Nesting

Nesting has officially begun. I swore I wouldn’t become a crazy nesting monster, but here we are. It started with the pantry a couple weeks ago. Then I slowly starting picking my way through clutter and piles throughout the house throwing most things away as I went. I braved the hall closet and only found one coat that no longer fits (which was a surprise. We’re not as bad as I thought) There were plenty of items that don’t belong in a hall closet. (Cans of tennis balls and sand castle supplies to name a few.) These items found a new home or hit the trash. Next I hit the linen closet upstairs. That one was painful. Like where does all the junk come from?

Everything anyone has given us since we found out we were pregnant was just sitting in bags or boxes on the nursery floor accompanied by miscellaneous furniture left over from what used to be the guest room. On New Year’s Eve I decided enough was enough. The state of the room was causing me unneeded stress and anxiety. The closet in the nursery was full of my winter clothes and dresses. I went through the closet in the master bedroom and removed 50 items of clothing I could part with to make room for the clothes hanging in the nursery closet. Then I went through all the boxes and bags and took stock of what we actually have. I folded and hung up clothes. I cut off all the stupid little plastic things that hold blankets, socks, and swaddlers together and I separated books from toys and stuffed animals.

Once I got everything organized in the closet of the nursery I couldn’t stop. I moved on to the music room that is now the music/guest room. A couple visits ago my mom gave me four poster size puzzles that used to hang in the basement of our old house. Truth be told I thought they had been thrown away years ago. There is a Beauty and The Beast one, a Cinderella one, a Little Mermaid one, and a 101 Dalmations one. (We were huge Disney freaks growing up). I remember working on them with my mom and sister during snow days 15+ years ago, putting them in poster frames and proudly displaying them on the basement walls. Since she gave them to me they’ve been leaned up against the wall lacking purpose. I got my pink hammer, some nails, a measuring tape, the stud finder, and my phone (calculator) and did lots of measuring and math to figure out how to equally space them on two of the walls in the room without hitting any electrical wires. It took a while, but I was successful. I also hung some other music and princess related things to complete the room. The old guest room was Africa/zebra themed featuring art from my trip to South Africa several years ago. I moved all of that art into the hallway to hang near the rest of my artwork from my travels to Peru and Guatemala. The hallway and rooms aren’t exactly seamless but now themes are emerging and it mostly works. At least it looks like I tried to decorate in a somewhat logical way.

My parents got us a new comforter set for the guest room for Christmas so I put new clean sheets and the comforter/new pillow cases on the bed. Then I moved all the music stuff around to make space for the rest of the furniture. Using my legs for leverage I moved the bed into place. (I promise, no lifting!) I brought an end table in from the nursery and plugged in the alarm clock and lamp. I felt SUPER accomplished. (Side note: Alex had to work New Year’s Eve. Probably a good thing. He wouldn’t have let me do all that by myself if he knew what I was doing!)  All I need to do now is find the black bed skirt I have in the "extra bed stuff" section of the linen closet to complete the room.

Alex and I were both home New Year’s Day. We spent the greater part of the day in the basement going through boxes of stuff from his mom’s old house. To my surprise he was willing to part with much more of it than I thought he would be. The basement isn’t finished and we have shelving along most of the back wall except for where the washer and dryer are. A decent bit of the shelving was organized enough that we know what is in most boxes. I went through all my college and high school stuff a couple years ago so I didn’t have much to part with. We kept a lot of items of sentimental value and all of Alex’s gaming stuff from childhood to present. We found all the serving dishes and platters that go with his mom’s dinner plates we have in the hutch. Once we had labeled all the boxes in the basement and organized the shelves, I went through the hutch in the dining room and packed up two boxes for good will of stuff we haven’t used since we moved in. Then I actually had room for all of the kitchen stuff we wanted to keep. There was a sense of pride in bringing his mom and grandma’s stuff upstairs and finding a home for it all in the hutch; like now everything is finally in its place. And now I need to have a dinner party to actually use everything.

The next big item on the nesting agenda is obviously the nursery. The cribs arrived today from BuyBuy Baby. The mattresses should be here tomorrow. I have to finalize my paint colors before Friday because my parents are coming this weekend to paint and help me clean (Dad paints, mom cleans – dynamic duo, those two). The nursery is llama themed (shocker). Can’t wait to see it with fresh paint and furniture!