The Mustard Seed

baby's room-furniture selections

Our baby girl's room is a modestly-sized, roughly square-shaped space.  When shopping for furniture, I noticed that many of the popular crib and furniture sets today are wildly oversized.  Something like a sleigh-style crib that converts into a full-sized bed just would not work in such a petite space.  I wanted the room to feel light and airy and still have space for our girl to play on the floor as she grows and the room's functionality evolves.

Also, our style tends to lean toward the clean/modern end of the decorating spectrum, so finding a no-frills, simple crib design was of utmost importance.  Ok, enough chattering on about it-here are some of our choices for the space:

1. Babyletto Modo 3-in-1 Convertible Crib in Espresso/White:

2. Babyletto Modo 3 Drawer Dresser/Changer:

3. IKEA Expedit Bookcase (4 cube version)

4. Little Castle Glider and Ottoman:

The Glider will be covered in Navy Microseude Fabric:

Now, let's just hope the glider is ready before the baby comes!

Thanks for reading!  Next, I will share some little bits of inspiration that are becoming happy craft projects in the room.

Baby's room-fabric choices

During the week of renovations in October, my Mom and me snuck away (after all, it's not a good idea for a pregnant woman to be around all of that renovation dust!) to shop for fabric.  My mom is a very talented seamstress, and she wanted to make the bedding, curtains, and a few other items for the baby's room.

Here is a sneak peak at the different patterns that will be in our little girl's room in some shape or form:

That's a lot of pattern, but I promise you that it is coming along beautifully!   In my next post, I will share the furniture choices for the room.  Am I boring you yet?  I hope not!  I really wanted to document these items before they leave my brain forever.  Hopefully you will get some enjoyment out of this process, too.

baby's room-new paint color

The week before my parents' visit, we had our "Big" 20 week ultrasound and found our that our little baby bun is a girl!

Now, let's rewind a bit and discuss the fact that I am, in some key areas of life, uber practical. {This practicality does not extend to handbag or shoe shopping, however.}  Thus, I really wanted to paint our baby's room a soft gray shade regardless of his/her gender.  In fact, here is a nursery inspiration link I found via a Pinterest search:

Gray Baby Rooms

Here is a great boy nursery with gray walls (source above)

and a precious girl nursery with gray walls (same source):

See how those lovely soft grays are gorgeous with either a boy or girl room?  Yeah, that's what I thought.

But then, when we saw the images of our sweet little girl on the ultrasound, my husband had other ideas.  My big, muscular, laid-back, go-with-the-flow husband vetoed the gray nursery idea.  In fact, he insisted that the room be painted pink! 

Since he had such a strong leaning toward pink, what could I say but yes?  And my husband is actually really good at picking paint colors, so I set him to task choosing the specific shade.  My stipulations were that the color could not resemble bubble gum or Pepto Bismol pink, but rather had to be a soft, gray-based pink.

We contemplated "Priscilla" by Sherwin Williams, but at the last minute chose "Alyssum" because it was a little less purple and a bit softer.

Ok, enough blabbing.  I know you want to see the after pictures, right?  Here you go:

(looking in from the doorway)

(view from right corner of room)

(view from left corner of room)

(view from closet)

Doesn't it look soft, pretty and clean?  I was so worried about the pink being too bright/overpowering but I ended up totally loving the color!

Come back for the next installment of the baby room evolution: fabric choices.

Thanks for stopping by.  Please do share your thoughts about my blue tuned pink (thought it would be gray) baby room and feel free to link up and pretty nurseries you've seen lately as well!

In other news...

Right now I am busy working on an ongoing custom scrapbooking project, which I cannot share online.  So, I thought instead I would share some of our progress with home renovations as we prepare for our baby girl's arrival in March.

Here are some before and afters of her room:

The room that will become our baby girl's room was always kind of the "spare" room in our house. (read: room that holds extra junk) Also, it would occasionally house a single guest or two.

This summer, before the nausea hit in full force, I emptied and sold the two cabinets on Craigslist, emptied the closet of old Mary Kay papers, and donated any useable products to a local women's shelter.  Whew, it always feels good to clean out!

The bookcases were donated to Goodwill and many of the books as well.  Then I relocated the remaining books into some new storage in our living room.

When my parents came to visit in October, the real work began.  My talented father installed new light switches and outlets:

Not only is this change more pleasing to the eye, but also necessary for safety purposes.  My father found several faulty outlets, one of which actually broke in half when he unscrewed it from the box!  Ah, the joys of owning an old home.

Then, the room was readied for paint.  Stay tuned for the next post where I share our paint color choice and some after pictures!

Nesting Mode

I am in complete and utter nesting mode.  A sense of urgency to get everything done before baby arrives has taken hold of me.  My poor husband doesn't know what hit him. :)

This week we are painting our bedroom, which is one of the few remaining spaces that has not been decorated in our almost 5 years in this house.  It is looking good so far, but taking a long time to get the job done since we have to paint every surface-ceiling, walls, and trim.  We are about to embark on the second coat of wall paint this afternoon and then we still have to paint the trim white.  So far we have completed one coat of primer, one coat of paint, and the ceiling has been painted.  Whew.  It is a big room and therefore a big undertaking.

The paint color we compromised on is "Gray Shingle" by Sherwin Williams.  It's a medium, warm gray shade. 

Here is a swatch of the color:

I can't wait to share before/after pictures!

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In other news, I am selling some more scrapbooking goodies on 2 Peas for sale or trade board.

Here is a list of items currently for sale:

1. *SOLD* Lot of Smash Goodies-$22 shipped

2. Amy Tangerine mini album (ready for pictures)-$25 shipped

3. Quickutz fonts, Spotlight and Magnolia

4. New in Package Studio Calico Calendar Pages-$18 shipped

Let me know if you see anything you would like to give a scrappy home!

Hopefully I will be back with some before/after shots of our new and improved bedroom!

 

In the meantime...

While I have not been blogging, so very many other events have transpired.  First, we renovated our "master" bathroom. 

I can still remember the feeling of horror that washed over me in June when it rained in the kitchen.  The bathroom above was leaking and water was pouring into the kitchen through cabinets, ceiling joints, and light fixtures.  Yes, I said light fixtures.  Once my freak out had subsided, we called the plumber.  Luckily, it was just a tile leak and not a plumbing leak. 

So, in mid-October, my fantastic parents came up to help us rip out and redo our bathroom tile surround.  It's always an adventure to see what lies behind these walls, let me tell you.  What we found?  Regular drywall.  As in, not the waterproof backer board that should have been behind any water-related surface. 

Here are some pictures of the mess:

(see that black line on the right wall?  That was where the grout had worn away and the water was seeping into the wall)

(old fixtures)

(see the staining on the regular drywall?  I foresee another bathroom renovation in our future)

(new backer board)

(close up of tile before-off white with brown speckles-oh yeah!)

(new tile, fixtures, paint)

(mmmm subway tile)

Much imrpoved, yes?  We have yet to shower in there as we need a new curtain and some towel hooks.  I hope to remedy that tomorrow!  Thanks for looking.

Cleaning out and moving forward.

Hello there.  Wow, this whole baking a human thing is pretty tiring, huh?  HA.  Well, now that I've learned how to manage the 8pm bedtime situation, I am moving on with a few things.

First, I am cleaning out some unused scrap supplies as I begin to scrap again.  Let me know if you're interested in any of these items!  They're all listed on 2Peas Sale or Trade Board.  Thanks for looking!

(all sold, thanks)

Hello again

Well, that was quite a hiatus.  Let's do some catching up, shall we?

The end of the 2010/2011 school year was fast and furious, as always.  I got terribly behind on scrapping!

Then in June we found out about this:

So, needless to say, I have been busy! 

Most of the rest of the summer I spent doing little projects around the house.  We also took a couple of long weekend vacations, one to the beach and one to the mountains.

I have finally gotten over the first trimester nausea/exhaustion and I'm scrapbooking again.  I have a bunch of layouts to share as soon as I scrapbook them.

I promise I'll be back sooner than last time!

Week of Layouts: Day 5

Today is the final day in my week of layouts. (we're going with a work week, HA.) I have a cute page of my nephew for you today.  I made this page for Sweet Memories Scrapbooks in Carrollton, GA.  If you're ever in the Atlanta/Six Flags area, Sweet Memories is a must-see store! 

This is the new "Little Boy" line from Echo Park. (plus swiss dot and thickers)

I am loving that large circle punch!  And how could I go wrong with such a cute subject to scrap?

Week of Layouts: Day 4

This weekend at my monthly Archiver's crop, I was able to bust into the March SC kit.  Here is another page I made about my recovery journey.  There were some pretty big setbacks, and somehow the scrapbooking and the journaling is helping me put it to bed in my mind.

Thanks for looking, and happy weekend!