Maisy Kate's Nursery

A few weeks ago, I was looking back to my blogs during my pregnancy with Graeme and saw that his room was done and ready by the time I was 30 weeks pregnant. Ha! I was definitely very on top of things! Here I am this time around just a few weeks later. I'm 34 weeks pregnant, and the extra few weeks it took to get a nursery done are definitely because it's much more time-consuming this time around when there's an adorable toddler to look after. He's not really into interior decorating, and really, who could blame him?

Anyway, Maisy's room is ready for her whenever she decides to come in the next few weeks. There was never any doubt that she would have princess things in her room, but it took me quite awhile to settle on a color scheme. Her room is (mostly) pink, gray, and gold, and believe me, I never thought I would want much gold in my house. In her room, it works and I love it. So, here it is:

Room sign from Etsy.

Gold pillows, curtain rod, curtain, and pull-back are from Target (along with about 75% of things in her room). The pink pillow in the middle was a lucky clearance find at Pier 1!

The white hope chest under the window was my great-grandmother's! My mom passed it on to Maisy and painted it white for her (with Aaron's help). It's around 100 years old and very special!

Giant, very soft, and adorable stuffed bear was a gift from Gigi and Pop. And the nightlight was a gift from Mimi and Grandy.

Corner shelf from Target. And the mirror is from At Home. The tiny canvas next to Cinderella was the very first thing we bought for her room. And the tiara is what I wore on our wedding day.

The wooden sign is from Target. The bookshelf is from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. She has an autographed photo of Snow White (signed by a real Disney Princess!) courtesy of our friend Julie. And our friend Liz painted/drew that amazing watercolor picture!

After making Graeme give up his reading chair, he decided (and we agree) that it is the best place to read. It's staying in Maisy's room, but he asks to read in "Maisy's chair" every night. The pillow is from HomeGoods. The blanket was purchased on clearance at the Disney Store by us long ago and just so happens to perfectly match and be a Cinderella blanket. For the win. The end table was handed down from Graeme's room (also from Target).

I got the urge to be crafty and made this based on an idea I saw on Etsy. It was ridiculously difficult. Gluing hearts in straight lines is no joke. 

The castle print is from At Home. We wanted a white dresser that could be a changing table for a time. It took awhile to find one that would work. But, we love the one we finally ordered. It's a Delta dresser from Walmart. The hamper is from Babies R Us, and Mimi had the brilliant idea to sew a pink button on it.

The carriage lamp is from Pottery Barn Kids, and the Cinderella quote is from Etsy (frame from Target, and if I haven't labeled something, you can probably assume it's from Target. Ha.)

The ribbon mobile was my other craft project. It was much easier than the canvas! But ribbon isn't cheap...I learned that!

Aaron's parents bought this for me before we even had Graeme. I didn't have anywhere to put it for a long time, and was holding on to it in hopes of using it in our little girl's room one day. It's a beautiful Thomas Kinkade print.

If you go back a few posts, you can read all about how we obtained this crib. Painting it white was Aaron's "craft project" for Maisy. 

One of our favorite local stores, Nuvonivo, had this adorable blanket.

Cute little friends for Maisy to cuddle were gifts at her shower. And her pink Lovie matches her brother's blue one.

The crib sheet and gray mesh bumper are from Target.

This was my crib skirt from my nursery when I was a baby. My grandma made it and my mom saved it all these years. I am so excited to use it for Maisy.

There you have it! We had so much fun decorating a baby girl's nursery this time. Seriously now, if we decide to have any more kids, they're going to have to start sharing rooms. My idea tank is empty. We will just have a house of superheroes and princesses.

a debut of Graeme's room

After we found out we were having a boy, it didn't take us long to decide on a theme for his room. That theme being superhero. (DC Comics only). We didn't want to feel like Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman threw up in his room, so we went for superhero accents around the room. We also wanted his room to be colorful, because that's just fun. We want Graeme to love his room for as long as possible, so it's not too babyish either. A lot of our ideas came from here. 

With that all in mind, here is Graeme's nursery!

Paint color:  Aquatint by Sherwin Williams

I'll start with the clock wall and work my way around...

The closet is on the left. Inside is a Circo cube shelf with fabric bins.

Red clock from Target.

Batman and Superman hooks are Command Hooks. "Mickey Mouse" cape is from Hallmark and came with the Mickey pictured below. (Basically, our two favorite worlds collided. A superhero Mickey.)

Aaron made the wooden bench/shelf when he was six. Teddy Bear was mine that my parents gave me when I had my thyroid removed. Crocheted blanket was made for me as a baby by my great grandmother (basically the only thing from when I was a baby that didn't scream "girl!")

Next is the bookshelf. Aaron has had this bookshelf since high school. It has moved with us, and happened to match Graeme's furniture perfectly.

Stuffed "Itty Bittys" are from Hallmark. Green frame from Target Christmas clearance. Stacking cups from Target Dollar Spot. Fabric bins from Target. DC Comics Little People from Target. To the right are some floor pillows. The bottom shelf has our growing collection of Caldecott Medal books.

We LOVE children's books. We have like three more boxes of them in the attic waiting to be pulled down as Graeme grows. Aaron's "It's a Boy!" Vinylmation was one of the first things in this room.

Bat Signal night light is from Pottery Barn Kids. 

Above the bookcase is an awesome orange shelf we stumbled upon at HomeGoods. It was cracked on the back so they gave us a nice discount. My dad fixed it right up with some wood glue and a clamp.

Our friend Amanda made the posters for us. The idea came from Etsy.

Wooden blocks are from Toys"R"Us. Vase is from Target.

My First Batman Book was a find by my mom. Also from Pottery Barn Kids. The comic book cubes are actually iPod speakers that Aaron found at Kohls totally randomly. We got them for free because we had a $10 gift. The fun robot is from Target.

The next wall holds the window and a trunk that was given to us before we got married. It started out as our coffee table in our apartment. Then it sat in our loft in our house. Now it is a window seat and toy box for Graeme. Thanks to Bensen and Keyen and their parents, it is already filled with baby toys.

The curtain is from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. It's a blackout curtain, and I'm jealous of it. It makes the room so dark. Curtain rod and pull back are from Target. Batman sign was a gift to Aaron long ago from a friend at church. My talented mom, Graeme's Mimi, MADE us these orange cushions. She's awesome. The middle pillow was on clearance at Target for $7. The other pillows are from Etsy. (Green Lantern and Flash are still on their way.)

Next is one of my favorite things in Graeme's room because my crafty (who knew?) husband made them all by himself.

We saw the idea for this on Etsy, but it was ridiculously expensive. It cost us a bit to make them, but not nearly as much. Wooden letters and Mod Podge were from Michael's. The comic books are Batman:  Brave and the Bold.  The superheroes pictured are Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow, Plastic Man, Robin, Joker, Batman, Hawkman, Catwoman, and Shazaam. He painstakingly found perfect pages for each letter and glued them on. Then cut off the excess with an exact-o-knife. I hung them with sawtooth hangers from Target. The "M" is our favorite (there is a better angle of it later).

Next to his awesome name is his crib. This crib was "given" (because they hardly asked anything for it at all considering how amazingly nice it is...) to us by the family I nannied for. It was barely used, came with the mattress, and converts to a toddler bed, twin bed, and full-size bed. We are incredibly blessed to have it.

I made the mobile with paint chips (that I felt kind of guilty about "taking" even though they're free), a circle die cut, fishing line, clear tape, and an embroidery hoop. The whole project was less than $5. I found a tutorial here, and kind of made it my own. The sheet, bumper, and blanket are all from Target.

My mom not only made us orange cushions, she also sewed our crib skirt. Apparently, crib skirts either come in a bed set or are crazy expensive. This one is insanely better than any I found. (The hamper that's in the corner of the picture is from The Container Store.)

Red rug is from Target. There is also a navy one next to the bookshelf that didn't make it in a picture.

This orange bear and blue dog have caused much drama. They had a third friend, a green frog, that we didn't purchase when we saw them all at HomeGoods. Later, he was gone. And now he is nowhere. You can't buy him. We have looked high and low. We have learned our lesson. Green frog shall never be ours. And now we know: if you see something you like at a place like HomeGoods, buy it then. Don't wait. There is no second chance. Anyway...

Up in the corner there is another fun thing, our baby monitor. We were pretty particular about what we wanted and couldn't decide on one when we went to register. After doing a lot of research, we decided on this Lorex brand camera. We got it on Black Friday for more than half off of it's usual price. It's a lot of fun, and it pans the entire room. We hid the cord (and covered up the choking hazard) with a cord hiding set thing from Best Buy.

We are almost done! Next is our dresser/changing table. This was a gift from some wonderful friends at Journey. It happened to match the crib almost perfectly. And, when Graeme no longer needs a changing table, it will still be practical.

The changing pad was a gift from the family I nannied for, the "Super Hero" canvas was our first purchase before we had even officially decided on his room. We saw it at Target and bought it "just in case." The lamp  and the storage bin are also from Target.

Batman and friends are on the lookout for any trouble.

The last corner of his room is the armchair. I hemmed and hawed about a chair a lot. I didn't even know that I really wanted a chair. I didn't want a wooden rocking chair or glider because I wanted it to be comfortable. If I got a chair, I wanted it to be gray. Of course that meant that all the chairs that I liked were too much money. We were over at Aaron's parents one night and his mom was asking if we found a chair. Later, Aaron went upstairs. He called me up to show me that his parents had a gray armchair in their room. We came down joking that we "found a chair!" His mom said, "Oh! Where?" "In your room." She was puzzled why we wanted "that old thing," and said she had been wanting to get rid of it. We gladly offered to take it off their hands. It's like 30 years old, but it's in great shape! And it meant that we bought none of the furniture in Graeme's room!

The blanket and ottoman are from Target. The ottoman is also a storage cube and was another great clearance find. The side table is from Target. (If you can't tell by now, we basically love Target.)

These comical prints were stumbled upon at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. We had to buy them, of course.

Another one of my favorite things is this pillow. It's from Etsy, and Aaron didn't want to spend the money on it (I admit, it was a ridiculously pricey pillow). But when my wonderful mom-in-law saw it, she said, "Oh, you're getting that pillow." And that was that. Thanks, Gigi!

Alright, so there you have it! That is Graeme's room that we have had so much fun decorating. We couldn't have done it without our parents and some wonderful friends. Now, we just wait for him to get here and enjoy it for years to come!

with a case of the shingles (the roof kind)

I hope you are all enjoying this beautiful Monday. I know that I am happy to see the sunshine!

We arrived home Saturday afternoon from Tennessee to a cloudy, windy Raleigh. Our landing was awful. It made me sick for the entire rest of the day. When the pilot says, "The flight attendants will not be making their final check," you know you are in for a rough ride. I was never so happy to be on solid ground.

Thankfully, it was at least warm outside. We made our way home, and as we got closer, the stoplights and gas stations were out of power. It struck me as we turned into our neighborhood that we might not have power either. Sure enough, we didn't. It stayed off for about thirty minutes and came back on just in time for the wind to pick up again. Off it went again (only for another 30 minutes, thank goodness). After about ten different "severe weather alerts" on our phones for tornado warnings, we made our way downstairs and Aaron made a space in the pantry in case there was an actual tornado. At least we would have food if we were stuck in there.

Then we just sat on the couch and watched the storm out the back window. After about five minutes, a few shingles rained down in our backyard. Uh-oh.

The wind and rain left as quickly as they had come, so Aaron made his way outside to see if they were in fact shingles from our house. He came back in a minute later to tell me that we hadn't just lost "a few" shingles. A big section of them had blown up and over our house and were littering the street everywhere. We live in a townhouse, and we are on the end. Somehow, we were the only ones with any damage. Go figure.

Our nice neighbors drove up about that time and helped us clean up all of the shingles. They informed us that the driving range next to our neighborhood had their four-story nets and poles broken and snapped in half, so I think we were just in the same path of that awful wind.

We lost "half a square" of shingles according to Aaron's older brother who knows things about houses and came up to assess our damage. Aaron made several phone calls and I stood by for moral support (I don't know what I would do without him in these kinds of situations...).

After talking to the HOA today, we are pretty sure they will actually take care of it! Praise God!

I am positive we didn't catch the worst end of the deal and there were probably other people that had a lot more damage from the wind. We are thankful that nothing worse happened, and it was a good thing we had made it home!

So, our shingle-missing roof is still keeping us warm and dry, and that is something to be very grateful for. It just gives us another fun adventure in our life filled with no handyman knowledge. Thanks to everyone who gave us shingle advice. We appreciate it!

Aaron has proclaimed it "nesting" phase...

This past weekend we had an upheaval around here. Our upstairs (minus our bedroom and the bathrooms) is totally switched around.

It's wonderful to have wonderful friends, and when their wives are out of town and they have a free night, it's convenient all around. We offer food and fun (at least we think we are fun). He offers manpower. So, our very wonderful friend Patrick came over last Thursday night to move what he thought was a couple things (Aaron was a little misleading). He really helped us move like 10 things.

By the time the guest rooms were cleared out and semi in order, our loft looked like this:

Penny was VERY concerned about the whole situation.

It didn't all fit in the loft, so our room was also a holding area.

We probably owe Patrick more than free dinner...

The next day, Aaron and I set to work trying to get everything else in order. To get the general idea of what things are like now:

Baby's room

Guest room

Loft (We moved the TV into the big cabinet sine this picture and cleared out all of that other stuff.)

Saturday afternoon, more wonderful friends (Rodney and Bensen) came to set up Baby Bauer's crib (it used to belong to Keyen, so Rodney offered to set it up for us long ago).

When that was finished, Aaron and I did not want to leave the Baby's room. It's so cute already and we haven't even begun to decorate it.

Blurry :(

Don't worry, we did leave Baby's room and we didn't work hard all weekend. We took a break on Friday to head to the NC State Fair.

Hard to see, but there is a giant motored shopping cart facing off with that wheel pedaled by a man. Oh, the fair.

Saturday night, we babysat Bensen and Keyen. They made Aaron birthday cupcakes. So sweet (the boys and the cupcakes).

And last night Aaron took me to see Chris Tomlin and Louie Giglio as an early birthday present. 

So, if this is "nesting," as Aaron says, it's pretty fun.