Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Nursery: Crib and Blanket


A few months ago I had my heart set on a crib from IKEA and then IKEA pulled all of its cribs out of US stores due to recent laws that had passed concerning drop sides on cribs. I was disappointed, but held out hope that IKEA would modify the designs and bring their cribs back to the US.

Luckily that is exactly what happened and we were able to get a crib we loved without spending an arm and a leg.

Daniel and I decided on the white SUNDVIK crib {above}. Once we had it home we hacked it to make it fit in with our nursery look. We painted the end gray to match the dresser and then I stenciled bicycles on it.

I created the stencil from a piece of fabric I scanned into my computer. I love technology!

The Michael Miller Bicycle Haze fabric has been the basis for the theme in this room. I purchased the fabric off the internet and had every intention of buying a custom blanket from an Etsy shop owner. Unfortunately the Etsy owner decided to pull out of working with me and I decided I would take a stab at making my own blanket.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Before and After


We have finally made some headway on our nursery and while it is by no means finished, I thought I would go ahead and share a glimpse of one of our recent projects.


When Daniel and I were first married, we both had old dressers that came with us from our days of being single. These two dressers have been relegated to our guest rooms as they function well and we have been too cheap to replace them. Daniel's dresser is a remnant of the 80s. It has wood veneer and brass pulls. I have never been fond of this dresser. 


In my mind I have always wanted to paint it. I even tried to convince Daniel of painting the wood several years ago, but for some reason he put me off {I was under the impression that it was a relic from his boyhood that he didn't want to change... which turned out not to be the case}. 


Once we started the nursery decorating, I was able to finally persuade him that painting was the way to go. The argument that painting was much cheaper than buying a new piece of furniture was all I needed to persuade my frugal husband.


Playing off the theme I had established {in this post}, we decided to paint the dresser white with gray panels and add new hardware. I will also be adding a stencil to the gray panels. Once we were finished, Daniel wanted to know why we hadn't painted the dresser before. I guess I should have tried harder to persuade him in the past!


More pictures of the nursery to come once we get artwork hung and things where we want them. 


Monday, October 10, 2011

52 Books: Book 42


I did it! It took me almost four months but I finally finished reading the classic novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville. This may be a record for the length of time it took me to complete a book {not a record I am exactly proud of though}.

I don't even know what to say about this book. The beginning was interesting. Starting with the famous line, "Call me Ishmael," it tells a first hand account of how Ishmael ends up on the ship, the Pequod, sailing with Captain Ahab. But about a quarter of the way in, the book gets really heavy on details. Everything you could possibly want to know about whales and then some. 

Melville goes on to write very graphic descriptions of how they hunted the great whales and then gutted them. It was almost too much. 

Mostly I felt like I was trying to read the book of Leviticus {if Leviticus was 500+ pages long}... the details go on and on and and on and on. The end of the book transitioned to reading more like a play. Overall it never really engaged me like the book Ahab's Wife that I read earlier this year {hence the four months of reading} .

My husband asked if I was glad I finished it. I told him that it was kind of like running a half marathon – it was not that enjoyable but since I chose to read it I am glad that I finished in a "I'm not a quitter" sense.

Saturday, October 08, 2011

Nursery Progress

We had an exhausting, but productive day in Atlanta yesterday. Before we headed to Georgia we really debated whether to take Sophie with us. The upside is that she isn't stuck in a house alone all day long – for possibly 12 hours {eek}. The downside is that she is stuck in a car all day – but she is with us and we take breaks and let her roam around when we can. Plus the outside temperature was perfect. In the end, we took her with us.

This was a good thing since we were gone for close to 12 hours {we try not to leave her alone for more than 8 hours at a time, with a max of 10}.

Anyway, we left Hollywood and made a few stops in Chattanooga first – errands that really needed to be taken care of. When we finally arrived in Atlanta, our first stop was the La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery in Kennesaw. 

We had already been to the Chattanooga AND Huntsville stores and gotten the whole spiel from the salespeople. We were hoping to avoid the sales pitch again, but those guys are good at making you listen to them. The positive was that we knew exactly what we wanted to look and our sales guy, Ed, was actually really helpful. If they had had our rocker in stock in the color we wanted we would have bought it from them in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, the fabric we want {graphite} is a special order. 

After much debate we decided to order from Chattanooga to save us some drive time. Thankfully we know what we are getting. Unfortunately it won't be here for 6-8 weeks, so Jack should be here before our La-Z-Boy is. Such is life in the world of habitual procrastinators.


After La-Z-Boy, we made our way to the Target at Midtown to pick up a Fisher-Price Newborn Rock 'n Play Sleeper. We have been looking for this item for a while. Unfortunately Amazon sells it for double the price of Target, but none of the Targets that are close to us had any in stock. Thank goodness for living close to a variety of major cities.

Post Target we hit up IKEA. Our IKEA plan is always to know what we are there for BEFORE we arrive. We were on a mission and were able to get in and out in about an hour and a half. 

There were two dressers that I was interested in – one for an upstairs changing table and one to be used in our foyer area {that could also double as a downstairs changing area if needed}.
 
We may eventually paint it another color to match our downstairs furniture better.

We also found a chair we both liked for our bedroom. This is our solution for the first few weeks when Jack sleeps in our room. It will also come in handy until our La-Z-Boy arrives.
We chose a black frame with the Dala Natural cushion.
 
And finally the crib for the nursery. The plan is to paint the end panels a dark gray – pictures to come. You can see what we have in mind from my nursery mood board.


I would call our shopping day long but very productive. We were home by 10PM and very tired. Today we are painting an old dresser and the crib. We hope to have most of our pieces assembled by the end of the weekend. That pretty much covers the big items. As soon as we have it all pulled together I will post pictures of the nursery. 

We still have plenty of little things to pick up, but we are all about a minimalistic approach to having a newborn... Jack isn't going to need a whole lot right away and we have the important items covered. We will get the rest as we go. No need to rush out and buy a bunch of products we aren't even sure that we want.

As for Sophie... we managed to fit everything INSIDE the Subaru. This left a small area for her to ride home in. But she was a trooper. I think she would rather be driving around with us {even surrounded by boxes of furniture} than to be left at home alone... That's what we tell ourselves anyway!

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Mood Board for Our Nursery

 
Sad to say that I am about 5 weeks from my due date and almost zero progress has been made on our nursery. We are planning on remedying that this weekend with a trip to Atlanta.

Above is a mood board I have created of some of the pieces we are considering for the nursery – mind you that seeing this stuff in person will determine whether or not we get it.

The artwork {seen here – we used it as decorations at out baby shower} is completed and framed, waiting to be hung {which requires furniture for placement}. 

We also have an old chest of drawers that we are painting white – possibly with gray panels and bicycles stenciled on to match the crib.

The crib we are considering is the SUNDVIK from Ikea. I plan on painting the outside panel and stencilling bicycles to match the Bicycle Haze fabric by Michael Miller.

The rocker recliner is the gray Cole Reclina-Rocker® Recliner by La-Z-Boy.

The blanket was found on Etsy with the Bicycle Haze fabric.

And the locker chest is from Ikea – I am thinking it would make a good window seat.

We will get it finished, we are just hoping that it will happen before baby boy arrives.
 

Sunday, October 02, 2011

Do You Pinterest?

Pinterest. An addicting world of collective inspiration. I save all the inspiring things I come across on the blogs I read and I get to be inspired by what my friends find inspiring.

The only problem is I have yet to really put any of this inspiration to use.

While I adore the site and enjoy seeing my friends pins, I am feeling the urge to do something besides just troll the internet. With this in mind, I have decided to set a monthly goal of putting this inspiration to use. At least once a month I want to be creating something based on one of these images that I find so inspiring.

Maybe I try a new recipe...


Maybe I make something for our nursery...


Maybe I make something for myself...


The point is I am going to try to do more than just be inspired.

Saturday, October 01, 2011

Life in the Slow Lane

People in the south take things a little slower. Especially if you happen to live in a small town. Sometimes this can be a source of frustration. Other times it can truly be a blessing.

 {image via} 

Friday night, Daniel's dad came for a quick overnight visit. He wanted to go eat at The Docks. I have mixed feelings about The Docks. The atmosphere is amazing – you can sit on a deck overlooking the lake at sunset. But the service is incredibly slow. If you eat here, you need to plan on staying for at least an hour, probably 1.5 hours. The food is good, but a little pricey for a small town, after all you are paying for the lake experience. Last night was a great time to go. We arrived just before sunset and the temperature was perfect. It did get a little cool as we sat there {thankfully I had grabbed a sweater}. As usual it was a drawn-out meal, but we enjoyed our visit with Wesley.

Daniel had the Sea Bass with Rice and Asparagus, I had the Petite Sirloin with Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Veggies and Wesley had the Fettuccine Alfredo. We all had a starter of soup and bread.

The Docks on Urbanspoon

Today we took Wesley on a mini tour of the Hollywood/Scottsboro area. Showing him the sites... like downtown Hollywood {hah}. Then on to Scottsboro to see Unclaimed Baggage. I didn't find any books today, but Daniel and I did find a used BabyBjorn for $8 and plan to go back to get it later.


After driving around the court square we decided to have lunch at Geno's Pizza. This is one of a handful of places that Daniel and I frequent. The pizza is decent, but again you pretty much better be prepared to wait. We were one of two tables in the ENTIRE restaurant and it took over 10 minutes to place our order. Like I said, things are slower in these parts. Our pizza was good – typical pizza sports bar fare. And we waited for our check while watching the Arkansas/Texas A&M game.

We split a large Meaty pizza.

Geno's Pizza & Grill on Urbanspoon

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