A Colorful Nursery

Since we moved into our home in October 2013, the spare room beside our bedroom has served as a "catch all" room, a "tv room", a spare bedroom, and now a nursery.  Almost as soon as we converted it into a guest bedroom in October 2014, we found out that we were pregnant and were going to need to change it again.  For months, we were asked how we were going to decorate the nursery--what theme and what colors we were going to use.  And for months, we were regularly shown disappointment and anxiety when we said we had no idea how we were decorating and that we weren't worried about it.  It wasn't until May 2015 that we finally began to move furniture out to prepare for the nursery.  I don't feel like I'm very savvy in the decorating department, and neither of us could really see the point of moving everything out of the room when we didn't have anything to put back in it, such as a crib.  One evening my dad called to tell us he was bringing the crib over that they had purchased for us, so we started to clean out the room and prepare for the nursery.

Around this same point, we were receiving more and more questions about how we were going to be decorating, and I began to feel a little anxiety.  I'm generally a pretty easy-going person, but when faced with a particular question over and over that I don't have an answer for, I start to feel pressured to come up with an answer that  I think will be appeasing to those asking.  I settled on a color scheme: coral and navy.  I found some curtains that I liked and began to look for ideas on Pinterest. Although I thought this would be helpful, it only led to more anxiety.  (Remember when I said I'm not a very savvy decorator?)  All of the crib bedding I found that I liked averaged $300, and when looking online, all of the pictures look like they've come out of a magazine meaning it generally costs $$$ to get a similar look.  There's no way I'm spending $300+ on something that is bound to have a 2 am poop explosion all over.  I decided to stop trying to fit into the cookie-cutter Pinterest world of creating a picture perfect nursery and instead, just do whatever felt natural.  For me, that's lots of colors and personal/family touches included throughout.  Here's a peak.

Although we bought a glider, Derek wanted to keep his recliner too.  It'll be perfect for midnight feedings from Daddy. :)

The canvas print was the first item I purchased for the nursery.  The various colors in it served as my inspiration for the rest of the nursery.  Below, the framed button elephant was a handmade gift from a dear friend, and the crocheted bear was a handmade gift from one of my students.  She's inheriting the jewelry box from my (and maybe my mom's?) childhood.

This isn't finished yet.  I'll be hanging something on the wall; I just haven't quite figured out what yet.  The boppy & diaper bag are ready for our trip to the hospital!

He doesn't look like it here, but Baxter loves the nursery.  He and JellyBean spend most of their time in here now.

I love this wall so much because it's so personal to us.  The hanging dresses are from when my sister and I were babies.  The framed elephant drawing was created by one of my students this year, and the "R" was painted by another student.  The embroidered duck is from Derek's childhood, and the wooden car was made by my dad.  (He's incredibly talented at making wooden toys.)  Finally, the Mario and Princess Peach are the cake toppers from our wedding.

It has taken a while to get everything where I want it, and I'm sure we will be making many changes along the way.

Over the weekend, we inherited all of my niece's hand-me-down clothes, which is awesome (thank you Mandy), but was also overwhelming.  I spent two days sorting (thank you for the help, Momma), washing, folding, and organizing clothes, and finally put our dresser to good use.  It took a while to figure out how best to sort items, but I think I'm satisfied with the results.  <<This is where my sister starts to make fun of me :) >>


Starting from the top and moving left to right, we're organized by size & type of clothing.

I've seen many instances where drawer organizers have been purchased for items like this, but I just can't justify spending the money on things like that.  Will our drawers always be this organized? No. Is it a good starting point? I think so!  At least when I ask Derek to grab something specific, he'll have the basic understanding of where to find that item instead of just throwing clothes around the room.

Do you have other suggestions for decorating or sorting baby items?  I'd love to hear them! :)



In case you're wondering where we purchased certain items, you can find the list below with links to the webpages.

Glider: Amazon
White Dresser: Walmart
Shag Rug: Walmart
Changing Pad: Walmart
Changing Pad Covers: Walmart
Crib: Target
Crib Sheet: Target
Curtains: Walmart
Picture Frames: Ikea
Diaper Bag: Amazon (Vera Bradley)

We Bought a House!

I've been wanting to post about our house for some time now, but could never really decide on a good time.  Back in July, we were randomly searching the Internet for homes and land for sale.  Our real desire was to buy some land and build a house, but Derek's job required access to a certain type of Internet; around here, options are limited. We decided it would probably be easier to just buy a house if we could find one that we both liked.  After some searching, we found a quaint cape cod in town and scheduled an appointment to see it.  This house really could have been nice, but it really needed quite a bit of work that we didn't want to do.

That evening I decided to ask Derek to look at another house with me.  It had been listed on the realtor page for a few months and looked like it was pretty nice..  It was just up the street from Derek's church and actually on the neighboring street of the cape cod we'd just toured.  Neither of us were very excited at how close it was to neighbors, but we figured we'd check it out anyway.

A few days later, we stepped onto the sidewalk of a small bungalow completely unaware that it would become our future home.  We absolutely loved the house.  After finishing our tour, we went home, discussed our options, and immediately decided that we wanted to put an offer in on the house.  Within the next two days, one of our offers had been accepted and all the paperwork was filled out.  We just had to wait until closing was scheduled, and the house would be ours.

Throughout the next 80 or 90 days, we essentially played the waiting game.  An extension had to be filed and some things with the appraisal weren't quite right.  We had finally accepted the fact that we weren't going to get the house and began to reevaluate our financial plan.  We decided that we would keep saving for another year or so and maybe then something would be available that we'd like.  About two days later, the bank called to schedule closing; we were shocked.

It has been a little over a month since we moved in, and although we're not nearly finished with everything, it's coming together rather nicely.  We have lots of plans for the basement and office, and hopefully in the Spring we can do some work in the backyard.  It isn't everything that we ever dreamed of with a house, but it definitely feels like home.  Enjoy some pictures below.  Our bedroom, Derek's office, and the spare TV room aren't posted. They weren't really presentable for pictures. :)

A Summer Hiatus & Snack Drawer

If you've been following this blog, you've probably noticed that I haven't blogged for an entire month.  At the beginning of the summer I thought I would write lots of posts since I had plenty of time on my hands.  For whatever reason, I have not. 

I love summer.  Actually, I hate the extreme heat that our town always seems to find (when the surrounding areas are always 15 degrees cooler), but I love the opportunities that summer always brings.  Growing a garden leads to delicious meals, warm nights mean drive-in movies, summer months encourage weddings, and more daylight just in general brightens my mood.

Below is just one simple project from the summer.

Snack Drawer
I'm unfortunately the type of person who loves to buy peppers, carrots, yogurts, etc. with the full intention of eating them for some healthy snacks but forgetting about them until they're rotten and moldy.  After cleaning out our fridge and throwing away unopened rotten packs of foods for the millionth time, I decided something needed to change.  I saw a similar idea for a "snack drawer" on Pinterest and thought it would be a really simple solution for my snack problems.

I found a plastic bin at Bed Bath & Beyond that I thought would work perfectly.  You can find it here.  I took all of my snacky items and placed it in the bin in the fridge.  It allows me to easily see my options for a healthy snack which was a problem before.  Also, because I prepare everything and place the items into bags/containers, all I have to do when I want a snack is pick it up and eat! 

 You can include anything you want in your snack drawer! 
Some ideas include:

• Veggies: Bell Peppers, Carrots, Celery, Cucumbers, Broccoli
• Fruits: Apples, Oranges, Grapes, Berries
• Cheeses
• Nuts
• Yogurts
• Boiled Eggs

These were very minimalistic pictures of our snack drawer.  It's constantly changing in its contents as we remove and add things to it.  I love the convenience it provides.  Before we made this, it was so much easier to just grab a bag of chips or a cookie than to slice a pepper into strips.  We no longer let our veggies sit and go bad.  Since we can see what we have and all of our snacks are in the same place, we're eating what we buy & snacking healthier!

Decluttering the Spare Bedroom

As much as I hate to admit it, I am a pack rat; I always have been.  Despite this inevitable family trait, I have tried to fight it most of my life--my grandmother's influence, no doubt.  I can remember spending many days of my childhood taking everything out of my closet and reorganizing clothes, shoes, and toys until they were perfect.  There was just something about having a clean and neat closet that made me feel good about my bedroom.

Now although I prefer having an organized closet, it rarely remains in its neat state longer than a month or so at a time.  The pack rat in me ever so slyly sneaks back in and begins putting stuff wherever it will fit.  Thoughts like "this could come in handy one day" or "this was a special day so I should keep this thing" mean saving brochures, bags, greeting cards, wristbands, hotel cards, ribbons, t-shirts, and the list goes on and on.  I've gotten really good at fitting the most amount of stuff in the smallest spaces and tricking myself into thinking that it's okay.

I may have mentioned before that we essentially have no storage at our house, so our spare bedroom becomes the storage space and also functions as my closet for my clothes.  I have really disliked going in that room for a few weeks now because it has just gotten out of control.  I will clean the main rooms in the house but feel very incomplete because the spare room is a mess.  It had gotten to the point that I was just taking my clean clothes in, sitting them on the bed, and leaving the room because I didn't want to deal with the extra stuff.  I knew that I was going to have to reorganize and do some major work in order to feel good about that room and actually want to go in it again.

So, how do I purge and get organized?  How do I know where to start?  The truth is that I just start with whatever makes the most sense or feels the easiest.  Since my closet always personally feels easiest to me, that's where I started.  I go through my clothes and whatever I haven't worn in a year or can't fit into, I automatically put into a bag to donate to Goodwill.  I throw away very little; it all gets donated.  I will keep one pair of jeans that are too little as a goal to fit back into.  Anymore than that is just taking up space, and when I do lose the weight, I'm sure I will want new clothes to celebrate!

Once the closet is finished, I move to the dresser and finish going through all of the clothes.  At this point, I just start going counter-clockwise around the room until it's finished.  Every bag and every pocket should be opened and cleaned out, every nook and cranny should be inspected.  Items that belong in a different room or different space need to go to their appropriate place.  Sounds simple, right?

It always has to get worse before it gets better, so if you're trying to declutter, don't get overwhelmed; just stick with it.  If you need to take a break, do it.  Just make sure that you come back and finish.  This room took three days to finish because we had other obligations during the day.  It's hard to stop mid-process and have this task looming over you, but it feels so good once it's actually done.  Here are some pictures of the process. 

Disclaimer: It's pretty embarrassing putting these pictures out there for the world to see.  I know this isn't a stylish room.  Maybe one day I'll work to actually style it, but hopefully we'll own our own home before too long.

This is a "before" picture.  Sadly, this is pretty much what it looked like with everything put in its place.  The big black trash bag is full of Goodwill stuff from the last time I went through my clothes. There are also three plastic totes along the windows that hold other storage items.

My sewing machine sits under the desk with all of its items.  I move it every time I need to use it.  My grandmother's old typewriter is on top of the desk.  Although I love it, I don't use it, and I keep it covered to protect it.  The TV isn't actually plugged in.  I just needed a place for it to get it off of our bedroom floor.







The space under the bed served as free-for-all for craft supplies, luggage, notebooks, and just anything in general.

 A few months ago, I bought these closet organizers, and I actually really like them!  They hold a ton of clothes.  The closet pretty much ends where you see it horizontally, but has another shelf above the one you can see.  It. is. packed.  It holds all of our random storage things, like some Christmas decorations, candles, wedding keepsakes, etc.

 I started going through the plastic drawers that hold socks, swimsuits, etc and Baxter decided that it was more important for him to lay in them than let me finish my work.

 Seriously. It gets worse before it gets better.  (This is actually definitely not the worst shape.) Don't let the mess discourage you.  Just keep working.

 It'll eventually get done.  All of my shoes are in one place, and I was able to empty all of the totes along the windows.  I did inherit a sewing machine table from my mom over the course of cleaning this room, but it works out.  I hope (if she lets me) to paint it later this summer.

 I moved the typewriter to storage since it isn't used and put the sewing machine onto the desk.  The lovely tupperware containers hold sewing supplies in one and office supplies in another.  Also, a basket under the desk holds clothes and other items that need mended.  Finally, a functional workspace!

 There are still items under the bed, but it makes sense now.  My luggage, sax, and curtain rods are each in their own spaces.  I hope to get a bed skirt so that you can't see underneath. :)

The Michael's bag is still out because it has a wreath that I am working on making.

It looks pretty similar but actually makes more sense.  I now have all of my craft supplies in a clearly labeled bag, party supplies are in a box, and winter gloves and hats are in a box.






Finally a space that I don't mind being in! --And seven bags of clothes, purses, and shoes to be donated to Goodwill.