get rid of his guitar, he'll be fine.

(Yes, I do realize that there is a .22 sitting in the corner of the nursery and no, it is not going to stay there, or be anywhere near Princess Gummi. MM and I are big proponents of gun rights, but are bigger proponents of gun safety, especially around children. Every gun in this house will be safe and secure, away from the kiddo, well before she arrives.)


This final shot is Princess Gummi's closet. It was a chore getting all that stuff to fit in other places in the house, but MM really purged his things and only kept what was useful or especially meaningful. I can't wait to get the closet really clean and filled with baby girl clothes!

So, that was our Saturday. Sunday promises to be just as busy, but we can handle it. After church we plan on rearranging our bedroom to the usual "spring/summer arrangement", and we also hope to put up some new fabric black-out shades to replace the old, nasty mini-blinds. On top of that, it's the usual Sunday preparation for the workweek, including menu-planning, laundry, and house-cleaning. Thank goodness I'm in Trimester 2 and have some of my energy back!