A Work in Progress

Lately I've been working on the back bedroom. A little bit here and there, and we're hopefully half way done...hopefully. After much deliberation and total convincing from a friend, we decided to reorganize the bedrooms in the house. When I say 'we' I mean that I decided and had to then convince the hubby it was for the best. In the long run, changing up the rooms will make perfect sense, but moving furniture up and down the three staircases and making room for baby things has been a bit overwhelming!

We moved the guest bedroom into my old office so it is now at the same level as the guest bathroom. My office has been moved upstairs to be closer to the nursery and is now in the brightest room in the house. Maybe it will be a bit more of an inspiration for me to have a new space. Maybe this means I'll finally get off of the couch and actually into my office again :o) We'll see!

Before shot of the nursery

We started with new paint in the nursery. The green walls were primed and painted a creamy beige. Yes, you read that right, I went with a light color! There is a first time for everything I suppose. My mother in law came over to help paint the walls one day and after 3 creamy beige walls, we decided to tackle the dark red. I went with a super neutral concept and wanted a pop of color in a dark red. I've been waiting to use a red color somewhere in this house - so I went for it! After all of the painting was done - it just wasn't 'finished' in my mind. So after a little research, I found a really cool idea using stripes and polyurethane. It gives the look of a flat color with a high gloss stripe. Turns out, if you tape the walls  in the stripe pattern that you like, VERY lightly roll on the poly.... then you better wipe whatever you can off before it drips! It was a bit difficult, but well worth the work. I removed the tape and did some touch up paint to give a clean line where anything may have run. It might be my new favorite room.

Dark red accent and creamy beige with the polyurethane stripes

Now you can see the flat vs. high gloss of the stripes

I only painted 3 of the walls with stripes because I had yet another inspiration for the last wall. I found an idea from a blog post on Project Nursery that rocked my world. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to figure out how to do it! I rented a projector from the local library and spent an entire Saturday with my girl Kelli (another designer and my bestie) hand painting a mural of the alphabet and numbers. Monochromatic colors so it isn't crazy, but modern enough that if we decide to move the baby into another room, I have another office without having to repaint!

My Alphabet mural wall!

A-Z & 0-9 all there (even hiding behind the door)!

Here are the photos of the nursery. Just this weekend we set up the crib with my parents and the surprise early birthday present. I got an incline trainer! It's amazing... except my nursery has now become my nursery/workout room. We'll have to see how this goes... but for now - I'm ok with hanging out in the coolest room while kicking my butt at a 40% incline.

The crib all set up & my new incline trainer

I asked Cody if he wanted to learn how to W-A-L-K on the trainer.... he got on, until I turned on the machine and it started moving. I'll train him someday, but for now - I'll just keep getting this reaction whenever I ask if he wants to go for a ______?

Huh?

P.S. I finally got around the getting those belly shots done. I am officially 25 weeks, 1 day today!
Time just flies, but I'm going to try to keep the belly pictures up as I start to grow. The doctor said I'm finally hitting that rapid growth spurt - which explains my expanding cheeks. My face seems to gain more weight than the rest of me - so hopefully it will slow down so the rest of me can keep up. 

Cody and I posing

Pushing the belly out

Messing around with Cody

Where's the baby?