The nursery

My goal was to have Audrey's nursery complete by the end of the year. While it's still missing a few elements, I'm excited to say that if I go in labor today – she will come home to a room that looks done and is now finally clean.

I didn't do a mood board for this room. I'm not sure if this hurt or helped me in the long run. I tried to use Pinterest, but I was even way to indecisive for even that and didn't make it too far. I can't even count how many times I changed my mind on fabrics. Really, the only piece of the nursery I was positive on was my argyle wall – so I based all of my decisions off of that.

The other deciding factor was budget. Baby items are a lot like wedding items – tack the word baby in front of it and the price sky rockets. So, I had my one splurge item – the glider and ottoman set, and then actually repurposed a lot of items for this space.


The crib is actually from Wal-Mart. It wasn't our original first choice (we were actually wanting the Somnat crib in green from Ikea and even made the 7-hour journey to Minneapolis for it. Of course, this was during Ikea's massive crib recall, so that idea fell through). When I saw the Baby Mod crib at Wal-Mart though, I came up with a new plan. Keep the crib white, and paint the wood base at the bottom green. I like this look so much more, and I still have a crib with some green on it.

I actually received this star in 2005 as a graduation present from my parents. It's been in a lot of rooms, but I think it going in a nursery is rather perfect. It's from a fabulous decor store in Lawrence, KS, that sadly closed several years ago.

Audrey's first Picasso's:

The glider and ottoman set are from BuyBuy Baby and were the big splurge, coming in at $600. The houndstooth quilt pattern was $7.50, and I had that made (this girl does not sew). The pillow is something I got off Etsy for my family room several years ago. The lamp is from Target, and the table is from a Craigslist flip I did in 2010.

The dresser was a $40 purchase off of Craigslist that I repainted. The painting is a DIY project I did several weekends ago.

The Expedit shelf was another must for the nursery:

An art fair purchase from 5 years ago:

The closet:

Drawer organization:

I started the nursery at 15 weeks. And at 34 weeks and 6 days, I can happily say "done!"

Christmas cheer

I have a confession, while my house is decorated for the holidays – I'm just not feeling it. I have been distracted by a December full of baby showers, thank you cards, baby classes and nursery preparations. And I'm so ready for Audrey to get here that I'm having trouble focusing on anything else.

Originally, I thought I would go all out this year for Christmas, because it's Brent's and my last year as just the two of us. But, it's just not happening. While all the decor is out, third trimester exhaustion has set in, and some nights I don't even have the energy to turn on the penguin tree lights (I know! I must be tired to ignore something so fabulous). Well, mainly it's because bending down has gotten rather tricky. Thankfully, Brent is still bendy, so he's taken over the light duty.

Anyway...here's the part you care about – the decor.

The sweet tree

The family tree

I'll be especially excited about the family tree next Christmas when Audrey is here. I'm even toying with the idea of doing silhouettes of all the family instead of photos.

The penguin tree

My favorite new penguin ornament:

The formal tree

The classic tree

Other holiday photos from around the house...

The master closet

While I'm a judgmental snob when it comes to those in "new construction houses," there is one aspect of new houses that I'm insanely jealous of – the master bedroom closets. I wish Brent and I had any form of a walk-in closet in our bedroom. Instead, we have this:


Yep, that's all the clothing space we have.

To make due, I also took over the closet in the second guest bedroom.


But, since that's Audrey's future room – something had to be done. So we cleared out our closet and got to work.


Brent had tons of board leftover from the built-ins in the man cave, so I figured why not get creative. We divided our closet in half, and each drew out a game plan of what type of storage we needed. Brent wanted a special section for his suites and some shoe storage, but maintaining room for other clothes was important to him. I went the opposite route and actually cut the clothing part of my closet in half. This way I had plenty of room for shoes, purses and other things. While it will definitely be different switching out close each season, that's what worked best for me.

Brent and had shelves built and installed in no time.


Then we got to buy/paint one of the few items we needed for this project – edging.


Much better.

The best part – my things now fit in this closet. Yay!


Sure it's not a walk-in closet, but I will survive. And now this means Audrey's closet is ready to be started.

WTH is R.O.C. 2

When I discovered even some friends had no idea where in my house R.O.C. 2 (room of crap) was, I figured it was time for a basement floor plan.

The basement is more than a man cave – it also houses our guest bedroom and R.O.C. 2.


One day when the 2 bedrooms upstairs are kids' rooms, the office will be moved into R.O.C. 2. As for now, it stores crap. I thought it'd be fun to turn it into a wine cellar, but Brent quickly vetoed that idea. Such a fun killer.

Anywho, I hope that clears up some visual questions. :)

The other side

I love the built-ins Brent and I did for the man cave. But it was looking a little sad on the other side of the stairs.


So, during our "rush week," Brent and I added that task to the list and had this project finished in no time.


Our biggest obstacle was the vent, since we didn't want to block it. The solution: just letting the vent be.


The "end" result:

I still need to find something for the bottom. I was thinking some sort of basket for storage. As for the top, Brent's wanting to get a second TV.

Curb Appeal (day 4)

What we left off with on day 3:

With how long the first set of timbers took Brent to remove, I wasn't expecting to get too much work done – so imagine my surprise when they all came out together:

What my timber-free landscape is looking like:

Yep, it's so much better already.

Next, we started the part I've been dreading – digging out the path:

And since I apparently need to run into a snafu each day I work on this project – we found a block of concrete in the middle of our path. After some debate, we decided it had to have been a gas lamp at some point.

Day 4 final:

I think Brent's chipped away at the concrete enough now, that we should be good.

I'm not sure when I'll have time for my "day 5," but I am happy with the progress I've made so far. Ideally, I'd like everything ready for flowers and shrubs by April 29th – which is when my favorite charity plant sale is.

Curb Appeal (days 2 and 3)

Slight hold up on the landscaping, those timbers are evil!

In 2 days, we went from this:

To this:

Yep, that took us 2 days. And this progress even involved chains and my SUV. It's getting somewhere though. I'm hoping to start the next retaining wall on Thursday.

Curb Appeal (day 1)

Well, the bushes have been removed, and that alone is a massive improvement.

With:

Without:

We have stairs!

Then I drew out the line I wanted to follow for the first retaining wall:

The top walls progress:

I'm not going to lie, building a retaining wall is zero fun. Making sure each stone is level takes forever. I'm really not looking forward to the one I'll have to do where the timber starts. But it will be worth the time and foul language spent.