The Nursery, Phase 4.9

I know you've been waiting to see the Nursery -- especially after all that drama getting it ready!  I have to give Gigi lots and lots and lots and lots of the credit. I picked the paint color, but she was key in selecting the fabric, and she MADE (yes, "made") the drapes, bedding, diaper stacker, and probably something else I'm forgetting.

There are still a few things to be done, but it's looking pretty good. I'll point out the "to-do" items along the way.  [Secret tip: you can click on any of the photos to see them enlarged. Then just use the back button to return to the post.]

So here it is:

On the far right, you can see my baby shoes!  I actually have Mark's baby shoes to hang to the left of the window, too. How cute is that?!  And yes, Gigi MADE those drapes!

Here's the beautiful crib!

These are cute photos of our relatives on ponies -- some in full cowboy costume!  In the top row, second from the left, is Pappy (my father)!  Top row, second from the right, is Papa (the MacDaddy's father)! Isn't it too cute?

Yes, Gigi made the bumper!  Don't you love how it's monogrammed?

And these are above the closet. How cute! Seriously, I don't know how you can stand it, it's so cute!

Here's the dresser/changing table! As you can see, we still need to add two photos. I need to pick up the extra frames, and there will be one of Gigi as a little girl and one of Nana as a little girl.  And the rest are relatives of ours, too. To the right of the dresser is the diaper stacker that Gigi made!

Eventually, we'll have a rocking chair in the room, but that's not here right now. So you'll just have to satisfy yourself with the current state of cuteness.

The Nursery, Phase 3

(If you haven't already, please read the three previous posts -- The Nursery Before, The Nursery, Phase 1 and The Nursery, Phase 2.)

So on Friday night, after the carpet installation, we had to make the bed, and then I wanted to check on my wardrobe. It's huge, and it has to be anchored to the wall. Well, when the MacDaddy shook it to see if it was bolted, it was pretty clear it wasn't. In fact, at that point, it was slightly sturdier than a house of cards. It never used to shake before. Then I realized the bottom piece -- which braces the entire wardrobe -- was missing. The MacDaddy pulled it forward and I saw the missing piece. Only now, it was four pieces of particle board. Particle board doesn't break cleanly. When the MacDaddy put the wardrobe back up against the wall, it looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Or, more accurately, the Leaning Tower of Particle Board. Clearly, it was not salvageable.


This might sound infuriating to you. But seriously, I got the wardrobe for super-cheap at Ikea when I moved in to the MacDaddy's condo. I needed the closet space. It was huge, it was about $150, and it was not quite as attractive as dorm furniture. I had always figured that when we sell the condo and move out, we would just leave the wardrobe behind. In fact, we got the new Ikea catalog on Thursday, and I had it with me on the plane on Friday. As I looked at all the nice armoires they had, I wished I hadn't bought that ugly piece of particle board. So really, this was a blessing -- an opportunity to get a new armoire!


That meant, though, that before we could start putting away all the clothes, we would have to purchase a new armoire. Ikea, here we come. We also got new nightstands to match. And if/when we ever move, we can use them in the guest room, if we want to get "real" furniture. But this armoire is very, very nice. It's made of wood, not particle board!


Right after we got back from Ikea, the MacDaddy got a phone call from a realtor. Guess what? He wanted to show our place on Sunday! At 1:30! Of course I couldn't turn that down. No one has seen our place since May 31. This could be our last shot to sell the place -- and we just got new carpet!

Plus, I figured it would be good for us to have a deadline. Otherwise, we might not get the place put back together for a month.The MacDaddy and I are procrastinators like that.


So in the course of 24 hours:

• The MacDaddy set up his bookshelves downstairs, packed as many books as possible, and stacked the rest neatly on the dining table. He also moved all his papers over to the desk.
• The MacDaddy, with the help of his father, picked up all the heavy furniture pieces we purchased at Ikea and moved them upstairs so I could begin construction.
• The MacDaddy and our friends, Case and Nicole, moved the dresser and crib into the nursery -- and helped dispose of the packaging.
• Case and Nicole moved the desk to the office area. They also packed a few items in their car to take with them for temporary storage so we wouldn't have to find places for those things.
  
• The MacDaddy and I treated Case, Nicole and their son Sam to dinner to thank them for all their help.
• I constructed the armoire. That project took me a few hours Saturday night, and continued until Sunday at noon. (It's a really good armoire. Lots of little pieces to put together. Lots of pieces, and lots of screws.)
  
• I moved the baby stuff from the floor of the nursery to the dresser drawers and tried to make the room look a little neater.
• The MacDaddy took me to Ikea when I thought I was missing a few screws. We spent an hour on that, just because we had to wait in line. After we got home and I was able to proceed with armoire construction, I found the missing screws in a bag with other screws. I had misidentified them. 
• The MacDaddy brought all the clothes upstairs and put his in the closet. He also brought up the suitcases of shoes and stuff.
• I loaded up the armoire and stashed the suitcases wherever I could.
• The MacDaddy vacuumed and swiffered the floor downstairs.
• The MacDaddy and I rolled out the new area rug. (It looks great, by the way.)
• The MacDaddy and I put away various other items in closets and under the bed.

Whew! I think we got in a short nap between midnight and 6 am on Saturday night. It was a LOT of work, but the place looked pretty decent. And I was pretty proud of myself for pulling my own weight. I worked my batootie off. I took Tylenol Saturday night, because I wasn't sure I'd be able to move on Sunday morning. And by the way, I love putting together furniture, but do you have any idea what it's like to crawl around on the floor and get up to get that other kind of screw or the hammer or the screwdriver, then come back and sit on the floor -- while you're carrying a baby in your belly? My knees hate me. They're thinking of leaving me.

So finally, our place was back together by Sunday afternoon. The MacDaddy and I were completely exhausted. We decided to hold off on crib assembly until next weekend...

Meanwhile, we got the feedback from the realtor. His clients were looking for something a little bigger. Yeah, so are we -- that's why we want to buy a house. Oh, well. At least I have nice carpet and a nice armoire.

The Nursery, Phase 2

Phase 2, of course, being the carpet. And this is where I get my just desserts, after having called out the MacDaddy for all his books. We had to empty out the storage in the bedrooms (3 closets, under the bed, everything in my wardrobe...) so that they could move the big furniture and put in the carpet.That was Thursday night.

The MacDaddy still had a few things to take care of when I left on Friday morning.  (That's how awesome the MacDaddy is. I fly off to Vegas for the day and he stays home and manages home improvement. I love that man.)  So when I got home on Friday night, this is pretty much what it looked like:

I love the new carpet. The naminals also love the new carpet. They hang out on it all the time.

And here's the photo we're using for our application to appear on an episode of Hoarders:

Yes, those are my clothes all over the table. And those suitcases are basically full of my shoes, and some more of my clothes. The MacDaddy has a few pairs of shoes and some clothes in there, but most of that stuff is mine. (Except for any books.) The worst part is I haven't worn the majority of those clothes in more than a year. I haven't been able to fit in most of them since I got pregnant. I'm living off a small stack of maternity dresses.


But we have new carpet! Now we can proceed with putting together the nursery!  Well, except for...

The Nursery, Phase 1

If you haven't already, please see the previous post to get a baseline for what we had to work with.  Seriously, it's unfair to the MacDaddy if you don't look.

Today, we began Phase 1 of The Nursery Conversion. And by "we," I mean I supervised by phone, from work, while the MacDaddy did all the heavy lifting. Lots of lifting, apparently.

When I texted the MacDaddy that I was heading home from work, he sent a response.  It said, "I'm heading out to get groceries. FYI, the place is in some disarray." [In Literature classes, this is what they call "foreshadowing."]

Here's what I saw when I came home:


Cozy, huh?

Boxes of books.













Books around every corner...










So obviously the MacDaddy had worked very hard, early this morning, to get the books out of the nursery before the painters showed up at 9:30.  Frankly, this is about the amount of disarray I expected to see tonight.

But seriously? We have that many books? Actually, these are all the MacDaddy's. Other than about 8 inches worth of baby reference books, mine are all in storage or on Kindle. Impressive collection, MacDaddy.

So then, I wanted to see the results of the paint job:

Isn't it beee-you-tee-full?  The MacDaddy and I love it!  Okay, truth be told, the MacDaddy loves it, and I'm getting used to it. Pretty ironic -- I'm usually more willing to adapt to change.

After that, it was time to relax.  So I went into the bedroom to get my slippers.  Where I found this:

And this:

Aaaaaaand this:

Needless to say, I was shocked. Shocked. Shocked.  Shocked and awed might not be an overstatement. I mean, two major thoughts at once: (1) "More books? How is that possible?!" and (2) "Where am I going to sleep? How am I going to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night without breaking my neck -- 5 times?!"

Know what the MacDaddy said? He said, and I quote: "You're going to post something on The Mac-Man about how many books I have, aren't you?"  Darn tootin' I am.

So it seems that at some point (namely, around 8:45 am), the MacDaddy realized he didn't have enough time to make all those trips up and down the stairs, and he needed to put it in fast-forward.  So he started piling the books in the bedroom.  Makes sense. 

Currently, while I'm blogging and cooking dinner (shameless -- and slightly misleading -- plug of myself as a domestic), the MacDaddy is shelving books downstairs. Stay tuned to find out whether I haul pillows & blankets and camp out in the bathroom tonight...

The Nursery: Before

I think it's only fair to the MacDaddy and myself to show you what we're starting with when it comes to The Nursery. Otherwise it'll just seem too simple.

Here's the actual room where Mac will sleep:

Now in all fairness to the MacDaddy, there used to be about twice that many shelves -- full of books -- in the study.  But the MacDaddy has been systematically paring down, storing, selling, etc., to cut it down to this manageable amount of books.  Initially, the intent was to make the room look big for buyers, but more recently, the MacDaddy has recognized that his son will want some space around here.

Next, you'll want to see the stuff we have to fill up the nursery:

It looks so compact right now, but I bet it doesn't look that way once we've put everything together!  (By the way, there were some clothes upstairs in a big laundry basket and another suitcase-full at my mother-in-law's house when this photo was taken.)

So as you see the different phases of our nursery conversion, please remember that this is where we started.