On Sunday, we had a big day planned -
the Big Nursery Workday!
the Big Nursery Workday!
My parents had volunteered to come and help Saunders and I work in the nursery, and I was so pumped about it ... I think this may have been the part of my birthday weekend that I was looking forward to the most because the nursery was driving me INSANE. It was literally keeping me up at night. The room that's becoming the nursery has been our home office since we moved here, and we'd been piling nursery stuff in there on top of home office stuff... and it was a total nightmare! Saunders and I had tried to clean out in there a few times over the past few weeks, but it was one of those projects that seemed to look worse and worse the more we did! Here are some before pictures, and these don't even begin to accurately represent the drama that was going on in this room ... we'd pulled all the stuff off the bookshelves in an attempt to organize it, and it had definitely made the room look worse than these pictures show. I forgot to take a "real" before photo on Sunday morning, but trust me - it was starting to resemble a Hoarders episode in there with stuff piled up all over the floor. Definitely overwhelming!
I had come up with a big plan during my nights of insomnia - I thought we'd approach it like a Clean Sweep episode with various areas for moving and organizing things. All baby stuff that went back into the room went into the master bedroom, office stuff that went upstairs went into the foyer, and other stuff that needed a new home on the main level went onto the dining room table. The room was quickly cleared with four people working, and it was such a relief to get everything out and be able to vacuum and dust the room well! The dining room table pile was the biggest pain to sort through, but Saunders and I powered through that task while my parents patched holes, painted touch-up spots, and carried stuff upstairs. My dad even vacuumed the whole upstairs floor and my mom reorganized my gift closet, where gift bags, wrapping paper, and tissue had slowly migrated out all over one extra upstairs bedroom ... so knocking those two things off my to-do list was a huge bonus! Then it was time for moving furniture around, decorating, and organizing the baby stuff that was piled in our bedroom. My grandmother Mamaw came over for lunch - my mom had brought a big pot roast and veggies, too - and she brought my birthday present and pound cake. While she was here, she helped, too. Katie Anne also deserves a ton of credit for her behavior during the nursery clean out ... she played so well independently the whole time- playing baby dolls, Barbies, and princess dolls ... putting together puzzles ... playing hopscotch - and she made it so easy for all the adults to work because she didn't need anything more than a few drink refills from us! She even took herself to the potty and washed her hands by herself anytime she needed to go, so she was a total big girl while we were working.
It took about 8 hours to go from completely trashed to almost ready for Baby Saunders, but we did it! The nursery looks so much better, and I have definitely slept a lot better at night knowing that I have a room basically ready for the baby in case he decides to come early! I still have some projects to do and a few other things to buy, but the room is about 90% complete.
Here are the after pictures:
(Obviously, the theme of the nursery is UGA!)
I've done several projects for SJ4's nursery, and I've got a few more either in-progress or on my to-do list. Here are the ones I've finished - I painted two picture frames and letters for his initials...
Katie Anne really wants to make a picture frame for his room, too - she wants to put a picture of her and him together in it after he's born. So, we're going to head over to Hobby Lobby and get a small wooden frame for her to paint. Katie Anne and I also went through her old baby toys and got them organized for SJ4... I'll post pictures of that project later.
My other to-do projects are:
* finish the curtains for his windows (I'm almost done - hopefully I'll finish these today).
* finish the blanket I'm making for him.
* make a UGA fabric Boppy cover - I found an easy pattern on the internet.
* decorating the plain white lampshade on his dresser with red rick rack.
* hang the rest of the stuff on his walls - I've got one Jack Davis print framed that you see in the pictures, and I've got one more to get framed. I'm trying to decide on what else (if anything) to put on the walls.
* Jillian is making a name sign for over SJ4's closet like KA's in her room.
* moving some books from Katie Anne's bookshelf to SJ4's.
* buying a basket to hold his board books and something to sit on his dresser for diaper changing supplies.
* getting all SJ4's clothes, recieving blankets, etc washed and put away.
I'll post pictures of all these projects as I get them finished!
