Nursery – nicole.groudasfamily.com

Closet Doors

This week has been a bit exhausting – at 31 weeks pregnant, once I’ve worked a full day and picked up the little one from daycare, then fed her (and us usually), I really just want to rest. HOWEVER there are things to do! This week I got the 3 closet doors that we brought home MONTHS ago finally painted. We can get them installed this weekend, the painter is taking care of the rest of the doors which should be done when we get out there. I’m excited to see the painting progress this weekend!

Next week is the last week like this, I’m going to be painting the drawers and doors for the diningroom built-ins once they are stripped, I got one drawer stripped last night and I can finish the rest maybe monday night then paint Tue, Wed, Thur nights (primer and 2 coats of paint). Lot of work but going to look great!

Ryan and I are going out without Alex this weekend so I can finish up any projects from my list. This will be my last trip out, I will be 32 weeks along next week and want to start taking it easy as I’m hoping to make it to 38 weeks this time (Alex came at 37). Ryan will have one more tough weekend of doing floors the following weekend without me and then he too will be taking a break as he has other commitments for a while.

Cabinets ordered

Well they cost a small fortune (especially after we added some more to our design) but both cabinets and counters have been ordered! (Home Depot was having a 10% off sale!). It took 2 trips to home depot (our first appt started late then we got booted so I had to go back over to finish up and order the cabinets).

We went with Martha Stewart cabinets from HD in their ‘Maidstone’ style with Maple cabinets in ground nutmeg with rum highlights for coloring. They come standard with slow close doors, drawers and full extension hidden drawer hardware. We got pull out drawers/shelves for 3 of the base cabinets.

So on Friday (actually thursday night this started) we were discussing final plans and looking at fridges. We decided to look into counter depth fridges, not loving that a standard fridge would stick out so far. They are significantly more expensive though but we actually found a really nice one on craigslist on sale for less than 1/2 it’s original price and barely used. We’ve never actually purchased anything off of craigslist but this seemed like an okay scenario (ryan talked to the woman). So friday night, after Alex’s bath we put her to ‘bed’ in her carseat and headed up to Epping, NH where we got a new (to us) fridge! We also got some lights she was willing to sell pretty cheap since she was trying to clear out a bunch of stuff.

What fridge did we end up with? This monster: Kenmore Elite Fridge/Freezer combo with trim kit. It’s a full size fridge and next to it a full size freezer. So it looks like a side/by/side but it’s 6 feet long 🙂 So a little kitchen re-design was needed, plus we wanted to make it look fully built-in so we’re doing floor to ceiling cabinets around the fridge on that wall. It’s large but awesome. Ryan even managed to clean out the fridge good last night so we are already using the fridge!

So this weekend we bought a fridge and some lights, then we bought cabinets and a counter. Work wise I’ve been working on painting windows since we had some decent weather. First I primed the inside of all the window sashes (4 windows), then I got 2 coats of exterior paint on them. The nursery windows got a coat of interior paint on them as well.

Windows are ready for winter now and attention can be refocused back to the kitchen!

Owl branch

Baby girl had a decent nap today and after I woke up from the start of said nap I decided to make some progress on the mural. Surprisingly alex slept quite a while and I managed to get the whole branch painted! Next up is the tree.

All in all i count today as a win.

Shelves in the closet

The nursery closet that is. On Friday I managed to finish up the nursery closet shelving.

That’s one more item off the nursery todo list. Just have to finish up the mural and paint the windows and doors now before it’s completely done. Squishy and I spend most of our days in the nursery now, it’s a very cozy room. And hopefully in a few weeks she’ll be sleeping in here too… working on it 🙂

Owl family

Today I started painting the mural Sarah drew above the crib. I’m pretty sure the picture is fuzzy because it’s from my cell and taken from far away since I was feeding the baby. I’m adding texture to the owls as I paint, making them feathery and I’m really excited with how they are coming out! Now I just have the branch, leaves and trunk to do but baby girl doesn’t take 2 full naps so maybe tomorrow I’ll finish.

Ryan has to work all weekend so this is probably the only house progress we will make but I’m secretly hoing he has time to just cut the shelves for the closet so I can put the closet all together if baby girl naps tomorrow.

I realized today I could watch netflix on my phone, much better than sitting here doing nothing while alex eats.

Putting Together the Nursery

That’s right, the nursery is just about done after this weekend! Let’s recap:

Mom came out this weekend to help with Alex, and of course to see her so ryan and I took full advantage and finished up the nursery.
Things accomplished saturday:
– she molding installed the rest of the way, nail holes filled, sanded for last coat
– fan/light and switch installed
– ceiling of closet sanded, primed and painted
– closet light installed
– outlets almost all installed
– rug put dow, crib put together, bed frame together and dressers moved in
– mural drawn (sarah came up in the evening and drew the mural for us so I just have to paint it now!)

On Sunday we finished everything up:
– finished outlets
– closet switch installed
– painted shoe molding
– mattress moved in and furniture all set up in final spots

It's hard to see since it's a sketch but here's the mural Sarah drew for us! Can't wait to paint this in this week!

More pictures to come once I have things more set up. We did move the rocking chair in last night so it’s getting close.

What’s left on the nursery?

– Installing the closet system
– Priming/painting the doors and putting them up
– Priming/painting the window sashes
– Installing cable/ethernet drops
– Painting the mural

What a great weekend and great first mothers day! I got to sleep in so in total I got 7 hours of sleep which is a first since alex was born!

Floor Pictures

On sunday ryan did start the shoe molding install, a couple of long pieces have to be trimmed and the saw isn’t set up at the moment but soon we can finish that up. The floor has to cure for 2 weeks before we can put the rug down and bring in all the furniture. I’m hoping to start the mural this weekend though and we can get the outlets in and work on the closet ceiling. Can’t wait for the weekend!

Nursery almost done

We’ve had a couple of long nights with a cranky Alex and today she was a bit out of sorts as well but we managed to make some good nursery progress and it’s almost done!

I did the cutting in on the walls while ryan watched alex, then we switched off and he rolled the walls (so they are done!) And put a coat of paint on the shoe molding so once that’s installed tomorrow we just have to touch up the nail holes.

After dinner aimee snuggled peanut while I did the final coat of poly on the floor (another tinted coat). Tomorrow the floor should be dry and we can finish up the room (the closet has a bit left including a molding and the ceiling but we can put the room togwther sans closet for now. Tomorrow ryan will install the shoe molding and I’ll do the outlets and we’re done!

Trim progress

Well Sunday night I was able to make some good progress on the nursery while Ryan watched Alex between feedings. The prep work took a while (sanding and vacuuming) but I managed to get a coat of paint on all the trim in the nursery!

Monday we had errands to run outside the house and when we got home Alex just wanted to be held (she had spent a lot of time in her car seat so it was understandable).

Today was a rainy day though so we stayed in. She had a fussy morning but after lunch she slept between feedings so I managed to get the trim mostly sanded during one of her naps. I’m hoping to head back in and finish sanding and vacuum so it’s ready for paint. I’m not optimistic that I’ll get the painting done tonight as well but maybe.

trim painted — First coat on the trim and it's sanded for the second coat.

Right now it’s time to go get some dinner made, I wasn’t good about meals yesterday and paid for it with a headache so I’m trying to be better today.

Love me some sleep

So I chose sleep over nursery progress this weekend but that doesn’t mean we didn’t get any progress done. Ryan had a ton of work to do so he wasn’t able to work on the house but he could hang with little Alex while he worked.

Friday night I managed to get everything in the nursery primed (trim) except for the windows which i’ll wait until it’s a bit warmer out to do so they can stay out for a bit. That’s also not dependent on leaving the room empty since the windows can be removed to another room.

So the trim is primed and ready to be lightly sanded for the first coat of paint (today?).

Saturday Alex and I went over to Celebrations with my friends to shop! When we got home Aunt Erica (Tia) came for a visit! We went out to lunch (after miss alex ate first of course), then just chilled at home.

Now it’s sunday and I am hoping to get some painting done once this headache eases up a bit.