Rentervation Update: Nesting Mode- Bedroom

So I posted about re-doing our bedroom back in January and got a little too distracted to finally post the finished pictures. So here it goes.

If you go back and re-read the old post, we pretty much wanted to update our bedroom without spending a lot of money, and making commitments to large purchases that could not later be worked in to a bigger house.

Here is where we started. Just a bed frame. Hand me down side tables, bookshelf, bench and dresser.

The room cleared out. It was nice to have a chance to clean under the bed after 3 and a half years.

The furniture

We had to turn the bed on its side which was really weird looking.

Almost there!

This was the finished project back in January.

Since then, we made a few other changes. The first major one, was that we replaced the crummy bookshelf we had with a brand new one that matched the new bench at the end of the bed. It is nicer, and bigger which is great because we had to add Ben's books that were residing in what is now the nursery, onto this shelf. We also got rid if the standing lamp we had as our main light, with two leftover lanterns from the nursery. The light is a bit softer which is nice but also means it is dimmer. Oh well! You will notice that we did nothing with the hand me down furniture. I would have loved to have stained it, and paint the hardware but with being pregnant, I had a lot of other projects that took priority. Not to mention, we never figured out how we would do the large dresser since it is too big to take outside.

Here is the bookcase

Here are a few overall shots.

Okay, was that worth the 9 month wait? Probably not but thanks for reading anyways.

Weekly Update: 38 weeks

Not much has changed again this week. We are definitely on baby watch but I am hoping he stays put until Saturday at least so I can officially have an October baby. Actually, our ideal date (not that we have a say in it) is either 10/01/11 (lots of ones and zeros), 10/08/11 (our anniversary with the date and year reversed), or 10/10/11 (our lucky numbers are 10 and 11).

This weekend we were able to finish buying everything we needed, get it washed, and put away. The house is somewhat straightened up and fall decor out. I finished two crafts and got started on our Christmas stockings. I feel like we are not only getting our house ready for the baby but for having people over to visit afterward.

How far along: 38 weeks

Total weight gain/loss: 37 lbs

Maternity clothes: Even some of these are starting to get tight despite the fact that I have not grown

Stretch marks: Nothing new

Sleep: Waking up about 6 times to roll myself over, another 2 times to go to the bathroom but all in all, pretty good when I am asleep.

Best moment this week: I was pretty excited to find out that he had dropped because I had suspected that. I have felt like such a moron because I could never tell how he was positioned and for the first time, I was right.

Movement: He has been slowing down which is normal for this point in pregnancy, but sometimes he is back to his active self and now it hurts. On Saturday night, he was going crazy and it took my breath away.

Food cravings: I have been wanting lots of comfort food but I think that is more the season than pregnancy related. In college, I had a kick where I was getting hot chocolate all the time. The other night I had one and now I want one every day, but I am being good.

Food aversions: I have had a few bouts of nausea but not from anything specific

Gender: Still pretty sure he is a boy (sarcasm)

Labor Signs: I am now 1.5cm dilated and he has dropped but nothing exciting

Belly Button in or out? Still the same

What I miss: My normal body. I look at old pictures and never appreciated how cute I was. (BTW, in a week or two I will post a timeline that I made of some milestone belly pics). I have been uncomfortable lately since he dropped and is putting so much pressure on my pelvis. It will be nice to feel like myself again although I will really miss having him inside me and us having our little thing. I am not sure I am ready to share him sometimes.

What I am looking forward to: The suspense of how all this will turn out (or how he will come out) is killing me. I know I could have a baby any day but it is so weird to think that within the next 3 weeks we will have a birth story to tell.

Weekly Wisdom: I have been having some anxiety and my mom has been good at reassuring me that I will be a good mom and she will be here to help. Good thing I have such an awesome mom to look up to!

Milestones: Still excited about being full term for a whole week now. I just want to make it to Saturday so he can be an October baby.

Measurements: Chest- +.5”, Waist- +1”, Hips- +.5”, Circumference- -.5”

My last day of work before maternity leave is tomorrow so I am taking Miss Lily to Zaxby's for lunch. I remember when I started and she was a newborn. Now I will have my hands full with her and my own newborn. Maybe she will help (yeah right!).

I will finally be posting our bedroom rentervation reveal this week so stay tuned.

Rentervation Update: Nesting Mode- Kitchen

Not that this was a big project but it made a big impact for me. Back at the end of 2011 I found these images online of vintage juice labels. I automatically started thinking about how I could use these in my kitchen. I decided to enlarge them, and make them prints to hang on a very bare wall. It took a bit of tweaking and playing in photoshop but I finally got them ready right before Christmas.

Of course my plate was a bit full so we waited until January to go to Ikea and get the picture frames. This is when we went in for 9 $2 picture frames and came out with a while bedroom (which I will finally reveal next week). I got pregnant right after this and the project went on the back burner. A few months ago, I finally came back around to finishing it in order to get the house completely ready.

See my tiny kitchen!!! It is a wonder I manage to bake in there.

Another small project was another picture to frame. If you have not heard of pinterest, then you are not living. It is a website where people pin ideas they find on the internet. The awesome thing is that you can see all these pins and flip through them for projects. One I kept coming back to was this print with important dates. With all these changes with the baby coming up, I want to remember that we are still a couple so I made it for us, with our important dates- Ben's bday, my bday, the day we met, the day we got engaged, and our anniversary. I have seen some where they put the anniversary in the middle in the color but I always think that our life together started the day we met.


There have been so many other small projects and organizational things that have happened around this house while we have been getting ready for this little guy, but none that are super interesting to post about. I was finally able to get Ben to get rid of a lot of junk. We have a dining room that was cleared out (only to be filled with baby stuff but that is what I expected). All our closets have been gone through, stuff thrown out or taken to goodwill and reorganized. One of my proudest moments is that I went through the stockpile of magazines that I had collected over the years, probably about 100 or more. I ripped out all the articles, categorized them and put them in a folder.

Sorry this was not more interesting. Next week I will post our bedroom reveal (FINALLY!!).

Weekly Update: 37 weeks

It is a big week for us. We are officially full term!!! I am 3 weeks from my due date but could go anytime and everything be okay. I am hoping that Pumpkin can hold out until October 1st, which is scary because that is only next weekend. I have a few birthdates that I would like for him but I am sure he will come on our anniversary which is exactly what I do not want. It seems like forever that I have been pregnant and yet it went by so fast. I am starting to get sentimental (I am sure my mom is laughing at that) about things being the last time we do them just the two of us. I am excited to meet the little guy but I am nervous about him integrating into our life (and vice versa).

How far along: 37 weeks

Total weight gain/loss: 37 lbs

Maternity clothes: Duh!

Stretch marks: Still all clear here

Sleep: I sleep pretty good for the most part. There are a few additional trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night and the fact that getting out of bed is a chore in itself is uncomfortable. I am looking forward to the day when I can sleep on my stomach. The past few days I cannot get my mind to stop racing but that might be nothing and just from stuff that happened those days.

Best moment this week: I found out at my OB appointment that Pumpkin is head down. That makes me happy but I still know he could flip the wrong way again.

Movement: He moves a lot like usual. Lately the kicks (or punches or whatever) can be kind of painful. I know I gasped a few times yesterday and it scared Ben.

Food cravings: It is probably just the season and weather but I have been into anything pumpkin spice. I made cupcakes, hot chocolate, pancakes and ice cream in it this week.

Food aversions: None that I can think of

Gender: Boy!

Labor Signs: Nothing going on down there but my parents keep calling to check. We will see at my appointment on Wednesday if we have made any progress.

Belly Button in or out? I told you it would not budge and it is staying put

What I miss: I have either pulled a muscle or I get a cramp around my left hip when I do certain things and I am really over it. I could not even pull up my shorts without it hurting. Now it is happening in other areas. I swear this kid grew in the past few days and it is wearing me out and hurting my belly.

What I am looking forward to: I am looking forward to getting to meet our little guy. I feel like I know this baby in my belly but after he is born they are going to hand me this kid I don’t know. I am just having a hard time picturing life with him.

Weekly Wisdom: I am just trying to enjoy what might be our last weeks (heck it could be hours) without a little guy to worry about. This is making me nervous and sad!

Milestones: We are full term now!!! I think that is a pretty darn big milestone.

Measurements: Chest- same, Waist- +.5”, Hips- -1”, Circumference- same

So we did a plaster belly cast because I wanted to get a picture of him as a newborn cuddled up in it. Plus I was just curious about them and figured I wanted no regrets when this was all over. I am not going to show the whole thing because I just do not think it is very flattering but here you can see just how messy it got. We were both covered in splatters.

Also, here is a picture of the 1950s version of Ben and I at a "Mad Men" themed birthday party for a friend. Now if we wanted to be super authentic, I would have a drink and cigarette but I was not willing to go that far.

Rentervation Update: Nesting Mode- NURSERY REVEAL

After months of planning and hard work, the nursery is done! You will have to bear with me because there are like 30 pictures here but for an out of work interior designer, this is a big deal to me.

The wreath on his bedroom door.

This mirror is such a small part of the room but I think really brings it all together. It perfectly matches the main fabric we used for the curtains and crib skirt.

The wall over his changing pad/dresser.

Chalkboard hoops

His mobile and name over his bed. Mom made the birds, which turned out great. I made the letters over his bed and it was my first sewing project. I know it is small but I am still proud.

I obviously had a bird theme going on and wanted a bird cage, but they were all huge and expensive. I finally found this one at Joanns and watched it until I had a good coupon. It is the perfect size.

I made smaller embroidery hoops to hang on the wall but this one has padding behind it to use as a memory board.


This is Minnen Groda. Ben and I bought this guy on one of our first trips to Ikea 4 years ago because he was so cute and on clearance and we thought our future child might love it. His mouth unzips and he has a pouch in there, so we pictured our kids hiding things in there and carrying him around. He has lived on our couch this whole time so we were excited to finally be able to put him in our sons nursery.


His little library is started.


Of course he has to have something Tennessee related, because even though he will be born in Georgia, he is a Tennessee boy.


Another bird item I had to have.

The diaper cake that is no longer assembled but was so cute. You can also see one of the silhouette pictures that I made from our wedding pics.

The pottery that our friend Tracy made for Pumpkin. It is perfect!


Remember all that fabric I posted a picture of months ago? Well they were mainly used to make all these pillows.


Some friends that we babysit for have this vase in their bathroom and I loved it. I thought, no way could I find it but after a quick search on-line, voila!


Again, the wall over his changing table/dresser. You might notice there are some blank frames. I figured that once he arrives, I would want to put pictures of him up there so why waste the time in filling them in now with something that will get replaced soon.

His lamby and seahorse in his crib, just waiting on Pumpkin to come and keep them company.

The crib skirt that Heather made for us. It is gorgeous!

Here is a shot I took of the crib with the new bumper on. It was not in the original pictures taken because my mom had it so she could sew the border on it. It is just a basic breathable bumper but we wanted to add a little something to it.

The glider with two of the pillows we made. I love this chair, even though we paid way too much for it!


Another shot of the mobile and name banner but this time you can see the tree decal that I made. I kept looking online for one that would go with what I wanted but never found one I was happy with. I made this one out of contact paper. Let me tell you, being 6 months pregnant, on my hands and knees cutting out an 8' tree was no fun.


Now some more general shots. This is looking from the door towards the windows (obviously).


His changing table area.


Looking into the room from the doorway.


From the windows.


From the bathroom door

The bookshelf between the bathroom and closet doors.

Here is a picture of us back in late June when my parents came down to help us paint and we officially started putting the nursery together.


Here is us now. 4 weeks from our due date and all done with the nursery. I grew just a little (okay, a lot).

I will probably do more posts about each individual project either on here or over on my crafting and baking blog Trusty Gal in the near future.

I hope it was worth the wait. I just could not bear to post pictures of half completed projects so I am glad I waited until it was all done. I am a complete whore for comments so I would love to hear what you all think if you would care to share (as long as they are nice comments).

* You might also notice that I never refer to the babies name on here but if you did not already know, you do now.