Making Room For Two - SETS OF CLOTHES!

We have been BLESSED with hand-me-downs. The majority of clothes we have for Greyson and for MayBaby have been passed along from other people and their fabulous children. Plus, they have great taste too!

With so many great clothing options we need places to store it. We have a great dresser for Greyson, but it's full and we needed to make space for frilly pink dresses! So, with a little refurbishing and a new set of CUBES (I LOVE cubes!) we have a great set-up to store clothes for both our little birds!


Michael stripped away the old varnish and stain off my favorite dresser. Sadly this little dresser had been in the basement holding my yarn stash for a few years. Before that it was in our living room, and before that it was in my bedroom at my parents house. But it's history doesn't stop there. This dresser was my grandfather's, and as weird as this sounds - it has his cigarette burns in the top of the dresser and I love that. Michael was very careful while sanding the top of the dresser so the burn marks would stay.

The dresser turned out beautifully! (Don't you love the new hardware? I DO!!)


It's looking really nice next to the crib too.


Here's where are we are keeping our diaper stash! (Am I totally crazy for cloth diapering TWO kids?!)


Then there is the closet. We are lucky to have a walk-in closet in the little birds' room. With the new set of cubes I have even more storage for tiny things.

Socks, Shoes, Bibs, Burb Clothes, Pajamas and other such things are now happily stored.

MayBaby's clothes will be hung on the side with the cubes and Greyson's clothes are hung on the other side (that you can't see because of the door). I think it is going to work really well. Two kids in one room - we can do it!

Planning

I've been thinking about how to get 2 kids in our house, without losing our office. Some room switching will be called for - Greyson's room and the office will be switched. Little Bird #2 will sleep in our room for the first few months in a bassinet, but we will still set the crib up in what will be the "kid's room". So Greyson and LB#2 will share a room. I think that will be fine for the next couple of years until we move into a bigger house.

Preparing

With Greyson's homecoming coming up in the next few weeks I'm in nesting overdrive.
I have been spending the past few days really cleaning the office out and making it baby friendly. We spend a good deal of our time in the office. It has the computer and my sewing machine and it now has Greyson's Pack'n'Play. My desk is now super clean and the closet is even getting an overhaul. I'm finally throwing out all the craft items I will never, ever use. I saved so many scraps of paper that it is sick. But no more! It's in the trash and I'm moving on.

Tomorrow I'm cleaning the linen closet. We've got to get this place ready for our little man.

His Room is Ready

So let's get that little man home!

Just wanted to share some pictures of Greyson's room. Michael did a wonderful job designing and painting the trees. It really makes the room special.

Greyson's crib under a tree.

His bookshelf, closet and dresser/changing table. I love this fan, it looks so fun and vintage but is safe for little fingers. Plus a fan in the room is supposed to help prevent SIDS.

The twin bed and extra special tree with his name. In a few years Greyson will be sleeping here, but for now it is a great place for his family to crash.

A close up of the tree and his name. I love that the letters are hanging from the branch.

Finishing Touches

We have no idea when Greyson will be coming home so we decided that this weekend we should get his room finished just in case they spring him from the NICU on short notice. Man, am I glad I was determined to get as much done as possible before Thanksgiving. The reason for that is I didn't want to be so massively pregnant that I couldn't help...instead by Thanksgiving I was on bedrest.
Really the only things left to do in his room are hemming the curtains, making the crib skirt (which may not ever get made), finishing off a throw pillow or two for the twin bed and painting the trees on the wall. Which is what we are doing this weekend! Michael is in there right now with an opaque projector tracing his drawing of Greyson's Tree on to the wall. Then tonight or tomorrow we will paint it. I'm very excited to see this project completed. I'll post pictures as soon as there is something to take photos of!

Making Progress

Yesterday was our first baby shower and it was lovely. The little bird will be well dressed, well blanketed and generally lucky to be part of our family. It was such a nice day and I really enjoyed spending time with everyone.

To prepare for the shower I started cleaning out the closet in the little guy's room. Man, were we storing a lot of things in there! Now we have baby things to store and need the space. The room is coming together in general.

The crib bumper really makes a difference in the room. (That's Cal the bird and the little birds first "Ugly Doll". So cute!)



I love the soft brown and trees. It is such a lovely pattern. (Thanks mom!)

Making Progress in the Little Birds Room

Last week we painted the little birds room. Then we moved the furniture around until we found a way that works. I like it and it opens the room up a little. The color is Vast Sky from Sherwin Williams. We went with the low VOC paint not the no VOC. We primed with the no VOC but the coverage wasn't very good so we went up a step. Michael did all the painting so I could stay fume-free.
I really like the color now. I loved it the first day and then the second day I wasn't sure, but now I am. It's a soft blue that will hopefully work for a long time because it's not so babyish.


The bed and the dresser. I'm going to make a new quilt for the bed - more cream and brown and less green. We also have a million pillows - there are three on this bed and one more in the closet - plus 5 on our bed. I recognize this is too many.


Our little bookshelf. I can't wait to fill that thing up with books and wooden and organic toys.


The crib and curtains. We are going to re-set the curtain rods (hence the tools on the bed) so it is a little further outside of the window frame. I've made the curtains from a bed sheet that no longer fits on bed. I think that I'm going to hem them a little shorter and make some tie-backs. I'm also thinking about tabbing the top versus having the "ruffle" - it's a little too girly.


A close-up of the curtains. I like the cream with blue and green stripes. Plus I really like that we are reusing the sheets. I loved this set and having them not fit was the only downside of getting the new bed.

Well we are making progress and I'm looking forward to finishing it up - hanging things on the wall, making the crib skirt, getting a new quilt for the twin bed, etc.

Little Birds for Our Little Bird

Last week Elly gave me this set of adorable birds!
She made them herself - making them even more special and wonderful. I love the bright colors and simple silhouette. She made them using a pattern from spool. A pattern that can be turned into this:


Can you think of a more perfect mobile for our little bird's room? I can't!
Over the next few weeks I plan to crank out more little birds to accompany the ones Elly made.
Thanks so much for the birds and the idea, Elly!

Quilting for the Little Bird

Yes, I knit, quilt and can grow a person - darn I'm crafty!

Seriously, I am a fairly horrible quilter but I do enjoy it.

Yesterday I ran down to the quilt shop and bought some fat quarters to make a boy quilt. Picking out fabric was next to impossible. There isn't much in the world of non-floral that isn't either really brightly colored (which just isn't us) or "masculine" by having the theme of either hunting or sports (which REALLY isn't us). So I settled on some leafy, twiggy prints in brown, light aqua, a green some where between lime and sage and a muted, mustard yellow. I'm pretty pleased with the fabrics and will hopefully find a nice easy pattern to turn these fat quarters into a blanket for our little bird.

Knitting For Our Little Man

I've started knitting a hat and sweater set for the little guy. The hat is finished and I'm about 1/8 finished...er...started with the sweater. I have knitters fingers, but it will be worth it.

Painting Inspiration

The other day while Michael was looking for bolts and a drill bit to finish the pergola I strolled over to the paint section at the Home Depot. I've been thinking about how I want to paint the little birds room and I think I have finally come across a good solution.

Cream. Actually Poetic Light from Freshaire Paint is in the lead right now.

I know it's a little boring, but the room is small and it has 2 different types of wood in there. The light blond wood of the doors and trim (thank-you 1950's) and the dark cherry of all the furniture. So finding a color that works well with both was driving me a bit crazy. Plus I would really like the bedding to pop, so I think a neutral wall color will be the way to go.

the crib

We bought a crib last week. We got it off of Craig's List and I love it. It is exactly what we needed, plus it was only $75.00 and not $400.00. It is in great condition and does not have any exposed hardware.

A Gift for Little Bird

We haven't done much with the Little Bird's room to-be yet. We have about 6 months left so there is no real rush - although I would like it done before Christmas. We have decided to wait on things until after we find out the flavor. So I have restrained form buying any baby items.

Until yesterday.

I was out shopping with Jill when our rambles through an Antique Mall found this:
How could I possibly pass up these sweet hooks with little birds on them? Well if they had been expensive I would have, but luckily they were only seven dollars! With my first baby room purchase in hand I felt ready to take on the day - until I actually looked in the bird's room and remembered how full of junk it is.

And this is AFTER we have cleaned it out for two garage sales. We've got a lot to do.

Sneek Peek at POSSIBLE fabric for the bird's room

We brought home a swatch of this from Sarah's fabric in Lawrence, KS. Today's trip was nice, but would have been much nicer if it was 10, 20, 50 degrees cooler.

I think it is so cute, Heather Ross - the fabric designer has a bunch of really cute and whimsical fabrics. I'm really into the light blue and bright orange combo right now, so this is right up our ally.

Color Swatches

Here are the first round of paint swatches for the little bird's room. At first I was feeling the blue, but now I'm more into the yellow.

A Room for the Little Bird

I know that is super early, but I've been thinking about decorating the little bird's room. The plan as of now is to paint the room a muted yellow and then build off of that depending on the flavor. Orange and Pink decor for a girl and Blue and Blue-green for a boy. Michael painted a picture of penguins getting ready to fly that I really want to frame and hang in that room. It is just the right amount of whimsical.