I read the blog Young House Love religiously. Like, if anyone at work were to check my web browsing history they’d notice that every day around 9 am and 1:30 pm I check to see if they’ve posted the day’s post yet… Yup, it’s like crack. (You won’t tell, right?)

Luckily for me — and not so luckily for Craig, ha — they have a two-year-old daughter so they’ve been through the whole baby thing already. Which means I can peek at their archives to see how they’ve handled the various baby gear dilemmas I’ve run into so far (and any other suggestions their readers, which number more than my five, might have).

They landed on a sweet looking Baby Mod crib from Wal-Mart (surprise!) for an affordable all-wood option. Apparently pressed wood  and MDF can be held together by formaldehyde. Not good. But many commenters had great luck with an even more affordable-yet-modern looking wood crib from Ikea: the Gulliver. At less than half the price of the Baby Mod, while the frame and slats are made of sturdy solid wood, there is a fiberboard base.  But we talked about it and decided that if we got the cheaper crib we could splurge on the organic cotton and wool mattress of my dreams. Well, one that we hope will give the Lima Bean many happy dream-filled nights to come. (While I’m usually all about buying furniture off of Craigslist, with the ever-changing safety standards of cribs it seemed safest to buy a new one.)

I’m sure this is a sign of the paranoid mom I’m going to become, but it just makes me feel better knowing my sweet lil’ babe will be sleeping on something chemical free. All mattresses in the U.S. must be flame retardant — which means they’re treated with chemicals with a questionable safety record (see this recent story in the New York Times for a little background on flame retardants and this investigative series in the Chicago Tribune.) Just buying an organic mattress doesn’t save you from the chemicals. The key is to have one made with wool, which is a natural flame retardant and therefore exempts the mattress from the (scary) chemical onslaught.

So, well, let me tell you these cotton/wool mattresses are not as cheap as their regular brethren (or even as plain old organic cotton mattresses). But after much research I found a reasonable option at Organic Grace, which, with a coupon code I found on mothering.com, only set us back $250. And when I say set “us” back, I mean Craig’s mom, who very graciously bought her new grandbaby’s crib and mattress. (Thank you so much, Pat!)

A few photos for ya to see what the whole shebang looks like so far (you get a peek at the new window coverings we made, which I’ll tell you about soon!).

We moved one of the recliners upstairs for some comfy nighttime feedings, and the little nightstand next to it I found at the curb mart. It had a matching dresser too, but alas that was too heavy to lug home on a 10 pm walk…

So, how many of you think I’m going to turn even nuttier once the Lima Bean arrives? Any tips on how to stop myself from becoming a basket case about every possible owie? Or how to arrange furniture in a teeny tiny nursery with lots of odd angles?

For about a year, I’ve been living in some sort of fantasy world where I buy vintage furniture pieces and paint them. First it was winter that got in my way, then it was pregnancy — yeah, I’m full of excuses. But this weekend I strongarmed sweetalked Craig into acting as my refinishing surrogate and help me update a dresser for the nursery.

Isn’t she lovely?

The dresser was actually Craig’s when he was a boy and had been sitting in the basement at his mom’s house for years (it still has that Nickels basement scent). She was looking to get rid of some furniture and we are now in need of some, so it was a win-win for everyone. Especially us. Here’s how it looked back in the day (well, technically, just the day before):

I love how the new paint job modernizes the old honey stain, like a great dye job on a mousey, starting-to-gray mop of hair (not that I’d know anything about that..)

The whole process was relatively simple, at least from where I was standing a good 15 feet away. I helped with the first part — unscrewing the knobs and giving the drawer faces a quick swipe with sandpaper. One of the knobs was stuck on, as if it had been glued, so I taped around that one with painters tape so it would stay brown like the rest of them. Then Craig took over with priming and painting (we used the Zinsser primer and white paint we’d used on the kitchen shelf project we did right before I found out I was pregnant, so since they weren’t no-VOC I thought it best to bow out of this part of the project).

I made myself feel useful and grilled us up some corn.

Three coats later and Craig put the drawers in the garage to dry overnight. The next morning, I screwed in the knobs and vacuumed out the spider webs, then we hauled all of the pieces upstairs into our newly painted nursery. I love it with the vintage dog lamp on top (another score out of the Nickels family basement), and now I can’t wait to stuff it full of cloth diapers and itty bitty clothes! Here’s another look so you don’t have to scroll up:

Anyone else loving two-toned pieces lately, or dig any buried treasure out of a basement? What is that basement smell, anyhow?

Last summer, our front yard was taken over by robins. Well, more specifically, the light above our front door was. A robin built a nest there and like a squatter laid claim to the rest of our property, eyeing us up from a perch on the crabapple tree, dive-bombing us should we dare try to get into a car parked in the driveway, hovering on the other side of our glass door if we tried to exit. One night, Lucy caught one of the chicks and the rest of the robin clan lined up on some cable wires to chastise her, chirping angrily and flying within inches of her back while she obliviously sniffed around for more little birdies to play with. (I’m ashamed to admit, Craig and I stood in the safety of the sunroom and watched the whole thing go down.)

Well, fast forward a year and we’ve got more robin’s nest — but this time, by choice.

We took advantage of the beautiful weather over the weekend and painted the nursery a shade called “robin’s nest” by Benjamin Moore (color matched to Olympic no-VOC paint since the nearest store that sells BM’s Natura line — its no-VOC version — is more than half an hour away). The newest member of the homestead is due to arrive a little less than three months from now, so in a way it feels early to get ‘er done. But since I can still occasionally smell fumes from the last room we painted over a year ago, we wanted to leave plenty of time for the room to air out — and I’m sure we’ll have plenty of last minute things to keep us busy as we get closer.

Because Craig and I are not the types to make snap decisions… or any decisions, for that matter… we’ve been debating this whole paint color selection for months. The room, which for the past year or so had been our office, was a horrid shade of khaki bequeathed to us by the previous owners of the house. We were leaning toward painting it gray and then having yellow accents, but we have two greige rooms upstairs (and of course neither is the same shade) along with a lavender-gray colored hallway so we thought introducing one more gray into the mix would be a little too much. Besides, when else can we go all out and paint a room a fun color? Our last attempt at that was a big bright green fail, so we were excited, and scared, to try again.

We noticed that several of the nurseries I’ve pinned on Pinterest were aqua, so I researched (surprise) to see which shades people had success with and ended up with four possibilities.  I bought $3 sample pots of each at Lowe’s so we could see which one we liked best:

The computer screen doesn’t do them justice, though they were awfully similar. We were intrigued by the Whythe blue — supposedly, it’s the color used in Don Draper’s house in Mad Men — but it seemed a little too moody for a nursery. (A future dining room, perhaps?) We’d read such great things about robin’s nest (I got Craig involved in all of this over-researching) that we decided to go for it. It’s one of those chameleon colors that changes with the light, kinda like my crazy eyes. A little more green in sunlight, a little more blue in artificial light. I love, love, love it.

My doctor had already given me the go-ahead to paint, so I helped Craig out with the first coat. I was surprised that what I found unbearably smelly wasn’t the paint, but the painters tape. Ewww. In fact, when we got to the second coat I asked Craig if he’d be able to do it himself because the tape smell was just too much for me, and of course since he is the Best Husband Ever (right dear?), he obliged. In the meantime I finished up another nursery project I’ll tell you about soon…

So there you have it, how we actually decided on a color for the nursery and survived to tell about it. What do you think? Anyone have any tips for moving beyond paint paralysis?

My legion of fans sister asked me about my new kitchen shelves, and I realized with all the time I’ve been spending in the garden lately I forgot to post the finished pictures! Take a look:

So pretty, right? It makes me smile just looking at the photos. I’ve long had an obsession with Mason jars o’ food, and now I get to share it with the world (or at least the people who come over to my house). Love.

Since the shelves are right above our coffee pot, I also put our coffee tins and assortment of coffee contraptions on the shelves to mix things up. The jars that look like they belong in a candy store are from Hobby Lobby on sale for $2.50.

You’d think this would have opened up a bunch of cupboard space, but with a little reshuffling they’re all full again — only now I can actually see all the food we have since it’s not all just thrown in a heap. Yay, organization!

Anyone else do any home projects recently?