nursery

A Room of Her Own: Updating the Nursery for Posey Girl

January 4, 2013 By Johanna 2 Comments

I loved Harry’s nursery. I loved sitting in that chair and rocking him, reading books, and looking around at all the pictures and his mementos. It was always a reminder of God’s faithfulness in making us a family.

But it was definitely his nursery, so we knew it would need some refreshing for our second love, and once we knew we were expecting a baby girl, I couldn’t wait to introduce flourishes of my signature color. Pink!

In 2010 when we began the process of turning an empty room into a nursery, and we didn’t know if Harry was to be well, Harry, we planned the basics of the nursery to be gender neutral. And when Harry came home, our son, I bought blue baskets, ordered a couple canvases of our English Bulldog, and it felt “boy” enough for me.

So because the bones of the nursery were already neutral, it didn’t take much to girly it up.

One big purchase we did make, however, was to get a new chair and ottoman. Our previous chair had a very low back, which meant neither Aaron nor I could rest our heads. Kind of a disadvantage when you’re rocking a baby at 2 am.

So we sold the old chair + ottoman on Craigslist for the exact amount we’d paid the previous owners two years earlier, and ordered a new higher-back chair from Babies R Us. I then found an ottoman/pouf I loved on Etsy. (Made by Zeldabelle.)

I moved the blue book bin that was here to the playroom, and brought in this doll cradle that was mine as a little girl. Perfect for books.

Because our wedding colors were pink + green, I had a couple of baskets/bins that I was able to repurpose. (Love being able to “shop” for things we already own!)

On the top shelf are two floral photographs I took years ago. They were in my Atlanta house, and then I just had them stuck in the laundry room, unsure on how to use them. One day I noticed that one was pink and one was orange, so I brought them into the nursery. Perfect! Next to the frames are a pair of pink booties knitted by my Grandma Jean, who passed away in 2003. A forward-thinker, she knitted several pairs of booties for both my brother and me, her two grandchildren who had yet to have children of their own.

On the next shelf is a piece of china that belonged to the original Josephine. I am putting Posey’s momentos in it; like her ankleband and hat from the hospital.

I replaced the canvases of Eller with this custom canvas from Painted Stuf. Lynn is a fellow Eagle Brooker, and I’ve always loved her collage style and her printing.

I read this verse when She Reads Truth was reading through Ephesians together this fall, and it jumped off the page (screen). I knew immediately I wanted it to be Posey’s life verse.

Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong (Eph 3:17).

I ordered Posey’s birth announcement from the same vendor—Mosie Posies (aptly named!)—where I got Harry’s. It’s still so crazy to me that their birthday is the same! (The green looks yellow, but it’s a lime green.)

The other big change were the hoops over the crib.

Then:

Now!

I kept four and added several more. I went to JoAnn’s and picked several fabrics I liked, without worrying too much about what would “go.” If it had pink, orange, or green in it, and I liked it, I grabbed it.

The yarn-wrapped P was a Pinterest project. It was for “Posey” all along, but I figured even if she wasn’t our baby, P will always stand for Price in these parts! (I’m glad it stands for Posey.)

And that’s it! Not a dramatic change, but enough that it feels updated and refreshed for our new addition.

You can check out a full tour of when it was Harry’s nursery. Information about the dresser, crib, bookcase, paint color, and rug are listed on that post.

Organizing Harry’s Room

February 7, 2011 By Johanna 4 Comments

Oh, how I love to organize things, and Harry’s room has been no exception.

First up, his closet. In this room, the closet stretches the whole wall and has two doors. It was a bit of a challenge having an extra door in the room, but I’m glad now, because it gave me two separate spaces, even though it’s still technically one closet.

On the left is storage and his hamper. The right door is home to “his” closet.

The blue dresser was put together and stained by my dad when my mom was pregnant with my brother in 1973. I took it to college with me, and have had it since. It’s a great size to stick in a closet and is home to things like socks, bibs, white onesies, pants/shorts and extra swaddlers.

On top of the dresser is a (Target, natch), basket with hats. This baby has a lot of hats, which is fitting since we’re in Minnesota, I suppose.

I hang up pretty much every else: sleepers, non-generic onesies et al. We were given quite a few hand-me-down items, from my cousin, my brother, Aaron’s cousin and friends. It is definitely helpful to be one of the last to have kids!

So because of that we already have a variety of sizes. I found some clothing dividers on etsy to help organize the hanging items:

Changing table/cloth diapers:

When I was researching cloth diapers, I was always interested in the process. How did people do it? How did they keep all the pieces laid out? And what was stored where?

On top of the changing table, I keep a stack of diapers plus any extra things we may need. In the basket: hand sanitizer, diaper cream (California Baby, which is CD safe), Little Noses saline solution, Sophie the giraffe, lotion (California Baby Calendula Cream), brush, bulb aspirator, wipe solution and a little spray bottle with water + a drop of shampoo, which I use to clean his face when needed.

So as far as the actual changing goes, it’s pretty much like any other diaper change. Take off the old one, grab a new one from the basket, put it on. The differences of course are in what I do with the dirty diaper and how I wipe him. The dirty diaper gets tossed in the pail seen in the top photo. It’s just a trashcan from Target lined with a waterproof liner. (On laundry days I simply pull out the bag, dump the contents into the washer, toss the bag in too and wash. I then put a clean bag into the pail.)

The other main difference: wipes.

In the top right drawer of the white dresser, I keep a package of traditional wipes, plus cloth wipes. Our stash of wipes are mostly cheapie white washcloths from Target, plus one pack of Thirsites wipes. (Which are way softer, but also more expensive.) When a wipe is required, I simply grab one, squirt it with solution from the bottle that lives in the basket, and it’s as simple as that.

The top large drawer in the dresser is where I keep our cloth diaper stash:

The baskets are the same as the basket that sits on top of the dresser, and I simply rotate through our stash. If all the stash was clean at once, it wouldn’t all fit, but since there’s usually some on top of the dresser and in the pail, it works. (The stash has gotten a little out of hand, I will admit.)

I also keep some disposables handy for daddy emergencies and for when my mother-in-law watches him on Tuesdays. (On those days I just loop a trash bag from the door knob, since there’s not normally a trash can in his room.)

And finally … this isn’t an organization item, but it is the new thing I added to his nursery since I revealed it.

Cute, right?

Filed Under: Decor and Design Tagged With: nursery

Life With Harry: A Few Updates

February 2, 2011 By Johanna 5 Comments

A few little updates …

The Nursery

First, thank you so much for the love about Harry’s nursery. I am really pleased with how it turned out. The dresser was an amazing find. I learned that with Craigslist you have to stalk it like mad and be fast when calling about a piece. You also have to walk away if it’s not right. This dresser was way down in Hastings, which is pretty much as far SE of the Cities as we are NW, so it was a drive, but it was totally worth it.

Here’s what it looked like before I got my spray paint on it:

The couple who sold it to us were moving, and she said it belonged to her mother’s grandmother. So I don’t know how old it is, but it’s old. It was also really beat up; lots of water rings and scratches on the top. You can still see imperfections in it, but since I knew it was going to have a changing pad on top of it, I wasn’t too bothered by it.

I just fell in love with the detail:

Another question that was asked by a few people: the prints are called float wraps. They’re a photographic print wrapped (like a canvas), but smoother like an actual print. They’re then mounted so that they stand out from the wall and “float.”

You can tell in this image by how they’re casting a shadow:

Cloth Diapering

Harry grew out of his size 0 Kissaluvs right around the 2-month mark. Technically they’re good up to 15 lbs, but the rise was pretty short, so we packed them away. I bought a few BumGenius the other week, both the sized all-in-ones (AIOs) and the pocket one-sizes and I love them. It’s weird to be such a fan of something like diapers, but I’m slightly in love with them. They’re daddy-friendly and they fit Harry really well.

So our current stash is made up of our hand-me-down Kissaluv size 1s, (used) BumGenius 3.0 pockets, BumGenius AIOs in medium (and I have four more on the way), and 2 BG 4.0s. I like the snaps on the 4.0s, but the velcro is just faster and easier. However, moms of older kids have said they have to switch to snaps when baby figures out how to undo the velcro. No fun.

If any of you are thinking about switching to cloth diapers, or CDing your unborn baby, I cannot recommend it enough. We now have a good wash routine (cold delicate cycle, heavy duty on hot with 1ish TB Rockin’ Green, extra warm rinse), and I just love knowing we’re not producing all that trash and that he’s sitting around in soft cotton or wicking microfiber rather than plastic all day. He wore disposables all day yesterday when my mother in law stayed with him, and he was really red by the time I got home.

Babywearing

Again, I can’t sing enough praises. We’re nearing the end of the usefulness of the Sleepy Wrap. Even though he’s only 13ish pounds, the stretchy material isn’t as supportive as it was when he was wee. I bought a friend’s old Gypsy Mama gauze wrap, but we’re still learning how to use it. Once we master it and I get him on my back (it will happen!), I’m going to invest in a nice (likely German) woven wrap. If any of you use wovens (or suggestions for a back carry for a 3 month old), I would love to hear!

I’ve been using the ring sling a lot more lately, and now that he can go legs out it’s much simpler to use. Last week my mom and I went to the mall, and even though we had the stroller, I wore him in the RS much of the time. Several older women stopped and asked me about it, saying they wanted to get something similar for their daughters/nieces.

Another benefit of the RS is that if he falls asleep, I can lay him down and slip it off over my head. Not possible with a wrap.

Other Miscellany

I’m working on a post about what it’s like being back at work, as well as some adoption thoughts in general.

For now, Wedded Wednesday appears defunct. I’m still going to write about marriage, of course, but when I am inspired to, not when I’m scheduled to.

Filed Under: Raising Prices Tagged With: babywearing, cloth diapers, nursery

A Room of His Own — Harry’s Nursery

January 29, 2011 By Johanna 25 Comments

The nursery, a labor of love if there ever was one. When we moved into this house last April, my mom kept referring to the little front bedroom as “the nursery.” After the third or fourth time I had to correct her and say, “You mean the third bedroom?” It was just too painful to refer to it as the nursery when I had no idea if it would ever truly actually be a nursery.

But as soon as we started the adoption process, the nursery became my thing. I searched blogs and wrote down ideas and spent, I hate to tell you, hours searching for items on Craigslist.

It’s still not “done” — I have items to hang about his crib and I actually got different curtains at JC Penny yesterday — but it’s done enough share.

I would say without any further ado, but there has already been a little ado, I’d say. So here it is …

Bookcase — Billy bookcase from IKEA
Dresser — Craigslist (painted by me)
Table — Amazon.com
Glider — Craigslist
Light fixture — IKEA
Rug — CostCo
Mirror — an antique that belonged to my grandmother, painted by my FIL
Lamp — HomeGoods
Paint — Caramel Cloud by Hirshfield

Details

Gift from a neighbor:

Poms made by my mom from Martha Stewart’s template:

The giraffe was one of the first things I bought once we started the process, and he kind of became the inspiration for the room. He and blue dog (a gift) sit in my grandmother’s egg basket. Literally the basket she used to collect eggs 60+ years ago:

Birth announcement plaque from Etsy by mosieposies:

The dresser. I searched high and wide for just the right dresser. We went to Babies R Us to check to see what height would make a good changing table, and I knew it couldn’t be too long, because we were working with limited space. I found this piece early on, but they were asking too much ($175). After a few weeks they called and said if we were still interested, we could have it for $100. Score. I painted it white with Valspar’s satin finish spray paint, put the original hardware back on it, and done. It was very beat up and required a bit of sanding, and there are still quite a few dings you can see, but I love it.

The crib. If you follow me on Twitter you know the saga of the crib. Originally I wanted a white Jenny Lind, but couldn’t find one anywhere. They were on backorder on every online vendor, and BRU said they couldn’t even order me one, because their system showed they are discontinued. Finally I went back to the drawing board and found this. It was a gift from my dad and stepmom, and I adore it. (It’s by babyletto.) It converts to a toddler bed, so hopefully we’ll use it for several years. I wasn’t going to do bumpers at all (safety), but this is the Dwell Studio for Target pattern I’ve had my eye on for years, and they marked it all for clearance, so it was like $15. And since he doesn’t actually sleep in here right now, I felt okay spending $15 “for show.”

This room is the first space you see when you come up our stairs, and it makes me feel so happy to see it. Not just because what it represents (a baby lives in our house!), but that it is exactly what I saw in my mind. I am not an interior designer (by any stretch), and most of what I wanted to do I saw somewhere else first, but I am pretty proud of it, I must say.

Harry seems to enjoy it too:

Filed Under: Decor and Design Tagged With: interior design, nursery

Mish Mash

January 7, 2011 By Johanna 12 Comments

You ever feel like you have so much to say that you can’t think of what to say? That is how I’m feeling right now.

We’re having a good day today, but last night was pretty rough. He just wouldn’t sleep, and I found myself feeling so impatient with him. And then of course the guilt is just overwhelming. I don’t want to be impatient with him or get frustrated with him. He’s a baby!

But today is good. I was determined to make it so. Several of my friends are doing the 100 push up, 200 sit up and 200 squat challenges. (I am only doing push ups and squats.) So this morning I put him in the swing and did my push ups and my squats and took a long hot shower. By the time I was done, he was snoozing away. He slept long enough for me to throw in some laundry and pick up his room a bit. Just doing those few things made me feel so much better; like I was actually productive.

My plan for today was to reveal his nursery, but it’s just not ready yet. I am not being intentionally coy; it’s just really not finished. I need to get a different lamp, and I think I am going to get a skirt for the crib. But because I am getting text messages about it, I thought I’d take a few sneak peek shots to share.

I wanted to get to HomeGoods and Target today, but it was snowing this morning, and yesterday we went to Babies R Us in the morning, so he didn’t get a long morning nap and things were way off. So I didn’t want to risk it.

Next week is my final week of full-time leave. I am trying to not think about it too much. But I am finally at the point where I feel ready to go back, and am even looking forward to it a little bit. I am feeling much better about, I think, because we finally figured out childcare. Until April, I’ll only be working M-W and then Thursday mornings. So on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, Harry will be going to my friend Jill’s house. She has two boys, 2 and 5, and she’s such a good mommy that I feel so relieved. I think centers are great, and he’ll likely end up at one when he’s a bit older, but for now, he’s still so tiny that I want him to be loved and cuddled. And if I can’t do it, I am glad that someone I trust will be! (On Tuesdays, my mother-in-law will come to our house and stay with him here.)

And then we’ll reassess when I go back full time in the spring.

Harry is growing so much and so quickly. This morning as we were cuddling in bed in the early morning light, I thought to myself — He looks like a different baby! Overnight!

He’s such a happy guy.

I am finally feeling stable over here in the Promised Land; like I am meant to be here and it wasn’t some mistake and no one is going to send me back across the Jordan. I am able to say things like “my son” without feeling like a fake.

Last month, when we were at the mall for Santa pictures, a pregnant woman in line behind me at Caribou Coffee started asking me questions. “Did you know what you were having? Did you pick out a girl’s name and a boy’s name? Was it hard to decorate the nursery?” “No, yes, no,” I told her. And a voice inside me kept whispering: “You were never pregnant! This is someone else’s baby! You’re just pretending!” And that voice wanted to shout: “He was adopted. I didn’t carry him. I wasn’t pregnant like you!”

Her questions really did apply to me. No, we didn’t know if our child would be male or female. Yes, we did discuss girl and boy names. Yes, I did plan out a gender-neutral nursery. So why did I feel like I need to qualify it? (I didn’t, but why did I want to?)

I often wonder — will I ever feel like just a mom? Not an adoptive mom or an infertile mom or different mom. But just a mom? I don’t know.

But there are things I do know:

This baby and me, we were meant to be.

Our God is a God of redemption and there is nothing he can’t make whole and new.

And I pray nothing as much as I pray that someday Harry will know that too.

Filed Under: All Of The Above Tagged With: adoption, harry, nursery

A Room of Her Own: Updating the Nursery for Posey Girl

Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong (Eph 3:17).