Calvin's Nursery

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When you last left we were just finishing up the basement and about to do trim. Unfortunately our plan to paint trim in the garage hasn't happened yet because the car was parked in the garage and immovable. (starter died) The car has been fixed since and the trim is just sitting there waiting for us to do over the next couple days, so the finished product will be available for viewing shortly.

So I've been working on a little project of my own.  I did most of the work in here myself, and I think it came out pretty nicely.

Let's start at the beginning. I really really couldn't stand the closet. I forgot to grab a picture of the ceiling, but you know how things start off white and then a smoker lives there for 15 years and everything turns brown and yellow? That was the ceiling in the closet. 

Jeffery came home to find that I had primed it. Whenever I do anything these days it's because "nesting." Really I think it's because I put off everything for so long I'm in a bit of sheer last minute panic. Whatever he wants to call it.

I wish I could have gotten a good picture of one of the walls before I did the mud. It is not an exaggeration to say that I had to punch out at least 15 of those old spiky metal drywall anchors. It was horrible and left holes the size of nickles in their place. The opposite wall had several places where they apparently couldn't decide were to put the thumb tack. 

Because the walls are actually old wallpaper that had been painted over, there were some pretty nasty seams that you could see, where one strip of wallpaper was raised and the other one lower. I added some mud over the seams to help smooth it out.

Filled in drywall anchor holes.

When it came time for me to prime and paint the room I went and removed the outlet covers with plans to replace the outlets after paint dried. I started removing one cover, and when the outlet started feeling oddly jiggly I ran to the basement and shut off power to the room. Upon removing the cover the whole outlet face fell apart. I feel like this had probably been a fire hazard, so I'm glad we were changing outlets out.

Primer and now you can't see any of the damage the walls had once had inflicted. (Jeffery helped me by taping the ceiling)

I used the left over sewing room trim paint for the trim in this room too. I like how it came out.

Painted closet. So nice to get rid of that nasty blue.

Paint just finished and starting to dry. I wanted to go for a similar color. I liked the color there originally but the walls were in bad shape.

Then I ended up in the hospital with premature contracting. Uneventful. 

Paint was all done so I moved the furniture back and decorations to where they belong. I actually painted these letters the day I found out we were having a boy, way back in January. They're hanging with the velcro type 3M hangers. The crib quilt was also handmade by myself. Julie thinks the rug is her dog bed. It is very comfortable.

The hanging shelves I tried to do myself but ended up not being strong enough to drive the screws all the way through the studs so Jeffery took over that for me. The shelves are from Ikea and they're actually for displaying pictures, but I found them used on Pinterest like this and loved the idea of displaying the books like art. Most of these books were gifts from our baby shower.

Under the bookshelves is a cube organizer from Walmart and the cubes were a gift from Calvin's honorary Aunt. I love these because they keep things separate but can be slightly disorganized because they're out of sight. The bins on the left hold more books on top, carriers on the bottom. Middle holds miscellaneous cloth bags and some bottles for now and the bottom one holds toys. The right bins hold bath toys, wash cloths, soaps, and towels and the bottom one holds wooden train set pieces. 

The classic Pooh Bear is the first baby item I purchased for Calvin when I finally got to the place where miscarriage dropped significantly, the big bear in the middle my father got me when I was young, and the rabbit is from Calvin's Meme (grandmother). Also located with the animals is a nightlight that projects different colors on the walls and ceiling that move like ocean waves from the same honorary Aunt, and on the other side is the baby unit of our monitor from one of Calvin's real Aunts.

Moving into the corner I have a gliding rocking chair from Target, above that is a handmade sign also from honorary Auntie, and a Walmart nightstand.

The nightstand holds some breastfeeding essentials. Boppy cover, Nursing cover, bibs, burp cloths, and spare batteries for his swing.

In the open bottom portion I have lots of blankets, a homemade pillow I made to match the quilt, and the Boppy.

I made curtain to match the quilt. I wanted to keep it simple and to be used mostly as decor. So the curtain is a thin white cotton with the matching animal fabric I used in the quilt.

The corner with natural lighting.

I haven't completely finished the closet yet. I need to paint the shelf and the bar. There's a bunch of clothes in there right now organized by size. I was waiting to get the car out of the garage to paint so I wouldn't half to worry too much about getting paint everywhere. I'll probably do this when we paint the downstairs trim. Also, not sure when I'm going to do the closet door, but who really needs a door on their closet when their clothes are this cute? :)

Not sure why this picture came out foggy, but it was taken before I got the chair in the room. Over to the left of the window I have a sign that says, "Let them be little" the plan is to make an over-sized ruler to hang on the wall there where we can keep track of his heights, then we'll be able to move it wherever life takes us.

This photo was taken before I hung the sign by the window 

(which is why it's just sitting there on the dresser). I haven't decided what to hang above the dresser yet, but I'll come up with something cute. On the dresser is the changing pad and a humidifier with a built in nightlight. 

The dresser is from Ikea as well as the organizers I used inside of it. The top drawer has essential diaper changing needs. Normally I wouldn't care about having a changing station in the baby's room, but since baby's room is on the same floor as our living space, I figured I'd actually use it.

There's bibs, receiving blankets, diaper rash cream samples, wipes, changing pad liners and another pad cover, burp cloths, a few toys, pacifiers, diapers, newborn care items (clippers, nose sucker thingy, etc.), baby powder, lotion, and brush and comb.

Second drawer is full of newborn and 0-3 month sized clothes. There's sleepwear, hats, socks and mittens, onesies, several swaddles, pants, and a couple bigger hats and a pair of shoes.

I'd show you the bottom drawer but for now it's holding random stuff without any sort of organization. Now if only the prodromal labor could turn into the real thing! Calvin's allowed to show up whenever he's ready to now :)

In a couple days I'll be posting about the finishing touches on the basement project. For now,

Thanks for stopping by!

-Em