The Nursery is finished!

We put the final touches on the nursery this weekend and can finally reveal the finished product! Pictures galore:

The elephant print Matt's parents gave us.  It was in Matt's room all through childhood (until a month ago, in fact).

My nursing chair got a makeover with an extra cozy layer of fabric!

The view of Tray's room from our room. The two blankets on the end of the crib were hand knit/crocheted by my grandmother (bottom blanket) and my co-worker, Sandy (top).  Both are beautiful and perfectly match the room!

A potential going home from the hospital outfit.  Hat, booties, and onesie all purchased on Etsy!

The grey elephant is a hand-puppet and a gift from a very sweet co-worker, Dana!  It came from her collection!

Beautiful organic cotton toys from a former co-worker, Frankye, and a sweet southern friend, Kristine!

Another potential going home from the hospital outfit.  The hat was knit by my grandmother and the little booties are from my former boss, Helene!

The little wooden animals Matt purchased.  Possible choking hazards so we'll keep them on the dresser for now!  The grey elephant at the base of the plant was atop an adorable (and useful) diaper cake from my former boss, Barbara!

Book shelves and curtains from IKEA.  My librarian/law friends bestowed wonderful books on us! Thanks Erin, Catherine, Sharon, Tina, Holly, and Monica!

My Kate Spade "diaper bag" and the polka-dot changing pad cover, both gifts from my Mom.  The flag garland is also from Etsy!

The cutest humidifier ever!  Thanks Amy!!

Nursery Details

Even though we still don't have a crib mattress, a changing pad, or a carseat, hardly any baby clothes and no diapers, I continue to add little details to the nursery!  Not to say we haven't made progress in those other areas, we just haven't actually pulled the trigger to buy anything yet!  In due time!

I finally figured out a solution for the window in Tray's room.  Once again, I can thank Ikea for offering an affordable solution!  Last Monday I bought and installed a new curtain rod, solar blinds and white curtains, all for less than $60.  We may need to line the curtains in a blackout fabric this summer but we're going to wait and see how it goes.  Here's a shot of the after (sorry it's so dark):

A couple of weeks ago, Tray received his/her first books courtesy of my friend Kristen.  Kristen is also pregnant (about 39 weeks right now, actually).  Kristen and Andrew live in Alabama with their dog, Wilbur.  K&A were recently given several cat-themed books at a shower and rather than risk ending up in the doghouse by bringing these books home, they regifted to us!  Yay!  We're trying to figure out the best way to put Tray's books on display in the nursery.  I've been contemplating making rain gutter bookshelves but have yet to work up the energy to buy the supplies and try it out.  For now the books are acting as a prop for our new peace lily, which, by the way, is a natural air cleaner:

(The Pikes Place Market book was a gift from our neighbor, Ter, who knows the author.)

The latest addition to the nursery is a series of postcards from an amazingly talented illustrator of childhood themes and scenes that I mounted on book binding paper and framed.  Here's a close-up of two of the postcards:

The script beneath the elephants says "I love my Mom" in French. The script beneath the giraffes says "I love my Dad" in French.  She has so many illustrations that we love but we're going to wait until we find out if Tray is a boy or a girl before we buy anymore! 

On a different note, last week was the last class in our yoga series.  We both really enjoyed learning the basics of ashtanga yoga and hope to begin attending a drop-in class at least once a week.  Matt was the star of the class!  It pays to have upper body strength in yoga!  There were a lot of positions I wasn't able to get into due to my growing belly, and my balance is nearly non-existent at times.  Still, learning the 8 limbs of yoga and the proper breathing technique was really cool.  During one of our last classes, we decided to buy a little something to remember our introduction to yoga and this time:

Hopefully Tray isn't a big one!  We really want this to fit!  :)

Pendant lamps for Tray's room

This morning we were up by 8am to head to the gym. While Matt was in his spin class, I took a little 3 mile jog in the early morning sunshine.  It was absolutely beautiful but very cold (40 degrees)!  I love my morning run with the Olympic mountains and Lake Union as a backdrop, even if I do run a lot slower than I used to!

After our usual Saturday morning after-gym routine (Whole Foods for iced coffee and a breakfast burrito), we spent several hours cleaning and purging.  It seems like we make a run to the Goodwill at least once a month these days!  Next, I got started on my to-do list while Matt made fresh baguettes! 

During our last trip to IKEA, we bought 2 different lamp pendants to try out in the nursery:  the knappa and the skimra (don't you love IKEA product names?).  Although we have hideous can lighting throughout our house, we recently discovered an adapter that converts a can light into a pendant.   We've already hung pendants using this adapter in 6 different places in our house.  So, after our neighbor, Ter, generously delivered his ladder up 2 flights of stairs to the nursery last night, we were all set to turn the 2 can lights in Tray's room into pendants too! 

Without even trying the skimra shades, we decided on the knappa shades.  We weren't sure if 2 knappa shades would be too much for the small room but with vaulted ceilings, we found the room was easily able to handle both.  Using the adapter really is the simplest process.  It takes all of about 5 or 10 minutes to do the conversion (and the more times you've done it, the easier it is). 

Here's the finished product:

We had previously installed a dimmer, which I recommend in every room!

And that's the latest update from the nursery!  Have a nice weekend!

More Nursery photos!

We've continued working on the nursery over the past few weekends.  Last weekend we installed the custom Elfa closets where we will soon hang cute little baby clothes! 

Currently, Mommy is still hogging Tray's closet! (see clothing on far left)

We're still working on a solution for the big window in Tray's room.  We would like to buy an affordable shade (maybe a black-out shade since this room gets full Western exposure in the summer months) as well as some nice curtains.  I've tried about 3 different curtains on the window so far and I don't love any of the options.   I may end up making the curtains for this window...

Last Thursday, we made an after-work run to Ikea.  We came home with the perfect fabric to cover the doorway that leads into the closet. 

I love the flag pattern.  It's so perfect for a gender-neutral baby's room!  The artwork is from an online sample sale.  The colors work perfectly with the curtain and the simple lines of the trees in the painting look great against our robin's egg blue walls! 

The lamp used to be in my office and was never used so I brought it upstairs and started brainstorming how I could fill the clear glass base.  The little stuffed animals were a perfect fit!  The lion is actually a mini version of one of the first gifts we gave my niece, Danica, when she was still a baby.  The elephant is the lion's perfect companion and matches the dancing elephant fabric I finally got around to framing:

On the wall adjacent to where the elephants currently hang, we will be hanging another piece of artwork.  Matt's parents are generously giving us a beautiful elephant print that has been hanging in Matt's childhood room for the past 25+ years.  It is going to fit in perfectly and we're looking forward to its arrival!! 

Hopefully the next time I post about the nursery, we will have found the perfect pendant lamps to hang from the ugly can lights that are currently in Tray's room.  We have a couple options in mind but haven't yet been able to borrow a ladder from our neighbor to test things out.  Stay tuned!!

East Coast Vacation

There may be radio silence here for the next week.  We're in Boston visiting Matt's family.  We're headed to NYC on Tuesday to visit Wendy & Mike and Craig & Sam. 

Today was a beautiful day, sunny but cold.  With wind chill, it was probably below 20 degrees.  I felt like I was waddling around like a snowman between my growing belly and layers of clothing.  I've outgrown all of my jeans now.  Luckily, my former boss and friend, Helene, surprised me with a black Bella Band which I have been wearing for the last several days.  I've since purchased two more bands in different colors.  It feels kind of funny walking around with my pants unzipped and unbuttoned but at least I can still wear my regular clothes for a while longer.  :)

There's another new addition to the nursery, purchased on a whim late last week.  After looking through tons and tons of photos of real nurseries, there were two in particular I felt incredibly inspired by:  this one and this one.   I absolutely love the animal head hanging from the wall in the first nursery.  Which is why I had to snag one of these after seeing them hanging in Anthropologie last week:

We decided on the zebra head after reading that babies are most attracted to the high contrast of black and white.  Hopefully the baby likes a jungle theme since that's what seems to be transpiring in her/his room! 

Nursery Progress!

We made significant progress on the nursery over the course of the last few weekends!  We painted!  We hung picture molding!  We assemembled furniture!  We started to decorate!  Here's the play-by-play.

Over the course of a 3-day weekend, we were able to paint and hang picture molding.  I was totally beat by the end but we're so happy with how it turned out.  We have vaulted ceilings throughout our 3rd floor, so painting was a challenge.  We knew we couldn't paint everything (walls and ceiling) so we had to come up with a way to divide the room and make it more paintable.  We were working with obstacles of various heights around the room (a window, two door frames, and a very funky corner with a low ceiling).  In the end, we decided to paint one entire wall all the way up to the ceiling.  This required renting a ladder from Home Depot, which was annoying and costly but worth it.  After we painted the first wall, we drew a line around the room at the approximate height we'd later hang picture molding.  We painted everything beneath the line (3 walls total) in a color one shade lighter than the first wall.  Finally, we hung the picture molding at the seam where the new paint met the old paint.  Unfortunately, we worked so hard and were so busy, we didn't take photos of the room before we started moving in furniture. Boo!

This past weekend, we moved and assembled all of the furniture we've acquired for our baby.  We bought our crib off Craigslist.  It's an older IKEA model that is no longer sold in the US.  The changing table is actually a West Elm Parsons Desk we got for a steal (a mere $100) last time we were in PDX. The glider is also from Craigslist.  We already owned the dresser and had been saving it in hopes of using it in the nursery. 

The view from the doorway.  Those aren't the curtains we'll be using! (Note the funky corner with low ceiling in upper left of picture.) 

A better view of the paint color.  We ended up going for a seafoam green instead of the white/blue hue I had originally chosen.  Wise decision!

The picture molding -- oh so worth the hours of brainstorming that went into this solution. 

We're nowhere near done decorating but we've started adding some sweet little details.  We purchased the elephant fabric while we were in Japan.  It comes from a famous Japanese pop artist.  The fabric is sort of a combination of two original works titled Smiling Elephants and Flying Elephants.  I need to buy an artist canvas to stretch the fabric, but here's a quick shot of it pinned to the molding:

We were originally going to paint the dresser but we recently found the most adorable little drawer knobs.  It's still possible we'll decide to paint but I'm liking the dresser exactly as it is.  I think once we add more color in the form of bedding and art, the wood will blend nicely. 

A close-up.  Hoo!  Hoot!

Little owls.  All lined up.

I'm really glad that we decided to go with a wood crib.  I think it helps warm up the space and makes it so everything isn't too matchy matchy.   

So, that's the status of the nursery for now.  We're looking forward to the arrival of our bedding and another piece of art we purchased for the walls.  The best part and the most satisfying feeling is that we both absolutely love the way it's turning out.  We both agree that we love walking into Tray's room.  It's so calming and bright.  We're proud of what we've accomplished!

Active Baby!

Yesterday ended one of the most challenging weeks I've had in a very long time!  Work was completely insane, my professional activities were on full throttle, our car broke down and we found out we're looking at $1,000 worth of repairs, and I'm still completely exhausted on a daily basis. Everyone says the morning sickness and exhaustion should go away at the end of the 2nd trimester.  I'm nearly done with my 16th week and still every morning I get that feeling like I shouldn't brush my teeth or else!  For the 3rd month straight, bedtime is no later than 9pm. 

But all of this was made better yesterday when we got to hear our baby's heartbeat!!  Tray's heartbeat is strong and, according to the OB, Tray is a very active baby!  S/he was trying to swim away from the doppler and the OB had to chase her/him across my belly!  The OB says everything sounds great and my bump is exactly where it should be. 

I was surprised to learn that I've only gained 3 pounds overall.  Tell that to my jeans!  We're told that's normal and a lot of women don't put on the majority of their weight until further along in their pregnancy.    Still, it made me wish I had a healthy appetite and wanted to eat.  I'm still at the point when nothing sounds good, and that's especially true later in the day.  Poor Matt asks me if lentil soup sounds good or lamb burgers or some other meal made with all of his love, and I just shake my head.  Nothing sounds good but I'll eat it.

This weekend is going to be dedicated to the nursery.  The to-do list includes:

• putting up a picture molding in the nursery
• buying paint (this is the color we plan to use but in a zero-VOC brand -- it's called Glistening Moonlight)
• designing an Elfa closet for the nursery (and taking advantage of their annual sale!)

And because every post should have a photo, here's a snap of a little pillow case I bought the other day:

Sample Sales

A while back I discovered online sample sales.  It started with Gilt and ballooned to include, Gilt Fuse, Rue La La, Hautelook, and Billion Dollar Babes.  OneKingsLane followed soon after.  And now....NOW I've entered the land of online sample sales for parents-to-be:  Totsy, bTrendie, Baby Steals, Mama Bargains, and Bump Bargains.

Originally I was going to design our crib bedding at this website. But I wasn't loving their fabric choices and the prices were sky high. It seems no matter where you buy a crib bedding set, it costs at least $150 and upwards of $350 for something I would consider unique or creative in design. So, I was thrilled when Billion Dollar Babes hosted a Baby Star sale and I was able to purchase beautiful bedding for nearly 75% off!

This bedding was advertised as boy bedding. But I disagree. Just because it's blue doesn't mean it's for boys. I'll share more about the design we're going for in the nursey in another post, but suffice to say that we want everything bright and happy with lots of patterns and colors. This bedding should fit in perfectly:

The best part is that this bedding is normally $380 and I got it for $120!!  Yayzers! 

Mission Find a Rocking Chair

I've been thinking about what kind of chair I want for the nursery. I wasn't super keen on the idea of a rocking chair but I started thinking about it and I actually really like the feel and relaxation of a rocking chair. I've never owned one but I remember one my parents had when I was growing up and there's something very comforting about rocking gently (I'm on to you babies!). So, I went on a mission to find a rocking chair that wasn't completely hideous.

I wanted something modern and unique. I really like the Empire Rocker but it's WAY out of our price range. There are some beautiful mid-century wood rockers available on Craigslist and at vintage and antique stores. I started to get my heart set on something like a Plycraft or Eames lounge rocker. I'd seen several of them on Craigslist going anywhere from $250 (for a knock-off a Plycraft, which was the original knock-off of an Eames) to a real Plycraft for $600 to a real Eames for $2000+. Obviously, our price range was closest to the knock-off of the knock-off.

Portland, Oregon has some great vintage furniture stores. I'd seen inventory from several stores on Craigslist and I was impressed with the variety and prices. So we decided to head down to PDX for the weekend. It was also the perfect excuse to surprise Jess & Scott with the news of my pregnancy.

To make a long story short, we ended up sitting in several Plycraft chairs and found them uncomfortable and incredibly large. The wood rockers we saw were only in fair condition and we wanted to buy something that would last. While we were in PDX, I continued to check Craigslist from my iPhone. Wouldn't you know, Saturday morning I found the perfect rocker for sale...in Seattle! I emailed and let the seller know how much I loved her chair but wouldn't be able to come look at it until Sunday afternoon. She said Sunday worked for her and I crossed my fingers that it didn't sell before we made it home.

A couple hours ago, we brought home our new Dutailier rocker/glider with custom-made, removable/washable cushion covers. We absolutely LOVE it. It's exactly what we were hoping for and yet nothing like the other chairs we'd been looking at. See for yourself:

The best part is that it was below what we'd budgeted! Oh, and the seller ended up holding the chair for us! She had 4 other people interested but was waiting until we were able to see it. What a sweetheart!! And we can't wait to rock our sweetheart in this beautiful chair!