Unveiling THE NURSERY!

It's the day that you've all been waiting for! Okay, well maybe really just Marianne, my cousin, has been waiting for it. But, hey! Here it is!

The nursery is really the first room that Jim and I have ever made our own. We are pretty proud of it and spend just about as much time as we can in there. Jim's been studying in it every single day and dreaming about our baby, when he needs a break. This room was truly a labor of love for Jim. His impact can be found all over this room and that makes it extra special. 

The first project he tackled was an old, ugly dresser given to us by our neighbor. It was a darkly stained old dresser that he spent a longgg time sanding down to look like it does below.

Then he stained it two different colors, drawing the greens from the rug we got from IKEA.

Next he designed, made, and painted three shelves to put on the wall above the diaper changing station and the twin-size bed. I only snapped one picture of this work-in-progress. By the way, it's a hard life working with such a gorgeous view!

Lastly, we did not get a picture of his final project which was the twin-size bed. Back in July Jim and his dad were driving down the road in Lebanon, PA and spotted a bed frame for sale for $5. Yep! A solid wood, good conditioned frame for only five buckaroos. 

Jim took the whole thing apart, sanded it down, and covered it in coats of linseed oil. Now we have our first child's bed all ready to go!

DRUMROLL!!!!!!!! Here it is all together...

Jim's handiwork- dresser, shelf, & bed
IKEA- rug, leaf, rocking chair & blanket
Nanny (Jim's grandma who passed away)- basket on the shelf, courtesy of Aunt Sherri

Diana, our dear friend and landlord painted this mural on the wall for our baby. It's awesome!
Boppy pillow from Julie and lamb lovey from Judy.

An up-close shot of Jim's shelf design.
I did the chickadee wood cut when I was in middle school.
We collected this massive pine cone on a short trip to Mississippi, while we were living in Louisiana.

But here's the best wood cut of all!
My mom made this one during my early childhood. It totally fits the nature theme of this room!
Kathleen D. gave us the little birds for our wedding and they worked their way into our natural habitat.

The bears on the bed each hold significance to us. The blue one was made from one of my grandpa's shirts after he passed away last year and the brown one was given to Jim before he moved from Minnesota when he was in early elementary school. He's had it around ever since.

These two quilts were made by my cousin Marianne (blue) and my coworker, Vicki (yellow & green).
We'll cherish those forever.

And here's the side of the room that's not dedicated to baby. This is where all of my crafting, sewing, everything is stored. To the right is my grandpa's draft table, but you can't see it in this picture. On top of the shelf are my mom's woodcut, some animal baby slippers Rena K. got us from Nepal, and a knitting bowl (mine). And to the right is the belly cast we did at my most recent shower. I was 36 weeks, I believe, at that point. Eventually we might paint it but really I just think it will be neat to get a picture of the baby inside of it after he/she is born and also to be able to say, "Whoa... that was my body!?" We won't keep it forever.

As you can see by the captions, there are so many people who have a presence in this room. It takes a village to complete a nursery? We are enjoying just being in the room, but look forward to singing our baby to sleep in the rocking chair, laying him/her down to sleep in the crib, changing diapers (yes, at this point we are excited about this!), and stumbling to the twin bed for some much-needed sleep.

So, that's the nursery! Hope I didn't give it too much hype. But we LOVE it.