What it's all about

Monday, January 31, 2011

the rug came!


i swear, i have had the best luck with ordering area rugs on overstock.com.  
i found this one for $70, and it's just perfect!  
the color is called "moss" so we thought it would be perfect for the travel/nature theme in the nursery.  and it is!  
it's also super soft, and slightly bigger than i expected.  
i think it really helps tie the room together and make it a little bit more cozy. 
what do you think?

Sunday, January 30, 2011

the nursery!

so the nursery is pretty much almost done. it's like 97% done.  enough for a blog post.

but first, let's all just take a moment and remember what the nursery looked like "before":


mmm mmm mmm!  (more before pics here and nursery progress here)

but now let's all take a deep breath (shake off the eebie jeebies from the before shot) and prepare ourselves for...
THE FINISHED PRODUCT!!!

this is the head-on view of the nursery.  

we made a valance and curtains to cover the bookshelves (a craigs list find) and make it look like a comfy nook.  

the day bed (a barely used pottery barn hand-me-down from billy's sister) is great for resting or pulls out to a king size bed for company.  

billy plans to put some crown molding around the map (which we found affordably at allposters.com) to achieve a framed look.

i spent a lot of time choosing fabric for the nursery.  i picked a very inexpensive corduroy for the curtain panels that gave us a velvet look, but for a lesser price (i think it was like 6 bucks a yard)!  the green pattern of the valance is part of a three fabric series i found online at purlsoho.com.   these fabrics were more expensive, but we used them to make the baby's crib bumper and crib skirt and those are way more expensive to buy at the store than it is to make them... no matter how pricey your fabric is!

the chandelier came into my shop.  i just love it.  it doesn't run on electric, but instead has little cups that hold battery operated tea- lights.  it looks so romantic in there when they're turned on at night!  and yes, there is a chandelier in our baby boy's room.  i don't care.  we were going for gender neutral.  shush.

this is the left side-ish view of the nursery.  

you can see the bookshelves that are behind the curtains and will eventually fill up with all of our cool books.  

you can see the crib is in the back left corner of the room.  

the chest next to the radiator is super cool and was also a find at my shop.  it houses all of baby's toys and stuffed animals.  

on top is his cd player to play all of his rock-a-bye baby cd's courtesy of steve and lindsay (lullaby renditions of led zeppelin, pink floyd, the beatles, etc... so cool!)  

the feed bag pillow is covering up the outlet that the window lights are plugged into.  i hate exposed wires!  we decided to leave the lights in the windows in here after christmas in lieu of a nightlight.  it looks so much cooler!  

the handmade sign above the window reads "murphy- all because two people fell in love" and was a wedding gift from the lovely and talented kim segal.

 this is the right side of the baby's room. 

you can see the great dresser/changing table that billy's sister handed down to us, as well as the great pottery barn shelves. 

the rocking chair is the rocking chair my mama rocked me in. 

the basket is for trash, but you can't see my super nifty diaper wet bag hanging on the other side of the dresser. 

behind the changing pad is the cloth wipes warmer, and a white bucket housing all of baby's cloth diapers!  they are so cute! 

you can also see to the right a cool vintage vegetable barrel which acts as a hamper.

 here's a close up of the crib. 

i just love the tree fabric and the nature-y print of the crib skirt fabric. 

if you think the mobile looks familiar, it is!  mom saw my previous post proclaiming our love for a mobile we found on etsy, so she decided she'd just go ahead and make one herself!  and it turned out even better than the etsy one, in my opinion!  we just love it. 

so, those were the best "area" pics, but here are some close ups of my favorite little details:





 we really wanted something different for the nursery, and i am so happy with the way it turned out. 
i love that it's original, and that it's something of our own creative building instead of a pre-packaged set you buy at the store. 
everything that went into the nursery is either passed down from family, made from scratch and with love by my mom (the most excited grandma to be ever), gifted to us by dear friends and family, or hunted down and found on a budget.  i feel like the nursery is as much of my baby as my baby! haha!
i'm glad that it turned out so "us" and i know it will be just perfect for our little guy!  i like how comfortable it is for us and for baby. 

we are expecting an area rug to be delivered tomorrow, so i will post a picture of that once it arrives. 

hope you like the finished product as much as we do!

hello again, blog.

hey there blog.
i know, i've neglected to post for like umm, forever.
but lots of things have been keeping me busy over here. 
like christmas, and new years, and baby showers, and snow storms, and premature labor. 
here's an update:

christmas:


it was really fun to decorate the house.  not so much fun to undecorate it.  thankfully mom helped me... when she came up to visit last week and everything was still decorated (oops).  it's hard to climb up 9 foot christmas trees when you're 9 months pregnant!

baby showers:

our sweet family friend, nadyne, threw me a lovely shower in maryland over new years weekend.  mom was in newfoundland to be with poppy before he passed away, so it was especially nice to be with church friends and family and celebrate the little one during such a tough time.


mandy and steph threw me a shower at deluxe in wilmington with all of my wilmington girlfriends.  i love these girls and we had such a nice time.  mandy and steph really outdid themselves, and i got a lot of really nice things!  it's so fun to get together with the wilmington gals and celebrate big life events... there are a lot of weddings (and i have a feeling more babies!) coming up this year! yay!

snow storms:


we've had a few.  this was our most recent on wednesday night.  snow is way more fun when you don't own your own house and have to shovel your own enormous driveway.  we had to cut down a bazillion branches the next morning and drag them through the yard just so we could make it out of our driveway!  it was pretty though.  and my favorite part of snow storms are always snow days!  especially the mornings:

beautiful blue skies

 billy makes breakfast!

 and the whole world looks like it's covered in vanilla frosting.

okay you're basically all caught up now.  i promise i'll pay more attention to you in the upcoming weeks.  mostly because i'm becoming less mobile.