The Nursery Obsession: A journey nearing madness

Since the very moment I found out I was with child, I became obsessed with how to decorate the nursery. Well, if I am to be honest...it's something I've thought about plenty even before I knew we were expecting. DH along with many others have made such points as "the baby won't even use the room for the first year" and "by the time he cares what its decorated as, he'll have outgrown it and you'll have to do it over" and "but, it's yellow". To these naysayers I have three words. I. Don't. Care. It's my first (and possibly only) baby, and I want the room to be just so. Or, at least as "just so" as a tiny room on a non-designer budget can be.

When we first bought this little house, we thought that one little bedroom in particular would make a lovely nursery. In the meantime we used it as a guest bedroom/sewing room/dumping ground. During each other room's face lift, it carefully and selflessly offered a home to all the furniture, artwork and miscellaneous goodies that needed a place to stay. You may remember this little gem of a room from such posts as this and this.

DH has been amazingly tolerant of my obsession with this room's important future. He talked me out of some rather silly ideas by suggesting that he install crown molding. *Splash*!! It's my hearts desire to have crown molding in every major room in the house so I wasn't about to say no. And let me tell you something...installing crown molding is a bitch. I will be eternally grateful to DH for doing it.

Here he is, hard at work:


And I gotta say, I love the way it turned out. He's so good:


Soooo, the next step. I get many "what's your theme?" questions from folks who are thinking of gift ideas and such. I had a most perfect theme in mind for a girls nursery...that involved toile (love) and gingham, and whimsical art work. I didn't have many ideas for a boy, until some swatches of fabric arrived (I ordered them when I thought we were having a girl...that's a story for another time). Among them was this fabric. DH said "hey, I like that one!" and I thought...maybe I can have my toile nursery afterall!!! Inspiration #1 was born.

Inspiration #2 came in the form of this antique rocking chair, which incidentally my mother has a picture of HER mother being rocked in it by my great-great grandmother. It's like 100 years old and aside from needing reupholstery is in great shape:


The fabric makes me think of a whimsical, fantastical circus that might have come to town back in the day when great-great granny was rocking her first baby in this very rocker. So I'm thinking a bit vintage, a bit whimsical, a bit circus.

My darling mother in law suggested that she make a quilt that includes the fabric of choice and some others that she let me help select. I'm making curtains and probably some cute little pillows and a gingham dust ruffle for the crib mattress. Sewing projects!!

I wrestled over the furniture decision in a very big way. My original intent was to find an old fashioned wood crib on Craigslist and pair it with a shabby chic style dresser (that could double as a changing table). But the safety factor of old cribs hindered that plan...as did DH's distaste for the shabby chic style of furniture. In the end we got pieces from this set, which will work nicely and the stain of the wood is just right.

I also debated for a long time over the choice of rug. DH wanted to carpet the room, which I refused. I would have liked something subtle and a bit old fashioned looking like this pottery barn rug, but it was too expensive. I'd hate to clean spit up off of a 400 dollar rug. In the end we went with this option. A bit contemporary for my "theme"...but I figure it keeps it from being too serious, is a fun pick for a kid, and has all the right colors in it. DH likes it which is always a plus. And the price was right.

So much progress has been made, and still a bit left to do. DH installed a light in the closet (he's such a rockstar) and is in the midst of painting it, and we've got some shelving to install in there. I've moved on to the next mind boggling decision....artwork. I've got some ideas for a direction that are keeping with the theme.

Phew!! Stay tuned...next time there will be pictures of the final product!!

Stuff

Cascade Hops:

Corn (and squash, and beans and snapdragons)! They have earwigs all up in them though...we are going to spray them out with the hose, then put out traps of wet newspaper. I guess they normally eat aphids, which is good...but they also eat corn silk which is bad! We were out in the yard tonight and I told Joe I wanted more raised beds and it occurred to us to put matching ones to these against the retaining wall (which would be directly to the left of the photographer in this picture). It's the perfect spot, making use of the last truly full sun area of the yard, w/o impeding on the clear path through the yard that DH and the dogs favor. Excellent, it will look rad too with a little path of stepping stones in front of the beds winding toward the hops and the side yard.

Yellow room! It's done, yay! Well...almost done. I'm painting the doors this weekend and DH is putting in a new light fixture. Moving on to the bathroom next I think.

Happy Friday the 13th everyone. Cheers.

Holy Lettuce Crop, Batman

We have lettuce, possibly more then the two of us can eat. We eat alot of salad though, so hopefully we can put a nice dent in it before it bolts or gets eaten by critters. Speaking of bolting...I'm wondering how long a crop of lettuce can last in warm weather before it bolts. Does harvesting it regularly have any hindering effect on it going to seed? I'm pretty inexperienced at "seasonal" gardening and the last two years by the time my tomatoes and peppers were ready, the lettuce was long gone. I suppose I could just start a new crop over when this crop is done. We eat enough salad that I'd like to have lettuce year round if at all possible. Any thoughts or suggestions anyone? I do need to start reading up more on proper seasonal gardening techniques. I find that so much is written about gardening with the seasons for places that actually *have* seasons, unlike our blessed climate. So some things don't apply I suppose.

Staying busy is the name of the game today. I painted a third coat on my spare bedroom. According to Martha, often yellow is one of those colors that needs 3 coats. So I said to myself "Mary, quit being lazy!!" and the third coat is lovely and just what the dr. ordered. My hands and back are appropriately tired.

I also gardened my butt off this weekend. I weeded and trimmed like crazy. I moved some sunflowers that were in too much shade. Then I forgot to water then and they died so I planted some more sunflower seeds. Fuck it, it's early yet and they might just take off. While I was at it I direct seeded some Black-eyed Susans, Jupiter's Beard, and Ox-eyed Daisies. Maybe someday I will regret planting such invasive wildflowers in my yard...but then again maybe I won't. We'll just have to see. I do enjoy the cottage garden feel such specimens afford. The garden overall is feeling pretty darned good. The hops and veggies (save the peppers which are doing nothing yet) have more then tripled in size since my last pictures I posted. We meant to get some gravel this weekend...but were undecided enough on the manner of gravel procurement that we ended up putting it off for a couple of weeks.

I miss my dad terribly. I cannot believe it has only been a week since he died. It seems like a year (It being a year to the day since we lost Aaron is just insult to injury at this point). I think about him all the time. The other day I even picked up the phone to call him and then remembered that he's no longer here and that I can never talk to him again. Ever. However, my tears have forsaken me...this at a time when I most need them. A surreal numbness instead has taken their place. I had thought not to talk or write about this. I'd thought this too personal for a blog which I strive to keep cheery and light. But those who read here are not those I'm afraid to share with. And who among us has never felt pain and loss?

Sicky Girl

Sick again! Do I blame DH or do I blame Mom? I guess it doesn't really matter. What's done is done and I feel like crap. What's the worst part of being sick for me is that I have a hard time laying around and doing nothing. I feel like I should be doing *something*...cleaning, painting, weeding...whatever! I'm going to go home early from work today and lay around. Maybe I'll do laundry which doesn't take much effort and yet will still cross an item off my all important to-do list.

A dear friend is getting married this weekend and there will be much partying to be had. So I hope to be feeling much better by then!

What else is there to report?? The spare room needs a good deal of touch up. I guess the dingy-est walls in the world are hard to cover with such a light color. And unfortunately I've run out of paint! I don't want to spend 30 or 40 bucks on another gallon, so I've been using the bottom of the can and I'll probably buy a quart. Rather then do a third coat, which it doesn't really need everywhere I'm just going to hand-paint over the corners and spots where the coverage isn't the best. Hopefully it will be satisfactory in the end. Now that all but touch ups are done I must say it looks alot better and I'm really satisfied afterall with the shade of yellow that I chose. It's screaming for curtains and artwork though! It's all coming together in my minds eye however! I think I'll probably have to buy some fabric and blinds, and some picture frames. I'm not going to invest much more then that though, because this is a spare room and would likely get proper furnishings someday should a small person come around to occupy it.

The garden is growing, growing, growing! The plants have all increased in size dramatically other then the hot peppers which I believe need more heat to really take off. I'll have to post some pictures, especially of the hops which are getting huge. They have some shoots that are literally crying for something to climb on, so DH and I (assuming I feel up to it) are going to build a trellis for them tonight.

Maybe I'll take some pictures today. It's supposed to rain, which I'm glad for.

Yellow things

Daffodils....

Sunrises...
(btw...don't you totally want to go where this pic was taken??)

Lemons....

And then there is.......my spare bedroom...

It looks pretty good in the above picture...but check out how it glows in the morning sun:

It almost reminds me of...dare I say it....(*insert here my best Deathklok death metal voice*) GRANDMA'S KITCHEN!!!!

LOL. So the yellow is slightly brighter then it looked on the paint chip. I'm not by any means afraid of color (as they would say on HGTV), but I do tend to forget that paint looks a shade or two darker on the wall then it does on the chip. DH was like, "DAMN, that's yellow!. Heh. I think onces it's done and all the stuff is back in it, and the trim is painted and there's window treatments then it will look fine. And if not, that's the beauty of painting. I can simply paint it a different color.

I've always wanted a yellow room! When I was a wee lass, around the age of 12 I got to move into a different room in our house - a cooler room, with pretty white lace curtains and accross the house from my parents and brother. It was like freedom...AND I got to paint it whatever color I wanted. I strongly toyed with yellow, but ended up going with light blue (blue is still a favored color of mine for bedrooms). But now at last I have my yellow room. Hopefully it won't blind me when I'm trying to sew in there.

Driptacular

It took a day of planning, a day of working (and getting sunburned) and about 10 trips to OSH. But the drip system is IN. It still needs some tweaks - a new sprinkler head here, some drippers there - but the raised beds can now be watered with the turn of a switch. We didn't put the timer on yet - but eventually we will. The system runs along both sides of the patio beds (I need to install watering devices here - I tried bubblers, but they put off too much water. I think I'm going to replace with drippers. Then over our retaining wall - unfortunately the cement went too deep to go under it. Then it t's off and one branch goes behind what I'm calling the three sister's beds, and in the other direction it's going to our main raised beds. We are now ready to install the gravel in our walkways, and then other then planting, maintaining and harvesting - I think that we'll be done with projects in the back yard for a while - at least until after the house is painted.

I also managed to get a nice chunk of the spare room done - the ceiling! My least favorite part of painting, behind the sanding. I bought the yellow paint and it's very cheerful. Tonight I need to caulk a few little spots on the baseboard (we are getting lazy and not replacing the baseboard in this room) and then tape it off so I can paint the walls. I should be done by the end of the week - at least with everything but the trim. Yay! Then I will have a sewing room, which will be good because I have some projects I'd like to start on.

I want to make a patchwork duvet cover. I figure that it will be like making a quilt with out the tying and batting part LOL. I have tons of quilt scraps, some of which came from fabric from my great-grandmother's dresses. And I've always had kind of a love affair with calicos. I don't want any color scheme or pattern. It will be completely 4 or 5 inch squares of whatever random fabric I have and whatever fabric catches my eye at the fabric store. Harder this way with no pattern, because you can't do strip quilting (Have I ever mentioned what a genious Seamstrix Art is?)...but fuck it - I like the old fashioned random squares quilts alot and I wants one. And making it duvet cover style will please the hubby.

The other crafty project I need to start on is chemo caps for my auntie. She has brain/lung cancer and her hair should start to fall out from the treatment next week. Gypsy Junk suggested it, and I checked with my cousin and she thinks it would be VERY well received. I'm going to go now - and finish my project audits hopefully soon so I can search for patterns.

Go Go Gadget Garden

Despite some unfortunate events over the last week, DH and I still managed to finish what we started on the raised beds. Bright and early on Saturday I took the better soil that I saved on each end of the ginormous pile and filled each raised bed to between 1/3 and 1/2 full, tossing out any bits of grass and rocks as I went (see how the pile has shrunk!!?). The soil here is rich, but clay-ish. We then went and got 9 bags of compost from Evergreen nursery. It was a bit spendy, but worth it. The stuff we're using has chicken manure, earthworm casting, sea kelp and something else in it - I forget...but it was good shit. We filled up the beds with that yummy-ness and Joe turned it thoroughly. His parents say it's too early to start anything, but I couldn't wait so I bought some stuff and planted it: tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, green bell pepper, crookneck squash and some flower companions for them. I also direct seeded some greens and carrots. They look so cute, don't you think?




It seems like every time I take a picture it's late in the day when the sun is gone! But I assure you both these spots get at least 4 hours of sun a day and will get even more as the sun crosses higher in the sky and spring begets summer.

My seedlings that I started inside are not faring so well. I've managed to kill a whole flat which contained sadly, my tomatoes, basil, eggplant and jalepeno. As with last year, the sunflower, zucchini, corn, echinacea and sage are doing well. The rest are spindly and pathetic and not making any progress at all. I also recently started some onions and beans, but only one each of the little pots sprouted. I never do have much luck with the starting inside. Perhaps if I had a grow light it would make it more worthwhile. The sunflowers will go outside soon, as I can tell they are growing weary of their small peat pots. The rest have a while to go.

Last year I had a lovely show of black eyed susans after spontaneously scattering some seeds. I think I'll do the same again this year. They are so pretty that they bring me joy every time I gaze upon them. I see some teeny sprouts where I scattered wildflower and butterfly garden seeds - but the soil there is so clay that I'm not sure how successful they will be. We will see! This is the first year of many years of gardening lessons to be learned from our darling little yard. Oh, I almost forgot! DH ordered some year old Hop Rhizomes that will be here next week. We need to find a place for them to creep. The obvious choice (against the bedroom wall) won't work because we need to keep it open for painting. We are talking about a couple of big wine barrels with the bamboo tripods in them. He can't wait to make some home brew with home grown hops!

Gardening isn't all I've been up to though! I did start on another room...the spare room which will be a guest/sewing room until such time there is a small person to occupy it. It's pretty freakin' dingy and has spots that need some serious plaster and patching. Blech. But it's only a few evening's of work and I'll be able to start painting it. The color will be "Fun in the Sun" which is a warm, light yellow. A color I like, and may be a wise choice for the future? We will see. Here's a little before for ya...burn these images into your brain so that you can marvel with the cuteness of the "after" room. ;)



Well, that's all I got for now. I hope all is well in your worlds. Until next time fair bloglings.