The Nursery

The Nursery isn't completely done, as I'm going to put 4 12x12 cork squares (nice & light, with no rough edges) over the crib, and decorate them with black & white patterned paper and various photos and pretty things. We are also eagerly awaiting the most important addition to the nursery, Ms. Girl herself. Probably not girly enough for a girly girl, but there are touches of pink here and there. I won't be surprised if we get hit with a princess phase in 2011, which is fine. For now, it's Nikki McClureville. Here's a few snapshots with commentary...

The changing table was a wonderful gift from a family at church. They'd kept it around for some fourteen years, not really knowing why until nine months ago. They refinished it in black, and it's amazing how well it turned out - it looks like it came with the crib. Over the changing table is one of three Nikki McClure prints. The curtains were homemade by the same church duo that made the astonishingly beautiful quilt set. There's a little bit of nostalgia from Pops* and Mama's wedding on the top of the (supercheap) black bookcase from Target: a photo, and a cute little pink teapot lamp that was a gift from my friend Lindsay. (Incidentally, Lindsay's head is in the background of the photograph, too.) Currently, all of our children's books are shelved together, though the young adult books will likely get displaced on account of Mama's inability to resist children's books. More about the chair in a moment...

Alrighty. We have our big blue dresser from Ikea, purchased after much ringing of hands over which dresser was right for the space. This is pretty darn large, but too-small dressers are so frustrating. Ben will be strapping this humdinger to the wall, seeing as how we live in earthquake world. The blue exactly matches the blue in the one NM print that isn't shown in these pictures. On top are a few stuffed animal gems, including the pot-belly teddy bear my Grandma Watson gave me when I was born. He still has a mark on his nose from when he tipped over into my syrup on bring-your-teddy-bear-to-school-for-pancakes-day in kindergarten. There's another zebra who's kind of hard to make out, which is too bad, because he has the special job right now of modeling baby shoes. On the right side of the dresser are photographs of Grandma W. and Grammy P.

The chair! The chair! I had to get a close-up of this. New gliders sell for $250 or so on the low end; Mama's a cheapskate and wasn't down with that. We found this one at the used children's furniture store for $40, and I wasn't going to let The Ugliest Upholstery on the Face of the Earth be a dealbreaker. I found this perfect polka-dot print for $2/yard at JoAnn's, and the Chair of the Board whipped up this slipcover.

There you have it. I'm looking forward to spending lots of time here.

*Ben has a hankering to be called Pops, and it really isn't fair of me to push my preferences of Papa or Daddy. So Pops it is. I had a hard time figuring out how to construct that sentence, though. "Mama and Pops's wedding" sounded grammatically questionable, let alone a little strange.