Nursery Progress (weekends 1 & 2)

So, I'm a little stressed about all the blogs I've missed and "shoud've posted...." But at this point, I'm taking inspiration from my friend Judy and going more with a "look at the progress we've made on baby's nursery."

The question I've heard the most lately (and am frankly tired of hearing because of the stress it causes) is "Is your nursery ready yet?" Well, the short answer is NO! but we are working on it. It's been Andrew's office and our guest room for the last 4 years. You can imagine how 4 years of graduate school can really pile up in there. It's books, cds, papers, folders, and then even more of those things. . .

I'm a little embarassed to show the "before" pictures, but I will. Mostly because I know how proud I'll be at the end when I see where we started.

We started last weekend. I say we, but it was mostly Andrew rearranging the books to get them on the bookshelf and dispersed other places in the house. Quite a project....

Here are the pictures after last weekend before this weekend (January 30 & 31). Under each, I'll let you know what our tentative plans are for that area of the room....

The twin bed that serves as our guest bed. This will stay in place - at least for the first few months. We assume at some point, baby girl will need more play room....then the bed will probably have to go.

For this area, we're thinking of two options. Either move the bookshelf out of the room and slide the dresser over. Where the dresser sits is where we will put the change table. We may also try to just turn the dresser and put it between the end of the bed and the bookshelf. It would block access to some of the books, but Andrew says that's ok.

Here are the filing cabinets. They will be turned into the base for Andrew's "new desk" First they require some cleaning.

This is Andrew's corner desk. It is quite large and because of the design of it, needs to be replaced. It was quite a task getting it undone. Andrew thinks he may have spent more time taking it apart than putting it together. . .

The new desk will be put in front of the window. The black end table will leave the room.

January 30 & 31:

There was good progress made this weekend. The major task was cleaning off the filing cabinets and getting the desk taken down. When we saw that progress was far enough along on Saturday, we headed to Home Depot to get the wood. This wood will be placed between the 2 filing cabinets to serve as Andrew's new desk. I felt bad about this, but we know it only needs to last us for a year or two. He has a nice one waiting for us in Waco. We'll take it when we have a house of our own and room to put it somewhere. Poor Andrew worked hours on getting the desk taken apart. It was quite a bear for him to tackle, but he managed to do most of it Saturday. Then he woke up early to finish on Sunday morning. He was careful when taking it apart because a friend of ours is going to take it from us. (Have fun putting it back together!!)

Filing cabinets cleaned off & the desk taken apart!

End table cleaned and removed; desk taken apart & moved out of the room. New desk ready for assembly.

Andrew's new desk in place!! Ready for him to use this week. We realized a problem. The crib is going to be in the foreground of the picture (where the filing cabinets used to sit). There is JUST enough room, but it means that Andrew won't have access to his files in the black cabinet. He (again) says that is ok. Many of the files he is keeping for when he teaches. So we'll make sure he doesn't need those for the first few months.

All in all, there was good progress made on the nursery this weekend. It was a lot of work and I really owe Andrew a huge thanks for all his help getting the room ready. The theme for the room is "B is for Bear", so as a small token, I bought him a bag of gummie bears. He's the best! Next weekend we'll either work on getting the space for the changing table ready....or maaaaybe even get the crib up. I'm anxious to see how the desk/crib combo will work out. 2 baby showers this weekend mean that a lot of the work will be left up to Andrew...although I'll help when possible.

I'll keep you posted. . . . :o)