Nursery in the Working

I am sure most of you have seen all of these pictures on facebook, so this is probably going to be a boring post for you, but I want to document it. Last weekend, my parents came to Birmingham to help Ben and I start getting our house/nursery ready for the arrival of Baby A. My mom and I spent most of our time working on the nursery specifically, and my dad and Ben spent most of their time working on various tasks around our house that have needed to be done since we moved in.

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For Baby A's room, I am using mostly all hand-me-down or old furniture that I had in college. Most of the pieces just needed a new paint job, so mom and I started the day off with that. It was a BEAUTIFUL day that day so it felt so good to be outside.

Here is my mom painting the rocking chair. This chair was my grandmothers chair.

We also painted an old twin bed, a dresser and a desk.

While we were out in the back painting, Ben and my dad were working on reviving this old porch swing that my grandparents had given us after they sold their lake house.

They drilled holes in the ceiling and hung new chains...

My mom and I spray painted the swing white, and then they hung it up!

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the finished product, but I love it! We need to add one more coat of paint at some point, but it is so perfect out on our screened in back porch. After they finished hanging the swing, they also put in a new ceiling fan out there. I know I am going to spend several days out there this spring and summer after Baby A is born.

In the midst of all the chaos of completing all of these tasks, my mom and I also ran to the grocery store because we decided to grill out since it was such a beautiful day. My sister and her family had also called me that morning and said they were having to drive to Alabaster to look at a golf cart they were thinking about buying. Since it was on the way home, they decided to stop by and help us with all of our tasks. Here is my mom starting to prepare dinner. While she cooked, I ran to the paint store to pick up the paint for the walls in Baby A's room.

We had grilled pork tenderloin, homemade macaroni and cheese, broccoli salad and mashed potatoes. YUM... just thinking about it makes my mouth water. It was delicious!

Here we are out on the porch waiting for the meat to finish grilling. You can kind of see the swing in this picture!

This is a picture of my sister and her family. We were so glad they were able to join in the fun and give us a hand!

After dinner, the guys relaxed on the couch and watched a basketball game while the girls headed back to Baby A's room to paint the walls.

Here is my sister putting the first stroke of paint on the walls!

And Kayli, my neice, helped fill in all of the holes and then she helped paint too!

Somehow I didn't get a picture of my mom and me painting, but we were there!

While we were painting, I had my dad hang a new rod in the closet because the closet consists of a huge shelving unit with just a tiny bar/spot for clothes. We decided to hang the bar in front of the shelving unit instead of making it a part of it so that I could still use the storage behind her clothes.

Look at all of the sweet clothese she already has! Most of them are either gifts from people or hand-me-downs from my neices. I can't wait until she is here to wear them!!

And, here is the finished product of the nursery so far!! I absolutely love it. I still have a lot to do, but we were able to get most of the big stuff done. I've got to get things to hang on the walls, make curtains, cover the cushion that goes on the rocking chair, and get a rug. I still have plenty of time to get all of that done though!

I am going to make that desk on the right into a changing table.

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I am so thankful that we really didn't have to buy any furniture for this room. The only thing we bought was the crib, which I LOVE. I love how it has a deep arch in the back. It makes it look a little different than the standard crib. I also love that most of the furniture has been passed down and has meaning behind it--like the rocking chair was my grandmothers and the twin bed was actually my dad's bed when he was a little boy. The desk/changing table was something my mom had used at Frankies for display purposes and I repainted it and used it in college. We borrowed the twin mattress from Ben's sister Meg. It was her mattress during her freshman or sophomore year of college. The bedding on the twin bed was given to me by my sister's mother-in-law. She actually bought it on sale way back before we were even pregnant. I was at her house one day and she said she really didn't have any use for it and asked if I wanted it. I love any kind of quilt so I of course said yes. When we found out we were having a girl, I knew it would be perfect in her room!

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As for the rest of the furniture, the tall dresser I bought before going to college at an unfinished furniture store. We painted it and put new knobs on it and I love it. I loved it when in college. It holds so much stuff and because it has so many drawers it helps keep things organized.

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So, we had a very busy and eventful weekend at our house. It feels so good to have all of the big stuff done in the nursery. My mom and I also cleaned out and organized our whole downstairs basement. Since we moved in, it has kind of been our junk room where we have just thrown things that we don't really have a good spot for. Now that one of our bedrooms is being taken over by baby, we cleaned the downstairs up so it could become another guest room.

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Ben and I are just SOO thankful for all of the help that we had in getting all of this done. I seriously have the best family in the world. I can't wait to show baby A the pictures one day and let her see how much she was already loved by her family before she was even born! It sure was fun to organize/clean when you are preparing for the arrival of a baby! We can't wait to meet her!

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Stay tuned! Belly Post Picture coming right up... Beware....I have definitely blossomed!