Getting Ready

We are getting ready... I say "we" but the reality is Todd is having to do most of the heavy labour. We got a twin mattress, so it was put in the 'spare' bedroom. The bunk beds came in, and since we're only using the top bed (it has the guardrails that will serve as an anti-falling-out-of-bed measure for Em) only, the bottom bunk went into the garage. We moved the old headboard into the spare room when Todd finished the new one. Then, it was time to paint, so, last week, poor Em and her changing table/dresser, all her real paper books and her crib were moved into the spare room (rather hap-hazardly I must say) until paining was completed. So, her poor 'room' right now is the dumping ground for all the stuff that should be in her room, but isn't there yet (crib, dresser, baby cloths, crib bumper, books, car seat, etc). Note that in the picture is the pillow for the room, teddy bears, the bassinet hood, mobile, and humidifier. It's all organized, but it's still all in that one tiny room.

Em has been a trooper through all the changes and as I keep adding to Todd's "Honey Do" list, he graciously agrees to all my hairbrained ideas. He started painting, and it looks divine!!! This is only the first layer (there are two more colors of smaller flowers that overlap) and I love it already. I don't think it could be looking any better, but unfortunately, we realized a bit late that the pattern Todd's using to project onto the wall is slightly more detailed than it should be for this type of project. Bummer, but like I said, his improvising is turning out wonderfully... it's just taking a bit longer than I know he'd like, and this type of work is tedious for him... it's not art, it's work.

But he doesn't complain and I'm so thankful for that, or else I'd have to do it and then he really would complain (something about paint fumes and pregnancy, I don't know). As we were gearing up for getting this room all ready, I began to think about all the items I would normally hunt on amazon.com for or just run to Target and pick up. Since money is tight for frivolous decorating (my penny-pinching ways are to blame for that!) and Target is scarce (give or take a 15 hour flight away), I started to look around at what we do have that I could use. That was

when I realized that we still have a ton of 1x1s, 4x4s, and plywood from the crates left over. So, I got the idea to make a few 'surfboards' out of the plywood for things I would normally buy, like a height chart, decorative shelf and coat hooks. This seems easy enough, except for the fact that I'm asking Todd to make these from rough sketches on plywood with knots with no jigsaw, no workbench and no real tools outside of a massive hand-held table saw we bought at a garage sale and a borrowed sander. I can tell you now, that sander weighs a good 10-15 pounds (I've nicknamed her Helga)... my husband is a SAINT! Anyways, I just got a delivery of surfboards that need a pattern drawn on them so that I can paint (I'll do this outside, Murray will be just fine, I promise!). I'll have to show pictures when we get a bit farther along!