Household

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good humans

Productive things we’ve already done this weekend.

Cleaned powder room
Cleaned guest bath
Swept and mopped kitchen floor
Swept and cleaned hardwoods
Started windowsill cleaning project
Cleaned cat litters
Henry laundry

Feels great to be so productive!

Ele just posted about their resolution to buy nothing new for the month of October. I’m not going to commit to that, but I will think about the concept by listing here what I have bought.

One of my excuses for buying new is that it’s just easier than combing thrift stores, CraigsList and Freecycle. Back in the day, I would totally spend the time to hunt thrift stores and other bargains, but these days it seems we’re just so pressed for time.

P.S. What’s up with this frugal chic thing? Does anyone who’s really broke think it’s so cool?

List of October purchases:

  • six onesies
  • Halloween costume
  • baby spoons
  • sippy cup
  • toy blocks for Henry

Recent Accomplishment

I re-caulked the shower. The second time since we moved here. It’s a bitch, really. I wish I could pay someone to do it.

Oh well. Looks good, doesn’t it? I used “biscuit” rather than “white” this time, so it looks much more seamless.

Biscuit on biscuit

Dave is so awesome. He got me a chest freezer, which I’ve been pining over for nearly two years. It’s a 7.2 cubic foot chest freezer and it is living happily in our garage.

Here is it is in place.

It can hold at least one body, if not two

This morning we hit the Farmer’s Market where we loaded up on organic beef, chicken and sausage. We also got some tomatoes and peaches, both of which make for good freezing.
Meat party!

We still have a ways to go before we reach capacity.
A chestful of meat

After months of patiently and impatiently waiting, our crib arrived! Dave and his dad put it together last night.

It is gorgeous and fits perfectly in the room.
Crib

Dave made the bed, with the skirt and bumpers. Perfect!
Crib

And here’s Henry’s new stuffed lion, courtesy of Granma Sue.
Crib

Because I can’t stop obsessing, why should you?

We hung the curtains! Here is a bad panoramic of the room, sans crib.

Nursery Panoramic
Sorry for the scroll, but whatcha gonna do with a panoramic like this?

  • Hung curtains in the nursery
  • Installed curtain tie-backs
  • Hung more art in the nursery
  • Used Goof-off to remove adhesive from window seat/shelves in nursery
  • Washed crib linens
  • Washed my own laundry
  • Washed our duvet cover
  • Washed and changed our sheets
  • Rewired lamp for guest bedroom
  • Painted, cleaned and rewired Mickey lamp for nursery
  • Spackled nail holes in interior walls
  • Touched-up interior wall paint of first floor
  • Started steam-cleaning the couch
  • Finished touch-up painting for shelves in nursery
  • Washed all the stuffed animals I sleep with
  • Watched the Giants win the Super Bowl - Yay Tyra!!

Nearly Complete

This was another good weekend for getting the nursery prepped! It looks like the crib won’t be here in time for the shower, which is disappointing, but that’s OK. The baby won’t need it when he comes home as he’ll be in the pack and play at first.

Our big project was adding more shelves to the closet in the nursery. We really needed a better way to use that space, so we added more ventilated shelving to the single full length shelf that already existed.
Nursery Closet - Right

Nursery Closet - Left

We also hung this fabulous mirror that my brother gave me when I was in college. It’s a gorgeous grain and color of wood, and I think it’ll match the crib really well.
Mirror in Nursery

Then we hung up the shelves that I painted last week. This picture doesn’t show everything, but you can see a few of the shelves. The glider, from Tyra, looks great after I steam-cleaned it last weekend, too. And the red shelves that make up the window seat are almost completely finished.
Decorated Nursery

The changing table is all done, too, and I’m really happy with how it turned out.
Painted Changing Table

I think things are really coming together! I also washed a bunch of laundry this weekend - baby clothes and burp cloths, etc. I had an entire laundry basket full of baby clothes courtesy of Jan, a friend at work. She gave them to me in little increments over time, so when I put them all together, I was stunned at how much there was! And there was another full laundry basket of baby clothes and blankets from our first shower. We have all these adorable baby clothes now, it’s crazy! Thank goodness we have someplace to put them all. :)

Recent Project

I’m nearly done painting everything for the nursery, but it seems like I’ve been doing that for some time now. I must finish this weekend!!

Nursery in Chaos

We got our first shower gift! How exciting! We asked for the Margo Pack N Play from Graco because it was well reviewed, affordable, and cute! It’s sage green with teal blue accents, and includes a bassinet as well as a changing station. We’re expecting this to be the baby’s temporary home between birth and whenever we put him in his crib.

I set it up all by myself and figured this would be the first in many experiences of “Insert Part A into Slot Z.” We’ve had it inspected by the cats and they seem to approve. I wonder just how much they’ll be in it once the baby arrives? They didn’t seem to want to stay there when we put them in it.
Playpen 1
Playpen 2

We also cleared out the room and tried to get a feel for how we’ll lay out the furnishings.

The shelves I painted will probably end up acting as a window seat to store books and toys.
Nursery Shelves

We got our crib set! It’s gorgeous and includes a bumper, skirt, quilt and crib sheet. And look at these cool plant stands Dave found that match the pattern so perfectly!
Crib set

we also got the crib mattress! When we bought the crib from ChildSpace, we got a credit towards the purchase of a mattress. We choose the highly rated Classica II foam mattress by Colgate. With our credit, we got a good deal on it.
Crib Mattress
Our crib will hopefully be in by February, but I’m still not getting my hopes up.

We got a changing table today for cheap off of Craig’s List.
Changing Table

It’s in really good condition but could use repainting, which means more fun for me. Interestingly enough, the people we bought it from are from Lakewood and Westlake (Ohio), which makes them practically neighbors to Dave’s family. In fact, the guy remembers Dave’s sister from grade school. Why is EVERYBODY from Cleveland?!

Last, but definitely not least, Tyra gave me her glider and ottoman as an early shower gift. It’s gorgeous and matches the room perfectly. I will have pictures to post soon.

All in all, things are coming along pretty well!

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