Nursery Update

As we fast approach the third trimester (by some accounts, we will hit this milestone next weekend... by others, the following week) one of the questions I find myself being asked most frequently by friends, co-workers and relatives is "How is the nursery coming?"
(Runners up include "How is Kathy feeling?" [She's fine, but gets tired and out of breath easily these days.] and "Have you decided on a name yet?" [No.])

So, I figured it would be good to give everyone an update on this now legendary room, along with a few pictures of the progress.

It would be good to start off by noting that what we now refer to as the Nursery was once called The Room Where We Dump Everything We Don't Know What to do With or Where to Put It. It's been a couple-months-long process sorting through the three-foot-high piles of boxes and loose assorted scatterings of God-knows-what, but last weekend we managed to complete most of that. I don't have a "before" picture, but you must trust me when I tell you that if you could get the door open at all, you wouldn't have been able to venture far inside before we went to work in there. I spent my work breaks and evenings last week moving the remaining pieces of furniture and boxes into our upstairs hallway, removing the old curtain rods and tiebacks, and patching and sanding holes. By yesterday morning, all that remained was to remove the switch plates and tape them up. The room looked like this:



I spent an hour or two priming the top and bottom borders of the walls, the corners, the areas around the light sockets and windows... anywhere it would be difficult to use a roller. After recently painting two other rooms in our house, the process had become almost second nature to me. However, I was missing one crucial component this time around: Kathy. She's not able to stand for long periods of time without discomfort and she wanted to spend some time working outside, so I tackled this project by myself. When I was done "outlining" the room, it looked like this:



By this point, I needed a break, so I stopped to mow the lawn and check on Kathy. Afterward, I returned to the Nursery, using a roller to put two coats of primer (one seemed a little see-thru [check out the borders of the walls in the pictures below for an example of what I mean], and I wanted that "cat barf" color as covered up as possible). This process took a couple more hours and involved dragging the drop cloth back and forth with all of my painting supplies on top of it because I was too lazy and impatient to pick them all up and carry them out of the room each time.

The end result (and the room's current state) is this:



Next on the agenda:

1.) Choose a color scheme and paint design.
We're currently using the following pattern from Target as inspiration for our color pallette... more on that in a later entry.



2.) Paint!
This is the fun part.

3.) Move our existing bedroom furniture into the Nursery.
We have some old white bedroom furniture which needs to be repainted and drug down the hall to its new home.

4.) Break out the checkbook for any remaining Nursery accessories and furniture.
Crib, changing station, diaper pail and many, many other things still need to be purchased.

5.) Check the calendar and make sure the baby's not been born yet.
I think we'll be okay here, but it's going to be close.

Look for a new update on the Nursery as soon as there's more to tell.

In other news, Kathy returns to the doctor tomorrow. I won't be accompanying her this time, as she has to take a three hour long glucose tolerance test and it's a work day for me. However, I'm sure she'll tell us all about it right here.