Nursery

Because I'm A-type and crazy, as a way to stay sane while at home with cancer + baby, I've started doing projects. I was jokingly telling some coworkers at lunch this week that I created a list of projects with subtasks and asked Brad to prioritize them for me and suggested that we have weekly status updates on each project's status. No one at the table was surprised. (If you know me in real life, I'm sure you aren't surprised either.) 

One of my first projects was the nursery. I know technically that should be done before the baby arrives but in my case it always seems to get done 2-6 months after the baby shows up. When Noah was born we were in a 1 bedroom, 500 sq ft, on-campus dorm in Boston. Noah's nursery was pretty much a box in the corner. He didn't seem to mind. When we moved back to Dallas after graduation, I got to turn our second bedroom into a nursery- 6 months after Noah was born.

With David's room I had every intention of finishing it before he arrived. We had moved into a house in the suburbs just weeks before my diagnosis. The house had an unfinished room on the first floor that works perfectly as a nursery, except that it was unfinished. We had gotten the majority of the house unpacked before the news hit. The only thing that was left was the nursery- carpet, paint, a crib, a glider, decorations all still had to be done. We technically got the carpet in before the baby came. It was a running joke about which was going to come first- the baby or the carpet.

I had to take a deep breath and realize it would just take a little longer than expected to complete the project but I'm happy to announce that as of last night it is complete! Yayayay!! You have no idea how happy this makes me to have this room completed. There were a handful of small projects that weren't done by the time I started work for Noah's room so I had the chance to finish them up for David. Man, it felt good to check those boxes after a year sitting un-done.

David's Nursery
(btw, why do we call it "David's" or "Noah's" nursery?  The baby is totally unaware of his/her nursery...let's call it like it is: "Ashleigh's" nursery) :-)

0. Sabrina painted the nursery when she was in town- thanks Brina!
1. Velvet drapes and pillow - Ikea
2. Painted canvases- Used 3 of them from Noah's nursery and painted a new one with a D
3. Glider from Target with a million coupons that made it a third off
4. Crib from Target - the cheapest one that was white
5. Made a crib skirt - had this fabric for over a year and finally made it - woohoo!
6. Standard letters/ribbon from Michael's


7. Ikea lamp and painted a lampshade with chevrons - This took three coats of paint to make look good and was surprisingly the most frustrating part of the whole room!
8. Made tissue paper poms
9. Ikea mirrors - $2 each!
10. Replaced the white wooden knobs (used those for the David letters) with glass turquoise ones from Target








11. Painted frames from Goodwill white

12. Both gifts from friends that happen to match perfectly!

13. Ikea lamp












14. Inspired by this
















15. This was the final project- sewing changing pad covers - woohoo!

Dad and the kids enjoying a book in the new nursery!