Nursery Update

Y'all.

YOU. ALL.

Look!

I can't even tell you how happy I am with this room. It's all refinished and stained and painted and ready for the furniture and decorations.

The crib should theoretically be here by the end of the week. It better be, since my dad's supposed to help the DDH put it together when my parents are in town this weekend. My mom only ordered it last Wednesday, though, so we'll see. Nothing like the last minute....

The baby shower is on Saturday so we'll get all the bedding and curtains and things we picked out that my MIL bought us. I can't wait to see what it looks like all put together.

I've even stashed away all the T-Rex clothes we already have in the closet:

Tiiiiny little baby clothes!

Somewhat bigger baby clothes, sorted and labeled.

Everything else in this house is secondhand and inherited and mish-mashed together with no forethought. I'm living with a hideous hunter green accent wall in the living room (right when you open the front door. Right in a room that's dark to begin with. UGH) and yellow plaid wallpaper in the kitchen and ugly, odd-sized cabinets that nothing fits in properly. The rest of the house is still gross Berber carpet and looks-dirty-even-right-after-mopping linoleum and mint green tile.

But THIS ROOM is just how I want it. And it makes me so happy.

I can't believe what an amazing job the DDH did, and all by himself. I didn't even pretend to help do anything. Oh, I held the fan blades for him while he screwed them back in, and at one point I helped dust some things. But I don't think that counts, compared to all the sanding (by HAND) and staining and taping and painting and everything else he did. He's amazing. ^_^

I am making progress on the nursery.

Or, technically, the DDH is. Heh.

You may remember that we started with this:

Carpet, blech!

  Which became this:

No more carpet!

and then this:






First layer of sanding.

Then it became this:


Sanding done.

 Which was lots of progress, but the place was pretty gross:

Dusty.

Dusty windowsill.

Clean me.

So we cleaned it up! 

Cleaned.

 

The windowsill is better; ignore the windows.

Clean slate!

 And spackled the walls:

The pink stuff is spackle. It dries clear, or white, or something.

And that's how the place sat for a few weeks. But in the last two weekends, the floor has gotten first one:

Stain One.

 

and then two:

Stain Two.

coats of stain.

And that's where we are now. He needs to, apparently, sand the floor yet again, put two coats of polyurethane on it, sand AGAIN, and THEN we can paint the walls. And THEN AFTER THAT hopefully we can move some furniture back in and put up new blinds and curtains and hopefully this will all be done by November. Although technically T-Rex will be sleeping upstairs for a couple months, it would be nice to be able to clear the guest room out again, since we'll definitely be having visitors soon.

Everybody clap for the DDH and tell him how wonderful he is! I have done absolutely nothing other than help wash down the walls. It's awesome.

Yay! Says the T-Rex.

I am dressing the baby.

This weekend managed to be both restful and productive, which was what I needed.

Baby updates!

I don't have a What I Wore Wednesday post, but here's some pictures of cute baby clothes for you instead.

We went to the local Just Between Friends sale Saturday night and picked up:

• a spare playpen (for downstairs, since we plan to use the one we requested on our registry as a bassinet upstairs).
• a breast pump with all the little accessories (including a car charger) that appears to have never been used. Or maybe used once. For fifty dollars. Which is pretty much nothing.
• two diaper bags (don't worry, Jessi, yours will be the favorite! but the DDH wanted a manly black one, and I got a nice one so I'd have two--the heir and the spare, if you will).
• some random toddler-proofing items.
• a ring-sling. I plan to practice slinging my stuffed koala bear, Croc, in hopes I can get this skillset down before the actual, more breakable baby comes along.
• a lovely stash of cloth diapers (mostly Green Bees pocket diapers, but there are a couple of small FuzziBunz in there and two Thirsties covers as well as a pile of prefolds and lots of inserts).

Mostly Green Bees one-size pockets, but also two Thirsties
wraps and a stack of prefolds.

• adorable tiny baby clothing. The first baby clothing we've purchased. I was telling the DDH that I didn't necessarily understand the appeal of baby clothing, that all the gadgets were much more interesting, but we walked down the Infant Boys aisle anyway. And there were fluffy dinosaur sleep sacks and tiny dinosaur footie pajamas and a matching puppy outfit of long-sleeved onesie, bib, and hat. The end.

I caught Kaylee trying to eat the foot off the sweatpants on
the left...not sure what to make of that.

Puppies and dinosaurs!

• a stuffed dinosaur.

I washed all the clothings and diapers and have stocked the drawer in the living room where I plan to have our impromptu changing station with the diapers. Now if only I had a dresser to put the clothes in. Or a closet. Or even a room....

But! There has been progress on that front, too. The DDH finished all the sanding:

And we cleaned up the walls, ceiling, windows, etc. of all the sawdust:

Clean me!

Cleaned.

Cleaned and holes filled.

And filled in the holes in the floor and spackled the walls.

Next step I think is to tack the floor (which is apparently using these special sticky cloths to pick up all the sawdust that the broom and shopvac left behind), then we can stain! And stain some more. And sand more. And seal. And sand more. And eventually we'll be able to paint the walls (we're doing the floors first just in case the brown we picked for the walls ends up clashing with the stain color) and at some point there might even be some furniture to go in there. Miracles happen.

Still. Progress!

Oh, and then I went back to that sale yesterday and found this:

Dinosaur hat.

And best of all, this:

Dinosaur diaper.

That kid will be themed from head to butt.

He's going to hate dinosaurs so much.

I am nesting (just a little).

Ok, the b key on my keyboard is being temperamental. I think I caught all the times it was missing, but please forgive me if you find a strangely b-less word.

The Roommate moved out right about the time we returned from vacation, and we have begun the process of turning his room into the nursery.

My mother-in-law bought us this nursery set (dinosaur-themed, of course!).

The picture on the bag; I think it will look even better with
a darker crib.

All the dinosaurs are different patterns and fabrics, and I am
in love with them. The T-Rex on the comforter is a green
plaid that makes me want to die of cuteness.

Some of them are different textures, too, like this fuzzy pterodactyl!

Too adorable, right? We were looking at dinosaur sets online and this one was my favorite but insanely expensive (almost $200 for a four-piece crib set (on Amazon, not the site I linked to, though still, $150 for four pieces?)? have you lost your dino-lovin' mind?), so we had sort of picked out a couple of other options.

Then we went to Babies'R'Us with the in-laws and my parents to look at the crib we had chosen. I was poking around in the bedding aisle and found this, my favorite set, on clearance! Like, $84 instead of $196 clearance! So we bought every bit of it they had, which was everything (valances, receiving blankets, crib set, changing pad cover, spare crib sheets, wall decals, wall art) but the fuzzy blanket, mobile, and lamp. No Babies/Toys'R'Usses in Tulsa had any of those, except one very beat-up lamp.

BUT! Turns out the Babies'R'Us in Albuquerque had the mobile (though nothing else) also on clearance and they kindly put it on hold until my sister could stop in the next day to pick it up for us. The mother-in-law found the fuzzy blanket and the lamp (best lamp ever ever ever. just look at it. LOOK AT IT) online and paid full price for them, but since she got all the rest so cheaply, that was no big deal.

It is all just so cute and perfect and wonderful I just want to cry every time I walk past the bag. Death by cuteness. Or hormones, whatever.

/End long boring saga of the nursery set.

My mother-in-law is keeping most of the stuff until the shower, but we borrowed the main bedding set so we could pick paint colors and the like.

The crib we plan to get is a deep chocolate brown color. We haven't ordered it yet but have picked it out; we have the bedding, and that's it. We'll probably use an old dresser we already have and will probably also get a changing table (I debate on this). The room is small, and I'd rather spend money on things other than furniture, so no fancy chairs or whatever. This will do.

But, ambitiously, we have a major DIY renovation planned. See, our house was built in the fifties, when people felt the need to only have one shower for a whole house and installed cardboard sewage pipes but also floored houses with beautiful hardwood floors.

However, sometime since the fifties, crazy people decided they liked carpet better than hardwood floors. So though our house has this nasty gray Berber carpet throughout, there's actually hardwood underneath everywhere except in the addition. Our dream is to pull up all the carpet and refinish the wood floors throughout the house...but we thought we'd start with the nursery.

So first we moved everything out of the room. I wish I had taken a picture of it furnished. We had bunkbeds in there (from the DDH's childhood, nice solid wood ones), a dresser, a very uncomfortable rocking chair, and a ginormous pile of law books destined for the trash. Though the Roommate has been living there, it was still where I was storing a lot of random stuff: throw pillows, blankets, all my old stuffed animals, some luggage. This all had to go...somewhere.

Remember that beautiful guest room I showed you a few weeks ago? Well, right now it looks like this:

Garage sale, here we come.

Yeah, you can't even close the door. Ouch.

Anyway, to make sure we weren't getting in over our heads, we decided to pull the carpet up just in the closet to start and see if it would be doable.

So starting with this:

Ok, the carpet's already been pulled up, but whatever.

We pulled up the carpet in the closet:

Shelves removed.

Sanded down a patch:

I always forget how pale wood is.

And stained it with the color we think we want:

Pretty reddish tone, medium darkness.

We also picked out some paint swatches and are trying to choose two of them (a blue and a brown; the greens are for something else):

Thinking of half and half walls, blue on top and brown
on the bottom.

We did all that Sunday. The DDH decided that it will take a long time with his belt sander, but he thinks he is capable of doing all the sanding.

I like the stain color; the DDH isn't sold on it because he thought it was matching what was already there.* I tried telling him at the store that it wasn't the same color, but he insisted it was. Now that he sees that it doesn't match the old color (keeping my mouth shut on that one), he's disappointed. But I like it better than the other color and am trying to convince him.

So that's where the nursery project stands. It could take awhile, but I'm pretty stoked about how nice it will be when it's done. And we have until the middle of November. That's plenty of time. Right?

Right?

This will be the only room in our house that's intentionally decorated with coordinating things; the rest of the house is a mishmash of donated furniture, books, and whatever individual pieces I've picked up along the way. I mean, we haven't even stripped the dining room of it's yellow plaid wallpaper, that's how little we've done with decorating this house. I am stoked to have one nice, pre-planned, thoughtfully decorated room.

(And did I mention the adorableness of those dinosaurs?!)

What DIY projects have you tackled in your home? How coordinated are your furnishings and decorations? Am I the only one who lives with hodge-podge stuff on blank white (or worse) walls? And isn't it funny how we'll do stuff for our babies (at least the first ones) that we never do for ourselves?

*The guest room and the entryway are both still hardwood and not carpeted, so he was trying to match their stain. While I would rather have that color than carpet, it's not the one I would pick if I were doing it fresh. Plus, it's hard to match new stain to old, worn stain. The DDH said at one point that it didn't matter if it matched exactly because we could always refinish those too (plus for now the nursery won't border those floors at all anyway), so I took him at his word and thought he knew the color he was picking didn't match what was already there. But apparently he didn't. Obviously we need to work on our communication skills when it comes to interior decorating.

I am admitting I know nothing about baby gear.

I know I missed my What I Wore Wednesday post yesterday, but--the holiday. Post vacation catch-up at work and home. Excuses excuses. I'll treat you to Vacation Edition next week.

In the meantime: We have actually begun the long-delayed process of figuring out what baby stuff we want to buy or register for.

I am so, so sick of reading reviews for baby stuff. It all blurs together. People love and hate the same product, vehemently. They complain about the same feature over and over again in all the different models--so where's the one that gets the feature right? Apparently the whole thing is just a crapshoot.

Maybe we picked out a crib, maybe a car seat. I thought a stroller, too, but now we're thinking maybe we don't need a stroller right away so are looking at other, non-newborn or travel-system options.

It's so hard to decide what is useful and what is junk and what is absolutely necessary and what will never be used. Obviously it's not like either of us have any idea what life with a baby will be like, so how can we decide what items will help make this life more efficient and pleasant? Everyone has contradicting opinions on the matter, too.

How can you be a good steward of your money--and the money of all the people buying stuff off your baby registry--when you have no freaking idea what you're doing?

(Registries could be a whole 'nother rant, I suppose. Asking for things you want but (often) can't afford but that you somehow expect other people to buy for you. And people get so judgey about the things you ask for on registries. Could everyone who feels obligated to get me a gift just send me a wad of cash instead? I promise I'll set it aside in a special fund and will use it to buy baby things without dealing with the guilt of wondering what you think about the things I want to buy. But asking for money is so terribly tacky. Argh.)

Happily, the DDH and I tend to have similar ideas about the process: try to keep the list of stuff to a minimum, and try to find good quality items of the things you decide to get. To that end, on our Epic Baby Gear Reconnaissance last night, we happily skipped right past mountains of clothing, fluffy blankets, and gaudy, noisy plastic gewgaws, and spent way too much time looking at cribs, car seats, and bassinet-thingies.

Much simpler to buy for.

Things we're looking for:

1. Car seat. A safe one. That can be carried around so that we have that option, not because we necessarily see ourselves leaving T-Rex in it all the time. But let sleeping babies lie, y'know? Anyway, I've heard they won't let you take a baby home from the hospital without one, so I figure it's pretty much The Most Important item to have.

2. Crib. Not so much for the newborn phase but the corraling-a-mobile-baby-who-sleeps-mostly-through-the-night stage. Or whatever else you might need to have a handy baby/toddler cage around for.

3. Something for T-Rex to sleep in in our room for the first several months to a year. We're looking at pack'n'play bassinet things, just bassinet things, side-along sleeper things.

In-bed co-sleeping is simply Not An Option for us for a variety of reasons. Which, considering that I sleep violently and the dogs love sneaking into bed in the middle of the night (though I guess we could lock out of the room), is probably wise.

But I'm also not sticking the Critter in a crib in a room downstairs on the other side of the house. We want him in the room and nearby, convenient to deal with in the middle of the night.

4. Maybe another one of those pack'n'play/bassinet thingies for confining T-Rex in the living areas of the house. I'm certainly not toting the same one up and down those tiny enclosed stairs every day.

Note that as much of the concern is keeping him from getting run over by the dogs (or having Jayne drop his balls on the baby's head) as anything else. Something with a raised changing area would be nice, too, but mostly I want to be able to set him down without him getting trampled by a jealous Beagle or slobbered on by a Lab who doesn't understand why he won't throw the ball.

5. Moby-wrap/ring-sling/fabric carrier and a more structured one that the DDH would be willing to wear. I need to find some somewhere that I can try on, but this seems the most sensible (and cozy and adorable) solution for taking T-Rex out and about in the early months as well as for carting him about the house while I try to do other things. The DDH said he can't be bothered with the weird complicated cloth ones, but he'd wear one that buckles. Especially if it's camo-print. He tried a camo print one on in the store and gave it his stamp of husbandly approval.

6. Breast pump and paraphernalia (bottles, bottle-cleaning brushes, storage bags...I don't even know how these things work). I'll need a good one if I'm going back to work.

7. Cloth diapers and paraphernalia. THERE ARE TOO MANY CHOICES. But I'm determined to at least attempt cloth diapering. The DDH says he doesn't care and the day care we're looking at will use them if we provide them. So. Need a stash of those.

8. Mini high-chair thingy. We found some that will strap to a kitchen chair, including ones that recline for a newborn. I would rather bother with that than a full high chair, and it occurred to us we'll need to set the kid somewhere while we eat.

9. We're debating about a stroller. We don't think we'd use it much until he's a tad older, but if we're going to want one eventually we might as well ask for one now, yes?

10. Oh! A diaper bag. That will round out this list to ten. I don't have any particular requirements for a diaper bag, since it seems they're like purses--you'll collect new ones as they catch your eye or your needs change. I may or may not have a slight obsession with bags--backpacks, purses, tote bags...I just want a diaper bag that's reasonably sized, reasonably attractive, and doesn't cost $180 freaking dollars. Or more.

I sort of feel like other than clothes (and it will be winter so I guess we can't leave him naked all the time) and outlet/cabinet baby-proof locks and blankets and toys and books (all things, other than the baby-proofing stuff, that we're going to be given in spades and/or can buy used), that's mostly it? Oh, also clothes for me, I guess, by which I mean nursing bras/camis/nipple pads or whatever.

Am I crazy? What are we forgetting? Do you have any recommendations for any of this stuff--or for other stuff? What did you find most useful when your kiddos were babies?

I am crafty: Altoids tin repurposing.

Perhaps you can blame my mother for my love of Altoids mints. She gave us a tin in our stockings each Christmas. I savored those mints, striving to stretch my supply until the following Christmas. When I was old enough and had spending money of my own, I invariably bought Altoids. I've tried just about all the flavors and varieties (my standard favorite is Wintergreen).

However. I am also a packrat, and have thrown away few of the containers I have collected over the years. Okay, I've thrown away plenty, but I've also saved plenty. They're just such useful little things!

One of my favorite uses for old Altoid tins is the mini kit. Sometimes I just toss supplies into an empty tin and call it good; a few I've labeled with Sharpie. But I'm an adult now, so I really ought to make nicer looking kits.

Here are two uses for an Altoid tin: a mini first aid kit and a business card holder.

I have a separate container for my most commonly-needed OTC meds (namely sudafed and ibprofen or, while pregnant, tylenol), but I do also carry in my purse a stash of bandaids (mostly for shoe blisters) and, ah, gas relief medication.

I used to carry these items in a plastic baggie, but recently the bag ripped and I ended up with smooshed and torn bandaids all over the bottom of my purse. The solution? This nifty Altoid-tin-turned-first-aid-kit.

Since I also have some business cards for my Real Job but don't have a paycheck that would fund the purchase of a thirty-dollar Fancy Business Card Holder, I decided to use an Altoid tin for that purpose, too.

First, the materials:

The white paper is just spare scrapbook paper; for the red
cross I actually used an envelope from Target rather than
any fancy sort of paper.

• an Altoid or similar tin for each use
• paper for decorating the outside of your tin
• Mod-Podge (or thin out some white glue with water)
• brush for applying Mod-Podge

Wipe out the inside of your tin(s) with a damp cloth. It may still smell minty fresh, but you probably don't want suspicious white powder all over your business cards (or bandaids, for that matter).

Trace the top of the tin onto paper.

Make sure to trace onto the "back" side of your paper, if
it has sides.

Traced.

Cut the paper to size.

Repeat steps 2. and 3. if you want to cover the bottom of your tin as well.

Apply a layer of Mod-Podge to the top (bottom) of your tin. Be generous, but not so generous that excess will ooze down the sides and glue your tin shut when you press the paper on.

Press your paper to the Mod-Podged top (bottom) of the tin.

It should line up pretty evenly; if not, trim with scissors or
an exacto knife.

If you want any other decorations, draw and cut them out. First trace an outline of your tin onto the paper you plan to use so you can ensure that your decoration will fit.

Outline.

To do a red cross for a first aid kit, draw a cross onto the back of some red paper. Each line of my cross is 1/2" long, if that makes sense. Use a ruler to keep it straight!

Remember again to draw on the back side of your paper.
You can see how many times I messed up the poor cross.

Cut out the cross/other design.

Cut out and flipped over.

Apply a layer of Mod-Podge to the top of the paper on your tin. Feel free to do this as thick or thin as you like--a thick layer will provide a more textured finished product, while a thin layer will be sleek.

You do want your paper to get pretty well soaked.

Apply your cross or other decoration.

Position it how you want it now.

Apply more Mod-Podge on top. Don't worry--it will dry clear, I promise! You want to make sure the entire papered surface is coated in at least a thin layer. Once hardened, it will protect your paper from tearing or light water damage (use outdoor, waterproof Mod-Podge if this is something you intend to get wet).

White now, clear later. Promise.

Allow to dry. Depending on climate and how thick you layered the Mod-Podge, this will take 30 minutes to several hours.

Still not quite dry, but almost.

Fill your finished tin with your supplies!

Secret bandaid tin!

For the business card version, I simply trimmed the corners of the business card since the tin has rounded edges,

Chic?

then applied with Mod-Podge as described above. After I did this, I discovered that I would have to trim the corners off all my cards if I wanted them to fit inside the thing. So I did. Hopefully people I give them to will think it's spiffy rather than odd.

If you got Mod-Podge around the edge of your tin,
you may want to leave them open to dry so you don't glue them
closed on accident.

Ta-da! Now I'm not exactly the first person to do this sort of thing to an Altoid tin; I'm not even the cleverest. But I do love them for storing things that would otherwise get beat up in my purse, and now everyone knows more-or-less what's inside--in a nicer way than if I had just labeled them with Sharpie. ;-)

For more tin repurposing ideas, check out The Art of Manliness's Twenty-Two Manly Uses for an Altoids Tin, Tested's fancy techie uses for Altoids tins, and Artists Helping Children's 15 Cool Crafts using Altoids tins.