The Big Nursery Reveal

It took me a while, but I finally photographed our nursery! I hope you enjoy and that it was worth the wait!

A built-in bookcase was converted into basket storage, which is where all their clothes, bath stuff, things like thermometers and teething rings, and small toys go.  Baskets, Container Store.

The changing table is a DaVinci Emily in Cherry from Target.

The knobs are from Anthropologie, although I don't see them on their website. They reminded me of hot air balloons, plus they were in our third color--green, so I splurged on these at $12 each. Don't tell Blue.

We used to have a glider in here (see this post) but that now lives happily downstairs. My dad bought us this great chair from Target that takes up less space and allows easier access to the baskets.

The pillow on said chair was made by my aunt, who also did the hot air balloon, curtain, and crib skirts.

At the other end of the room are the cribs. They are DaVinci Alpha from Target or Babies R Us. So far the babies sleep together in the one on the left and we keep extra blankets in the other one. It also tends to turn into a drying rack for bibs and burp cloths in the middle of the night.

Rug is from Overstock.com and is sooo soft on your feet.

Crib skirts are custom, by my aunt.

Travel-sized sleep giraffe can be found just about anywhere.

This balloon you already know from my previous post.

At center is the artwork that really started me off on the elephants and hot air balloons thing. I just absolutely love it. It's called "Flight of the Elephants" by Terry Fan.

Clockwise from top left: card from my bridal shower; the sleep giraffe again; tub full of books; more awesome artwork I couldn't resist that was purchased on Etsy; custom curtain; tub of books and custom crib skirt; hot air balloon; and what's under the window, which includes Arm & Hammer diaper pail (we love it but you have to be gentle... we just bought our second one because someone ::ahem:: got too aggressive with the last one), Crane Drop Shape humidifier for their stuffy noses, and a Sweet Jojo hamper (which despite claims that it is machine washable and dryable will in fact shrink if you do so. My mom fought to get it back on its frame. I also have a changing pad cover in this zigzag pattern).

Most of the stuff in this collage was bought for our kiddos for Christmas or at my showers. From top left: adorable and soft animals sit atop a stack of books I picked out and adore; yes the crib is super close to the shelving and yes this will be a problem as they get bigger but hopefully we won't be in this house then; Mickey Mouse stuffed animal that belonged to my brother and then to me as a child (I distinctly remember my grandmother sewing up his back because he got a hole and was leaking the pellets that he's stuffed with. I also chewed all the black off the tip of his nose.); Velveteen Rabbit is new but the two bears were given to me by Blue our first Valentine's Day together (we were technically together the previous Valentine's Day but I was studying abroad so we were 3000 miles apart); fun toys to play with; a full shot of the shelves is only possible by moving a crib. Center: more toys and books!

As you can see, Indigo and Periwinkle are living it up in style with lots of toys to play with and books to read as they get older. I usually grab a book out of the tub to read to them before bed. Dr. Seuss books are way longer than I remember!

Please let me know what you think in the comments. I worked hard on both the nursery and this post so I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Sorry my blog format doesn't allow me to make these collages bigger, but I'll work on that!

Edited to add a photo I forgot! My mom did a custom decoupage switchplate cover that she designed on the computer, compiling several ideas I liked from other artwork:

Hot Air Balloon

I'm working on my big final nursery post, but first I wanted to show you one part of it---the hot air balloon. When I was a baby, I had this hot air balloon in my nursery. I'm not sure what store it came from, but I kept it hanging in my room all the way through college (at home, not in my dorm). I just really loved it, despite its decidedly '80s vibe.

When I moved out, I took it with me, although it never got hung. So when it came time to do the nursery for the twins, I knew I wanted to include it. It helped that I was really in love with the idea of a hot air balloon/elephant/giraffe nursery "theme." Except my color scheme is grey and yellow, and the original balloon was definitely not in that scheme.

Original balloon

So I asked my aunt if she could somehow redo the balloon, keeping the original structure but re-covering it in fabrics in my colors. It helped that she was also doing the crib skirts and curtain, so she knew what kind of fabric I had in mind. I'm pretty sure it was a bit of a challenge, but she came through, in a big way. It came out way better than I'd ever hoped.

New and improved!

She even added Dumbo!

Flying high

I just love it. It was the final touch the nursery needed (although I'm still working on putting some kind of art on the wall above the changing table).

Hope to have a complete nursery post in the next few days!

--------

After posting this yesterday, my mom emailed me to tell me more about the balloon:

Hi,
I saw your post about the balloon. I happen to remember exactly where it came from. I got it at the Cummington Balloon Fest. It was at one of the booths and it cost $18, which was much more than I could afford for something so frivolous, but I loved it and wanted it for your room. I never regret buying it.
Love,
Mom

I'm so glad you bought it, too, Mom! I hope the babies love it as much as we do!

Progress in the Nursery

So, as I mentioned yesterday, Blue built the second crib and the changing table on Friday night and we squeezed them into the nursery. I'm not sure if this has come through in previous photographs, but the room is really quite small. Here are the cribs in place:

Somehow seeing both cribs set up makes it SO real.

We have netting over the cribs to try to teach the cats that they are off-limits. Judging by the holes in the netting and the state I often find the netting in (sagging into the crib), my guess is that training isn't really taking.

They are also having trouble understanding that the changing table is not, in fact, an elevated new kitty bed.

Black Cat gives a big yawn as I wake her from a nap. Man, she's cute.

White Cat isn't going to take any crap from me. He refuses to get off the table.

And here is one of both of them, enjoying the sunshine:

Can't bring myself to just lock them out of the room. They love the sun!

If you add all these pictures together, you can see that I've just shown you the entire room. It's tight. Getting to those baskets full of clothes will be difficult at times. The shelving behind the cribs will be for long-term storage as opposed to daily-used items. And the ottoman for the glider likely won't be going into the nursery after all.

But I am really loving the rug I got. It fills the remaining floor space, pretty much, but is oh-so-soft on my feetsies. I can imagine setting the babies down on it for some tummy time. After I vacuum up the fur, of course.

Guess What?

That's right! We're having one of each gender! Baby A is the boy (and is the one who kicks me all the time) and Baby B is the girl (the one I'm convinced is going to break my ribs one of these days). Baby B is the one who seems to have my nose (phew) and Baby A may or may not have Blue's nose. We'll have to wait until they are born to see! It was so much fun revealing the genders at my second baby shower, with Blue's family, this weekend. Everyone was genuinely excited and it got kind of loud for a few minutes. The rest of the shower was great, too, and I say again that these are two lucky and loved kids. Many thanks to my sister-in-law and mother-in-law for putting it together!

Our house is currently quite the sight of mayhem with all the bags and boxes from the shower strewn about. And half our stuff is currently lodging at Blue's aunt and uncles house! Time to get serious about organizing! That will be a little easier now that the nursery floor is DONE! My stepdad rocks. He even set up one of the cribs (the other is at said aunt and uncle's house) and it's so cool to see it really look like a nursery. Pictures to come once it's more set up.

We moved the guest bed into the living room, which is a bit weird and will take some adjusting (although the cats seem to enjoy it there), but it's just awesome to not have to trudge down and up stairs four times a night. The bathroom is mere steps away! I am hoping my fitful sleeping the past few nights is a fluke and not a now-regular thing. 

So, this week makes 29 weeks along. Holy crap. Nine weeks to go until eviction, unless they come earlier of course. My baby newsletters say they will start moving less and less as they run out of room, but it certainly seems they are kicking up a storm in there! Apparently they will triple in size by birth, but I'm not sure if that holds true for twins (lord help me if it does).

The babies are currently the size of a squash, I'm guessing of the acorn variety.

It is absolutely insane that they could weigh nearly four pounds! I'm thinking more like 3, based on where they were at my last check, but really I have no idea. I will find out tonight at their last ultrasound growth check. I'm so excited to see how big they are! People keep telling me I'm pretty small for twins at this point, but I do have two months to go...

Nursery Floor Is In!

With a three-day weekend upon us, Blue decided to see if he could tackle putting in the laminate floor in the nursery himself. Our family member isn't available until next Friday, so we figured if we couldn't do it, he could still come and bail us out. Can't wait to tell him he can have his Friday night back!

With episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" playing on his iPad, Blue got to work Saturday and quickly had this done.

Today he managed to finish off the rest of the room. Here's almost done!

I can't wait to see cribs and everything in here. For now, the guest bed will be going back in for my parents, who are visiting this weekend. Here's the view from the door:

And here's a shot of the end of the room cribs are going to go in:

And another shot of the shelving end of the room, now housing all the crap in the room:

We just need to put in the trim and it's done! Hoping my parents will help with that, or at least get us started by giving us tips on how to do it.

Super proud of Blue for doing this himself! This room (heck, this house) has walls that curve and all sorts of other quirks, so there was a lot of cutting planks on a curve and all that good stuff.

All I did was stand on pieces when he was hammering them together so they wouldn't move. I'd be in our room working on our honeymoon album (two years later, I know) and he'd call for "baby weight!" and I'd go stand on a piece. I also helped hold planks while he was using the circular saw on them. So I wasn't completely useless!

And the honeymoon album would be done by now if I hadn't run out of little mounting squares. Figures. But at least the floor is mostly done, and that's a huge load off my mind. Best hubby ever!

We have flooring!

Acclimating to the humidity level of our house.

Now, just to install it... it seems easy enough, and we could probably do it ourselves. But, just to be on the safe side, and to save likely frustration, we're going to have a family member more experienced in the ways of building and construction pop by to help us out. It'll probably save a few hours of work that way, too. So excited to get it done and then begin setting stuff up in there!

Nursery Update

I finally put all the baskets on the shelves! It only took four trips to get them all home (I bought them near my office and they are heavy, surprisingly), and by that point I didn't want to think about them for a while. I still need to buy two more large yellow ones as I miscounted originally. In any event, I'm thinking they look pretty cool! I like the pop of green they bring to the room.

Black Cat and White Cat are a little unsure about losing the shelving to sit on, and have already tried to get into the baskets, but I think they'll adjust. Black Cat is taking a breather here in between attempts to infiltrate the baskets.

Flooring Fiasco

After weeks of deliberation and back-and-forth with Home Depot, we finally ordered flooring for the nursery.

In the beginning of July we got the room measured and requested a quote for a hardwood floor I'd found online. It appeared to match what we have in the rest of the upstairs and wasn't too expensive. Score!

They called with the quote, which was WAY higher than expected. I was confused. I told them we'd think about it.

They proceeded to call us a zillion times, and during one call I realized they had quoted us for wood that was TWICE as expensive as what I told them. I'd even given them the model number. But they decided we needed something more expensive. This led to angry mama. He told me to go talk to someone in person at our local store.

So off we went, and found that the wood I'd picked out was on clearance, and thus was in the store's computers at $0.01 a box. I was all, "Sounds like a good deal to me! Sign me up!" but what this really meant is that they couldn't do anything for us in the store. They gave me some employee's card and told me to call him.

And it turns out he was the guy who told me to go in the store in the first place. And there was no way to assign the project to an installer because the wood wasn't for sale in the stores. It was online only, clearance, and thus they couldn't help us. Can we say stupid? You won't let me pay you to do this, because your computer doesn't see the wood in its system? Bizarro. We decided we'd order it online and have our handy-dandy brother-in-law do it (he was up for it, phew).

This is what it felt like:

pophangover.com

At this point I looked at the floors upstairs again and realized it was laminate, not hardwood. Doh!

Now what to do? Continue with the hardwood plan, or try to really match what we already had? Much discussion and indecision later, I made the executive decision to just order the damned laminate. So I did. I only have a vague idea of what other materials and tools we'll need because we are no longer going off the hardwood quote from Home Depot that helpfully listed them all, but between friends who have installed laminate before and aforementioned handy-dandy BIL, I think we'll be okay.

And much to my frustration, the laminate that matched the best and was available soonest was from Home Depot. I really wanted to have nothing to do with them after all the misinformation, but I did it anyways.

I do have to say we will likely be switching to Lowe's for most of our home improvement needs from now on. It's only a little farther away than Home Depot so it's not a big deal.

Nursery Progress

This weekend my mother and I made some progress on the nursery. And by "my mother and I" I mean "my mother" because she wouldn't let me be around the paint and I was just generally useless but very supportive.

We bought some soft green paint for an accent color to paint the back of the built-in shelving unit. We also took off the doors that used to go on the unit for easier access to the baskets. Right now there's just the one basket, but I just ordered a slew more. These baskets will hold clothing and other baby paraphernalia. We'll have baskets in yellow and in green to mix it up a bit. Only a little of the green paint will ultimately peek through. My stuffed animals are holding down the fort for now.

 

We (again, my mom) also cleaned all of Black Cat's fur off of the glider and put a towel down to prevent her from furring it up again. She'll probably jump right back on once the babies come and the towel is gone though...

The room is coming together and looking much more like a usable nursery (except for the full-sized bed still in the room for now for guests). I still have to finalize the Home Depot installation of our hardwood floors, but I did call and confirm the materials and realized they had us down for more expensive flooring that had a similar name to what we want. So we'll be saving a few hundred dollars now that it's been fixed. Woohoo!

Blue and my stepdad went to a baseball game on Saturday but still managed to fix our chandelier, put up the gate on the pool deck, remove my old bureau and desk (which my parents are taking) and arrange the new bureau and desk in our bedroom, and install a shoe rack my stepdad built for me that helps us gain a bit more space in the bedroom. So everyone was very productive.

I, on the other hand, emptied the dishwasher and supervised everyone else...

Although, I did succeed in torturing my mom for a bit after I told her we knew genders but weren't going to tell her until they arrived Friday. I bought an outfit for each baby that would make gender obvious and wrapped them up as her early birthday gift. Many squeals were to be heard--probably throughout the neighborhood--as she opened each part.

And now she gets to enjoy torturing everyone else, especially her sisters, until we decide if/when to reveal the news (aunts, try to be kind when attempting to pry the info out of her!). Maybe we'll wait until they are born, maybe we'll cave a little earlier. We shall see!

Black Cat--Approved

As I mentioned last week, we got a great deal on a glider-ottoman set from Babies R Us. We got it into the nursery (barely) and stepped back as our two cats (Black Cat and White Cat --- everyone is a color in our house!) sniffed it out. Black Cat was scared of it at first, or maybe was just creeped out by my reading a kid's book out loud to her. In any event, it took them a few minutes to get used to it. While they've both taken their turns on it, judging by the amount of black fur already in place on the seat, I'd have to say it's Black Cat's new favorite spot in the house. I hope she's not too upset when I use it with the babies!

I Must Look Preggo!

Today at lunch I got my first "Congrats" from a stranger! I was at the Container Store buying some bins for the nursery (which admittedly are marketed as being for a nursery or kid's room) and the clerk congratulated me.

Clerk: Congratulations!

Me: Thanks! (huge smile)

Clerk: How far along are you?

Me: Four months!

Clerk: (looks me up and down again)

Me: It's twins!

Clerk: Oh wow! Because I was going to say...

And we then proceeded to talk about twins while she finished checking me out. All of this was said very nicely and she just totally made my day. And she approved of my baskets.

Green is our third "accent" color that will appear in little pops around the room.

Most of the baskets will still be yellow, though.

I think these are my first physical purchase for the nursery. Very exciting! I ordered some art yesterday but I won't have those in my hands for a few more days, at least.

Need Opinions

It just occurred to me that the "You are my sunshine" art that I wanted might not be right for twins, because it is singular (only sunshine). But it would be dumb to have them change it to "sunshines" right? Or am I just overthinking this?

Here's the art again.

Let me know what you think.

Paintapalooza

So this weekend was paintapalooza weekend, which basically means my stepdad painted while the rest of us attempted to make sense of the pile of crap my office vomited into my bedroom (me and my mom) and/or tended to yardwork (Blue).

As a refresher, a few "before" shots, of the room nearly empty:

Again, the cribs will be over on that side.

Goodbye, beautiful teal wall. I painted it all by myself three years ago!

There's actually space for a glider once you take out the huge filing cabinet!

And now, a few "after" shots! Keep in mind, this is after painting the walls grey (we went back and got the darker, Sterling color, after all), hours of my mother's life taping stripes on the ceiling, and then painting said stripes.

That bookcase was in the wall, which turns out to have a lot of storage space. We're still trying to figure out the best way to use that space and have shelving for babies.

Stripes!

More stripes!

I think it's very cool.

Black cat agrees.

Blue, however, is still iffy. I think it'll be hard to see how it'll all come together until we get it set up. I think it's going to be beautiful. No, I know it's going to be beautiful.

One downside of the weekend was finding that our discovered hardwood floors under the carpet turned out to be linoleum, which was covered in paint splatters. Looks like we'll be heading to Lowe's or Home Depot to price out hardwood after all. Since it's a small room, it still won't be crazy pricey. Just another part of the project we need to do now.

And now it's time to go. I'm home from work today with a migraine. Headaches were a major problem earlier in my pregnancy, but the addition of benadryl to my regimen had been helping. No major headaches in about a month. Until this morning. I'm wondering if moving everything out of my office introduced a TON of dust into our bedroom and really kicked up my allergies... In any event, computers aren't places for people with crazy headaches, so off I go.

Oh yeah, one more thing: I'm sixteen weeks today! Sixteen! That's four whole months! Where the heck is this year going? I'll do a post on what that means for the babies either later or tomorrow. I know you love seeing what size fruit they are now!

We Bought Paint!

I'm far too excited about the fact that we have a gallon of grey and a quart of yellow paint sitting at home waiting to go up on the walls and ceiling in the nursery. A lot remains to be done before we can tackle painting on Saturday (namely, emptying the room), but the paint is ready and waiting!

Stripes on the ceiling will be Frosted Lemon and white.

Walls will be Sterling.

The paint blob on the top of the can for the grey is almost white, but I'm hoping it shows up darker on the walls. (edit: We were going to go with Full Moon, and bought that paint, but ended up deciding it wouldn't be dark enough. So the day of painting we went back and bought Sterling, after all.) And I'm totally psyched about the Frosted Lemon. It's just such a sweet, soft color.

Yay, paint! And the best part is I can't help actually do it because of the fumes! I just get to supervise! Win-win!

Nursery Mockups

Today in my aimless online browsing (another slow day), I found a really pretty crib that's of a bit more interest than the Ikea one I had been planning on getting. First, the Ikea one:

A simple crib to save space; Sniglar, Ikea, $69.99

I found this other crib, which is more expensive but also more visually interesting. As Blue put it, "It's not a cage." I'd thought Blue only wanted Natural color cribs, but it turns out he's open to darker colors too, just not white. So that opened our options up a bit (and makes it MUCH easier to find a coordinating changing table/dresser unit). So this is our new favorite crib, and it has a similar footprint to the Ikea one, so two will fit in the space we have.

DaVinci Alpha 3-in-1 Convertible Crib in Cherry; $150, multiple sites

I love it because it has a bit of the vintage flair that I love in the Jenny Lind crib (which Blue vetoed, which is fine, since it's longer than this one and space is precious) and is more interesting than the "cage" one. Just for comparison, the Jenny Lind:

Beautiful DaVinci Jenny Lind crib, various sites, around $200

So there were our main options, but I still wasn't sure about the cherry color with the yellow and grey. So I asked my artistic, graphic artist, awesome mom her opinion. And rather than saying, "Yes, looks great!" she popped into Photoshop and did some mockups, using my inspiration photos and using a photo she'd taken of the room, along with the crib (set as a toddler bed -- how cute!). Looks pretty awesome!

Looks nice in a greyer room.

Good with a splash of yellow!

Yes, this is the general plan for the room. Can't wait for stripes!

She switched out the colors just for fun.

And of course there will be another, identical crib right next to it. And two probably crying babies in them. Can't wait to see it all come together in real life! Thanks, Mom!

Nursery "Before" Shots

Currently, the room that will become the nursery doubles as my office and the guest room. Basically, it looks like my bedroom did when I lived alone. Bed with a black and white comforter, a brightly painted accent wall, my computer, and lots and lots (and lots) of books.

It's a small room, maybe 10 x 11, with some odd angles and niches. Fitting nursery furniture was going to be tight with one baby, but now with two, we'll be lucky to fit two cribs!

We'll somehow squeeze two cribs between the window and the back wall.

A changing table will go on the other side of the window.

And I'm hoping to find room somewhere for a rocker of some sort. A very small sort.

Luckily there are some built in shelving units that will store baby clothes, toys, and extra diapers. Because lord knows we'll be buying stock in diapers with twins.

One of our cats models the spaciousness of one of the built-ins.

This past weekend I whittled down my books from about 200 to about 100. Now I just need to find a place in our bedroom for a bookshelf to store them on. And I need to start reading them, stat, because I know I won't have time to read once the babies arrive!