Baby Girl Nursery Reveal

My faithful readers, I know you've been waiting for this post.  We had the nursery done a few weeks before baby's arrival, but I was waiting on the reveal until she was here.  And then she was 8 days late, so that has delayed things even more.

Let me start by saying that nesting is real.  As we approached the due date, I didn't want to leave the house at all.  I just wanted to be home with Dan organizing, cleaning, and decorating.

Once we knew the baby was healthy and we found out she was a girl, Project Nursery began.  We had to transform the space from walk-in closet to baby's room.  We started by emptying everything out.  The room was actually a lot bigger once all my clothes were out.  We moved everything into the other side of our bedroom which is pretty much just open space.  Eventually I hope to convert this to a true closet, but we'll see.  

After the room was emptied and cleaned, Dan painted.  I knew I wanted gray walls no matter the gender, so we used the same color we have in our guest bedroom.  Then, it was time for furniture.  I also knew I wanted white furniture from the start, so over the summer, we purchased her crib from Amazon.  We had seen the one we wanted at Babies R Us, but it was cheaper on Amazon with free shipping.  Dan was going to have to assemble it either way, so this was the better option.  A little while later, we found the matching dresser and a glider, so we ordered those.  The last piece of the furniture puzzle was a shelving unit which we found at Target.  We flipped the dresser and crib a few times, but settled on the way it is now.

Our fall was pretty busy, so it wasn't until Halloween weekend that we finally had a chance to put the finishing touches on baby girl's room.  Plus we had to wait at least until after the shower.  We took out everything we wanted to hang on the walls, including some shower gifts, and shelves we bought at Target and came up with a layout.  Dan then hung everything to my specifications.

Then we had to order a blackout shade, so we found a cordless one at Home Depot (after a failed attempt at one from Christmas Tree Shop).   I had found a pink tulle curtain at Target over the summer as well, so that went up as well.  For the inside of the dresser, I ordered some drawer organizers from Ikea.

We went back and forth over whether to get a small table for next to the glider, but there wasn't much room.  Then we debated a floor lamp, but the short ceiling height limited (and by limited, i mean virtually eliminated) that option.  I looked for a small lamp for such a long time and couldn't find anything I liked.  I had seen one at Target with a wooden base that was the perfect side, but I didn't know if the wood tone would go with the rest of the decor.  I finally just decided to test it out and I actually liked the contrasting wood with all the white and gray in the wood.  Plus it tied in with the wooden toys and the rocking horse.

Now that everything was in, it was time to play.  I actually took a day off work to organize.  I loved it.  I washed most of her clothes and organized the dresser, and hung everything else up in her closet.  I did leave the tags on a lot of stuff just in case she grows too fast and misses wearing something.  I had purchased some closet dividers on Etsy that I used to separate the sizes.  I know I'll only use these for a few months, but then I thought I could easily use my label maker and change out the tags for future use.  

Once her clothes were organized, I set to work on the shelves.   This was tough, but I eventually found something I was happy with.  I tried to mix in some new things with some sentimental things I already had. 

For her crib, I went with a pink tulle bedskirt that matched the curtains and then some plain gray sheets.  I actually opted not to buy baby bedding.  It was so expensive and I figured we wouldn't use much of it anyway and it would be more for show.  So I took some throw blanket and used them to accent the crib, as well as some stuffed animals and the sign from our shower.  Obviously, everything will come out once she's sleeping in there, but for now, it works.

 

Since the room is small, we needed to get the most use out of every space possible.  I used a jewelry organizer that I had on hand to hang behind the door.  I put some of her accessories in there like bows and also some pacifiers. 

Outside her door there is a little nook that I knew needed something functional.  I toyed with a few ideas and ultimately settled on a rolling cart from Ikea to house her bathing supplies, extra wipes, and anything "medical" such as her thermometer, snot sucker, etc.  I also thought it a good place to display her adorable growth chart.  I found a heart shaped board at Target with hooks that I used to hang her robe and towels.  The upstairs bathroom is close to the nursery, so we figured we could wheel the cart in for bath time, and then wheel it back.  And as she gets older, we can use it for whatever else we might need.

Here is the view when you first enter the nursery.  The crib is to the right and the bookshelf on the left.  It pretty much turned out the way I had envisioned it which doesn't always happen with my ideas, so I was happy this one was true to form.

Be well,

What A Wonderful World

Ever since I can remember, my mom's favorite song was "What A Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong.  She danced with my brother to it at his wedding, and it has always had a special meaning for her and our family.  When Dan and I found out we were pregnant, it was bittersweet because I wasn't able to share it with Mom like I wanted to.  It would be something that would follow me throughout my entire pregnancy and something that I would just have to learn to deal with.  

One day after we first found out, though, we were at Barnes and Noble just puttering around.  We passed by a table of random kid's books where I saw this one:

I knew right away we were going to buy it and display it somewhere in the nursery.  To me, it was a sign that Mom was still part of this pregnancy.  

Over the summer, I ransacked my parent's house looking for things to add to the nursery and found a big tub of Clifford the Big Red Dog books.  As a nursery school teacher, my mom treasured these books.  I knew I wanted to pass them along to our daughter, so I took them home and stored them in the nursery for the time being.  

One day, when it was finally time to put everything in its place, I started to go through the Clifford books.  As I was going through them, a single piece of paper fell out of one of them.

In purple (the signature color for Alzheimer's disease), it said "What A Wonderful World".  It was my mom's handwriting.  Also on the paper were the names of two men.  I looked at the book we bought earlier, and it was the men who wrote the song.  Things had come full circle 

I eventually found a small frame for her note and placed it alongside the book on her shelf.  Now Baby Girl Cohen will know that even though her Grandma can't talk to her or hold her, she will always be watching out for her.  It really is a wonderful world.

Be well,

Baby Shower Mini Scrapbook

I'm back with another mini scrapbook, this time from my baby shower we had a few weeks ago. While it's really sad that my mom can't enjoy this pregnancy with me, I am so lucky to have the greatest friends and family who stepped in to plan a great afternoon.  My bestest since 6th grade and my two sister-in-laws really took the lead, and I could not be more grateful.  

I had no information about the shower other than the date.  I didn't know where it was, the theme, etc., but I knew my girls would take care of everything.  And of course, they didn't disappoint.  It was great to see so many people come out to support Baby Girl Cohen and Dan and I enjoyed a perfect afternoon.

After the shower, once we lugged everything home and I started to organize (nesting is a real thing folks!), I knew the next natural step was to make a mini scrapbook to corral all the cards and special mementos from the day.  The nursery is pink and gray, so that was the theme of my shower.  For the cover, I started with a copy of the invite, added some pink and gray paper as well as a flower and brad from the favors.

I kept a bunch of stuff from the day and had some of my favorite pics printed from Snapfish.  Some of the things I like to save from things like this are gift tags, favors (to take apart and use different pieces), and ribbons. 

The hardest part was just deciding where everything was going and how many pages I was going to do.  To add some accents, I pulled out my sticker binder and took out some baby/girly stickers I already had.  It all came together pretty easily.

 

 

 

To finish off, I just hole-punched all of the pages and the cards and strung them all together with ribbons from some of the gifts.  All in all, this book took me a couple of hours and most was just trimming everything and figuring out what to put where.  

Be well,

 

Painting the Shed

Happy Fall!  My favorite time of the year.  Since the weather was getting cooler, it was time to tackle a few outdoor projects.  The shed was first on Dan's honey-do list.

We were lucky that our house came with a decent sized shed in the backyard.  It was originally in an odd, sideways location, but when we had our septic replaced before moving in, we asked them if they could move it.  They shifted it so it faced the back of the house which we thought was a much better position.  The shed was in great shape, but the outside was faded, and the original window boxes actually fell off due to some rotting.  So the outside definitely needed a makeover.

I've always wanted to paint the shed and make it look more like a barn.  With our cottage-style house, I thought a little red barn would look adorable out back.  Dan has been extra busy preparing the nursery for the arrival of our little one in early December, but because he's the best husband in the world and knew how much I've wanted this done, he cleared an entire Saturday to work on it.

I had selected a deep red color that matched our front door and shutters and would contrast nicely with our blue house.  So Dan bought the paint earlier in the week, borrowed a paint sprayer from a friend, and got up at 6AM to head outside.  He's so good, he even took some before shots - notice how the sun is barely even up!

The first thing he had to do was tape off the trim.  Of course I can't ever make things easy for him and suggested we do a red shed with white trim.  I think he went through about two rolls of painters tape too!  He also covered the two front windows and shutters, so this part took awhile. Dan even had some visitors early that morning.  We have three turkeys that roam our neighborhood.  We literally see them every day and that Saturday was no different.  As part of their morning stroll, they generally come through our backyard.  They were just puttering around when all of a sudden he heard a huge whoosh, and they flew up into the trees over the shed.  It sounded like an airplane taking off.

Back to the shed - Dan used the sprayer and did about 3/4 of the "barn" before running out of paint.  So off to Lowe's he went to get another gallon.  He ended up using about half of that one too, so we definitely needed two.  I had gone out that morning to run some errands, and when I came back, he was done with the red.  It looked a little something like this:

The trim turned out to be the most time consuming part, but Dan did such a great job.  Nine hours later, here's the final product!

 

The shed really pops now and seems like it was meant to be there all along.  The plan for the spring is to put some mulch around it and plant a few small shrubs or flowers to make it look more like a little house.  And I definitely want to add back the window boxes.  But for now, I guess we should get back to decorating that nursery!

Be well,

Kitchen Reno - Part III

After a few weeks of chaos, things were coming together in the kitchen.  As we started to see the room take shape, we felt better about the process.  We definitely had some hiccups along the way (i.e. the heat being installed leaving no room to open the pantry door so it had to be moved), but as each issue arose, we were able to deal with it and move on.  

The cabinets were one of the first things to go in.  I had dreamed of white cabinets for so long, but every decision I made proved to be difficult.  I found myself second guessing every little choice because it was hard to picture how everything would come together in the end.  When the cabinets were installed though, I felt better about my decisions.  We picked oil-rubbed bronze knobs to match the light fixtures and other doorknobs around the house.  The other thing we added was a floor to ceiling pantry with pullout drawers.  Now all our dry good are stored in one place and it's easy to find whatever we need.  We did opt for soft-close drawers, which are amazing, but I'm sad to say the cabinets are not.  It was a huge up-charge to add that to the cabinet line we chose, so it was a sacrifice we had to make.

Once the cabinets were in, the next things to be finished were the floor and back wall.  I can't even begin to describe how happy I was to have these two things off the list.  You may remember that that back wall was all wood paneling.  Not only was it dated, but it made is almost impossible to even hang a picture up there.  Now we had an entire, flat wall to work with.  Disclaimer: The wall is still blank as we have yet to find a piece of furniture like a buffet table or cabinet, so we can't hang pictures until we know how that's going to turn out.

For the floor, we had narrowed it down to two choices.  One was a textured tile and the other, which we ended up going with, had tans and browns with specks of gray.  We thought this transitioned the best from the wood floors and laundry room tile.  One of the best decisions we made was to extend the kitchen floor into the hallway that connects the bathroom, living room, and two spare bedrooms.  There was an old parquet floor there before, so we were happy to see that go.  And it makes the kitchen feel even bigger now that there isn't a divide between the kitchen and hallway.

Thing were moving along, and somewhere along the way, the appliances were re-installed and the new microwave was put in.  We had purchased all new appliances when we moved in, but the original kitchen did not have the microwave above the stove.  This turned out to be such a space saver and we were actually able to find one that perfectly matched the stove.  The kitchen was also painted a light blue to tie in with the blues and grays in the rest of the house.  It was a nice pop to the otherwise somewhat bland kitchen.

The next piece of the puzzle was the counters. We chose a tan granite with specks of brown and gray to tie in with the floor, etc.  These new counters really brought everything together.  And it was amazing how much more usable space we had.  Not only were the old counters tile which were impossible to really clean, but there was also a wooden trim around the edges which really affected the amount of usable space.  Now the granite went right to the end which we chose to keep rounded.  I didn't want a beveled edge because I wanted just to be able to easily sweep crumbs off.  

The remaining cabinet moldings were put in place and new baseboard heating replaced the old radiators.  The last step was the white subway tile back-splash and under cabinet lighting.  The subway tile was another dream of mine.  We had gone back and forth about it, but I'm so glad we did it.  It's one of my favorite parts of the kitchen.  The under cabinet lighting was suggested by our contractors.  We had it in our apartment years ago and I loved putting them on at night.  This kitchen was pretty dark at night before the reno so the under cabinet lights have really helped.

 

This was the end of the line for the contractors and we could finally start to put the kitchen back together.  We spent a few days reorganizing the cabinets.  This was where my skills really shined.  I do love to organize.  Even though the layout didn't change, we now had so much more space to fill.  And the pantry provided some much needed extra storage and freed up other cabinets where food was previously kept.

When this was done, Dan had a break for a few weeks, but then I decided it was time to go get the new island.  The old one was in an odd location, too far from the sink area to really be usable.  It had great storage, but other than that, it wasn't functional.  We knew we didn't want an island to be part of the original kitchen plan because we wanted one that was moveable.  I had my eye on an Ikea one for about a year and I knew now that our reno was complete, it was time.  So one Sunday, Dan and I drove down to Stoughton and picked it up. 

He put it together that night (he's so good!) and then came my part of accessorizing it.  I loved that it had open shelving for easy access.   At first I had been nervous because the old island had housed all of our serving platters, but with all the new cabinet space we gained, they easily fit.  We used the island to house the toaster oven, some extra dishes/chargers, a few serving pieces for display and our blender.  The blender is actually held in a vintage wooden box I picked up at a consignment shop awhile ago.  I just pull it out whenever I feel the need to make a smoothie. 

When we first bought the island, I didn't want to buy the coordinating stools.  I thought we could find something else that would work.  We searched different Home Goods and Targets and actually ended up buying a set of wicker stools.  We measured before ordering but when we got them home, there wasn't enough space between them and the base of the island to comfortably sit.  So back to Target they went and I ended up giving in and ordering the ones from Ikea online.  They actually fit perfectly, as I should have known, and match our farmhouse decor.

So that was our kitchen remodel in a nutshell.  I can't believe it's done!  There are still quite a few things to add, though.  I'd love a new table with a leaf for entertaining, the buffet, and of course, some wall art.  But I think those things will all come in time, and for now, it's been such a great improvement. 

Be well,

Kitchen Reno - Part II

The dumpster had been delivered and a few days later, the kitchen reno started in full force.  By the end of day one, the floors and bottom level of cabinets had already been removed.  I couldn't have been happier to see that floor go.  The appliances were all relocated to various spaces in the kitchen, and we were living in complete chaos.  Luckily, we were still able to use the fridge and our make-shift pantry/kitchen set-up was doing its job.  Each day we came home from work, we were so excited to see the changes that had been made.  It made having dinner at our kitchen table in the middle of the living room much more bearable. 

When week one was finished, all of the cabinets were removed and work had begun to remove the old wooden paneling.  The entire downstairs was covered in a layer of dust, but it was worth it to see the progress.  

Here's what the first week or so looked like in pictures.
 


It was a long first week, but we were finally seeing some amazing progress.  Up next, I'll share how everything came together in the end.

Be well,

Kitchen Reno - Part 1

This winter, like a lot of people in New England, we had some water damage from ice dams.  Our cape-style house doesn't have an attic so the heat from the house melts the snow on the roof which then refreezes on the cold gutters, creating lovely ice dams.  Every other winter the ice dams have been fine, melting in between storms.  This year, however, with storm after storm, the ice dams ended up melting into the house in a few locations.

It started in the living room with a small spot under the bay window.  This wasn't a huge deal and is actually something we haven't even addressed yet.  The kitchen is where we had the most damage.  There was a spot above the window which I believe had some damage years earlier, before we even bought the house, because a small section of the wall had bubbled out.  We figured if the water damage was contained to this area, we'd be ok.  But then one morning we woke up and water was dripping down from the cabinets and the counters were soaked.  There was also a wet spot on our ceiling.  We called in a company to melt the ice dams and bought a roof rake - a little too late, but I digress.

We were able to stop the leaking and no further damage was done.  When spring finally rolled around, we started to talk about how we'd fix the kitchen.  I have hated the design of our kitchen since the day we moved in.  Functionally, it was fine, but it was just so dated.  The blue and white tiled counter-tops were hard to clean and the floor was a pale cream which had dirt ground into it that wouldn't come out no matter how hard we scrubbed or how much we threw bleach cleaner down.  We tried to make the best of it and hide the imperfections with new appliances and decor, but the truth was, it was dated and ugly. 

As we thought about it more and more we figured now was the time to finally address a real kitchen update.  The problem was, we couldn't just do one thing i.e. replace the ugly floor without talking about the cabinets.  Then once we talked cabinets, it led to changing out the counter.  Counters led to the back-splash and before we knew it, we were talking about a full remodel.

We met with several contractors and kitchen companies and eventually settled on one.  They had the best price for what we were looking for and could start in just a few weeks.  Plans were drawn, materials were selected, and we were on their schedule.  Oh boy, this was really happening.  

A few days before the work was to start, we set to clearing out the kitchen.  It's amazing how much stuff one can amass in just a few years.  We boxed up everything we weren't going to need over the next few weeks and packed it away.  It actually only took a few hours.

Dan had wanted to do the demo himself, but we realized that 1. we didn't have the time and 2. once we got near the cabinets, we'd be dealing with the appliances and didn't want to do anything to damage them.  So we compromised and he was able to demo our island.  Man, I hated that island.  It was way too far away from the sink area, so it was barely usable.  The storage inside it was great, but the surface area ended up just being a place to plop a candle or some flowers.  It just wasn't functional so I was glad to see it go.  It wasn't that hard to take apart and Dan loved doing it.

 

Once we were done cleaning the kitchen and demoing what we could, our guest room looked like this:

And the fun was only beginning!  We set up our office to be our walk in pantry and the laundry room counter had our microwave and toaster oven.  Little did we know, this next month would be one of the longest of our lives!

Be well,