Oh, hey. We're ready for a newbie.

Days are flying by me so fast I can barely even fathom that in 5-9 weeks, I'll be carting around a brand new person - in my arms and not my gut. Luckily, said new person will have the most pimped out room in the house.

The lounging side of the room. We got the glider from Homemakers because big-box baby store gliders are the ugliest things I'd ever seen.

Admittedly, the least fun corner of the room. But how much do you love the woodland storage bins? They make my world so happy.

My masterpiece. Stenciled from a projected image of our wedding invitations, the tree is going to be reason number one I'll cry when we sell this house.

The nursery is about 95% ready for inhabitation. The drawers are piled high with washed cloth diapers and jammies, and the closet is organized and brimming with all kinds of totally weird shit like nipple pads and cabinet locks that will definitely make me feel stupid someday.

Baby BBB is going to have one pampered heinie.

These PJs are so tiny!

Honestly, I don't really know what to even do with half of this stuff.

 Toys and blankets. These, I know how to use.

All that is left is some art on the walls, which we'll get to sometime in the next month or so. Until then, focus 'round these parts is on soaking up the beauty of sleeping in late, not feeling guilty about having three types of ice cream in the freezer, and watching Game of Thrones without worrying that we may be traumatizing an impressionable young mind.

The view from here.

Branding the baby's room

The mural! Based on the tree I used as the grounding graphic force for our wedding, I created a super adorable baby room mural. I mean, I spent $75 for a very talented gal on Etsy to develop my wedding invites and this tree and really, I'm just trying to get the most bang for my buck by making this tree our family logo. (Our family also has a few favorite fonts that fit our "brand," too in case you were wondering. I'm clearly that bizarre.)

I mentioned before that painting this wasn't too bad, even for an art dunce like myself. A nice projector, a sharp pencil and a steady hand is all it took to create:

Ooooooo!

Ahhhhhh!

For those of you curious, Hubs is the green bird, I'm the yellow bird and Baby BBB is the teal bird. Hubs (bless his heart!) originally asked to be painted with the markings of a sun conure. After perusing the paint selections, though, he realized he didn't want to upstage the kiddo's bird and also, he did not want his wife/artiste to have a conniption fit trying to replicate nature's beautiful bounty. Hubs is a wise, wise man.

I did two coats, but there are still lots of great brush strokes, which only add to the tree-ness of it all. I can't wait to camp out in here every night and stare at this sucker while I'm in a sleep deprived zombie state.

Now that this is done, the baby's room work is on hold for a few days while we finish the bathroom. Then, the floors need to get refinished (barf). That's on the calendar for next weekend. I can only imagine how excited you all are to read about the whole sand, buff, seal thang. I'll make it fun, I promise.

Pregnant in Paint Clothes

While Hubs was dutifully demo-ing and rebuilding the bathroom, I was in the next room over, getting the baby room all ready for some artistry. I wore my respirator and cracked the windows (despite seriously freezing temps), plus took breaks after each wall to keep baby seven kinds of safe. 

This second picture shows the true color much better than the first. It's Behr's Natural Gray. In dimmer lights, it seems a little purple-y, but once we get some art on the walls and furniture in, it should be less noticeable. But, if we're being honest here, I love the purpleness and don't think it will be much of a problem because I'm pretty sure real man-babies lives in sorta purple rooms.

With the walls gray and the trim nice and white, it was time for me to tap into my inner artiste. Long-time readers may remember our wedding logo, which I plastered on everything like the good little branding nerd that I am. That same logo is being revived in mural form for the kiddo's room. The one change? Obviously, we're adding a third bird to the mix, which means homeslice is about to freestyle and leave the safe confines of tracing. 

I borrowed a projector, traced out the swirly swoops of the tree branches, moved and resized the birds and then, took a big deep breath and got to painting.

The first few swipes were terrifying. I'm not a gal known for my artistic prowess, but here I was, doing my best to not eff up my first-born's room.

(Side note: Isn't the best part of Christmas break NEVER wearing real pants? I went jeans-free for nine full days, minus a short break to meet Brittney and her dudes for brunch.)

The whole tracing and first coat took me just about two-hours and was fueled by one decaf frappucino and the Nappy Roots station on Pandora. Stay tuned for the reveal of the full tree in all her majestic glory. This single act of semi-art is also sure to leave me in a puddle of tears when the time comes to sell this little spit of land, though I think if I can get enough traction on Pinterest, it may add value. Right? That's a valid sales strategy, isn't it?

Spoiler alert: I amazed myself and this mural is the bomb dot com, y'all. Once the baby sees this, he's going to expect a much higher level of craft-i-tude than I normally posses.

Baby steps!

Last Saturday, we made some small, but significant progress. It was a decent 50-degree day, so I cracked open the windows and painted the ceiling in the nursery-to-be.

Here it is before my handy work. Dingy and sad!

And after. Excuse the bad lighting, but trust that it is crisp and white.

The best part of painting a room top to bottom is not having to stay in the lines. Since I was just slapping paint around the edges, I was able to finish up pretty quick. Then, I finally moved everything out of the closets in this room and found new homes for all our crap (note: if you want any old polos, office supplies or bike gear, head to the Goodwill in Urbandale stat! About 80% of our stuff found its way there.).

Meanwhile, on the other side of the wall, Hubs was wreaking havoc on the tile walls.

 He ripped down the tile and will soon skimcoat the plaster to even it out so the wainscoating will sit nice and even.

Feeling inspired, he didn't stop there. He also removed the countertop overhang - the part that inexplicably went over the toilet - and cut a backerboard to size for the new countertop.

Our potty looks pretty squat and pathetic without its counter overlord.

And for fun: a bump picture! Here I am in the midst of work:

And all cleaned up with my favorite inflatable penguin:

Just about ready to hit 22 weeks: still lifting regularly, running about 7-9 (turtleslow) miles each week, taking Bradley Method classes and now a serious sock bun devotee.

Up next, I'll be working on taking the blonde trim to a shiny white and Hubs will be removing the mirror and skimcoating before we hop on the rebuilding train! This week, work is moving slow as I still need to get Christmas cards out, bake cookies, nap, etc. Napping is key.

Switching gears

Last week, we found out our bathroom tiles are on back-order and instead of arriving tomorrow, the 12th, the granite for the counter top and porcelain for the floor won't be in our grubby little hands until after Christmas. This throws a huge wrench in our works because the work really can't move too far past demo without the main re-building materials, you know? Sucks how that works.

So, rather than carry on with demo and live with a ripped up bathroom for three weeks, we are turning our sights toward a project we hadn't planned on doing until late January: the baby's room!

Crazy, right?

So, here is our second bedroom. Part office, part guest room, part catch-all - this poor space needs some serious love.

It's the last room in the house with the original blonde wood trim, the walls are a sad yellow, the ceiling bears the marks of multiple other wall colors, the light fixture is pathetic and the floor is beat to hell.

Poor Baby deserves a little better. We aren't going to find out if the little dude is in fact a dude or a little lady, so all the decorations will be neutral.

So, the plan for this room is:

• Moving out all the adult furniture and bringing in the baby gear: crib, dresser, glider, yada yada yada
• Paint the ceiling a nice, fresh, uniform white
• Pull out the light fixture and replace it with a ceiling fan
• Paint the walls a pale gray
• Paint a fancy-pancy mural of a tree on one wall
• Paint the trim white
• Refinish the floors

Nothing major, so the plan is to knock this out while we wait for the bathroom tile. I have Christmas week off work, so with my trusty mask and a few cracked windows, I should be able to get the painting pretty much set. 

What's your Christmas project?