Update: The Nursery and the Next Quest!

On October 8, 2012, our baby girl arrived, screaming her head off. Lucky for her, I was better about finishing her nursery than I was about sharing progress on the blog. Here are some photos of how it all turned out!

 The crib, complete with home-made balloon mobile.

Home-made roman shades, rocking chair, and "Gladys" the goose/nightlight, who lived in  my room when I was little. The chair hasn't been reupholstered yet, but the peanut loves the navy and white pattern so much that I'm not sure we'll be using our nice green fabric after all.  Those roman shades were the biggest PITA on the planet, largely because they needed to be very square and precise and I was using subpar tools (rusty Fiskars and a carpentry measuring tape, as it turns out).  If I ever make roman shades again, I will use a rolling cutter and a measuring mat like the pros.  But I'll never make roman shades again, so that's a moot point.

Diaper changing area. The two pieces of art on either side of the shelf were given to us by talented family members. On the shelf is a jar of advice and wishes that baby shower guests wrote for the peanut.

The peanut herself!  This photo was taken when she was very new - I know this because she can bust out of blanket swaddles in three seconds flat now. 

Gladys, holding down the fort.

The next quest is baby-related so if you don't care about babies, you can tune out for awhile.  We decided to use cloth diapers to save some money and some landfill space but, like so many, were nervous to make an investment into a stash of diapers only to find out that they didn't fit right or were hard to wash or something.  There is plenty of information online about cloth diapers but everyone is so devoted to their particular brand for their particular reasons that it's tough to translate the advice.  We had some regular old prefolds and covers for the newborn stage but the peanut is growing like a weed and doesn't fit into her newborn diapers anymore.

Enter a local business, the Diaper Lab, which runs an awesome "Experiment to Own" program.  For $35, you get 8 brand new diapers, a diaper pail liner, and several samples of cloth-diaper-friendly detergent to try out for two weeks.  At the end of the two weeks you return the diapers you don't want (which they clean/sanitize and sell at a discount) and keep what you do want.  (More information on the program here.)

So get ready. This quest will be useful for those of you considering cloth diapers and for those of you who want to see some funny photos of our baby in her diaper.  She'll be embarrassed about this in middle school, but it's all in the name of questing!!

((Important note: If you know us, you know the peanut's name. Though we will be showing you photos of her in her diaper, we will not be sharing her name on this blog. Call us crazy. That said, if you comment (please comment!!) please don't use her name. Thank you!))

Update: The Kitchen

Since I last updated you, the kitchen has gone from not finished to ... slightly more finished. Being pregnant, finishing the nursery, and trying to put one foot in front of the other derailed our best laid plans for grouting and - especially - for deciding on, purchasing, and installing the open shelving.

But with the baby's arrival came my dad, who is great at home maintenance/repair/renovation and seems to like it too. Not only did he grout and install one open shelf but he also reorganized and relit our basement, changed two light fixtures, hung a curtain in our bedroom, and completed many other projects too numerous to name. All this would have taken us forever to complete and we couldn't have been more thankful for my dad's willingness and ability to take care of things while he was here. 

The first step in all of this was to figure out what we wanted for open shelving and how we would get it up on the wall (drilling through tile). We had been looking online and in stores (Home Depot and The Door Store in Cambridge) for wood options.  I wanted something that was thicker than the standard 3/4 inch or 1 inch shelving and that was solid wood (as opposed to laminate). Easier said than done, apparently. Not only do the prices mount rather quickly for something like that, but 1.5 to 2 inch slabs of solid wood are heavy and would have required major anchoring independent of all the heavy stuff we planned to stack on the finished shelves. 

Hmm.

Then somehow, in my foggy new mom haze, I thought to check a restaurant supply website for stainless steel shelving. These babies had it all - they were the perfect length, lightweight, matched the drawer pulls, and were cheap! 

I ordered two, but one came bent. It's replacement arrived approximately twenty minutes after my dad got on a plane out of Boston, so it's sitting in the basement waiting for him to come back. We could attempt installation ourselves but, as neither Drew nor I witnessed all the steps and drilling through our precious tile is no task for the faint of heart, we're happy to live with one shelf for now. It looks pretty good, if I do say so myself!

Finally, my dad replaced the ceiling light fixture with something that actually gave off light. The old boob light had this crazy fluorescent bulb that hardly gave off any light. We could have tried replacing the bulb, but we couldn't find one anywhere. Even in the lighting aisle at Home Depot, where you can buy all the light bulbs known to man, there was nothing that even resembled this crazy thing. It also just seemed like the fixture didn't have enough capacity to give off the kind of light you need in a kitchen. You know, where you use sharp knives. 

Although the wiring in the house is ancient, my fantastic dad was able to install this bad boy:

(Don't mind the odd halo or seemingly dark room. It's really good in person but my photo skills are lacking.)

It gives off lots of light and our fingers are safer than they were from accidents. Hooray!

So there you have it. We are one open shelf from closing the book on the crazy kitchen remodel (until we need new appliances!)