Weekend Update

This weekend was all about resting and getting organized. On Saturday, I sewed for the first time since... I don't know how long it has been! But it felt good and I completed 2 hooded bath towels. Sorry for the crappy pictures, but I wanted to prove that I actually sewed them. Thanks to Mel for giving me a little nudge to get going! I have approximately 6 friends that are pregnant and I want to make sure I have all their gifts sewn before our little person comes along. 2 down, only 4 more to go!


I also found this cute Handmade For You tags by Amy Cluck aka Peptogirl.


Now that the baby room is all painted and the dresser was setup, it was time to move onto the office. db woke up early on Sunday and started putting the bookcase we bought from Ikea. It didn't take long before it was all done and ready to go into the office. One small problem, the office wasn't ready for the bookcase. Adding a bookcase to our already small office space required some shuffling around furniture, including my dear sewing machine. Luckily we found a home for all the furniture and it looks not too bad - cramped - but not too bad.

I really wanted to organize our books like this:

Image from Apartment Therapy

or like this:

Image from High Fashion Home Blog

But db wouldn't let me because he thought it would be too difficult to find an actual book he was looking for (boo-hoo), so currently the books and bookcase looks like this:


Hope everyone has a great week!
~ariane

The Paint

First of all, I want to note that I did pick a bold colour. I wanted a fun and funky room and a room that stands out from the rest of the house. Sometimes I panic after I make such decisions, so there has been many phone calls to Steph and my mother second guessing the choice of such a bright green in the room.

This is the photo I took after the first coat of paint. Suddenly I thought to myself "What have you done?" and at this point, db called this room the "insane asylum" because you walk in and your face goes into shock (like the SCREAM painting).


A few days and 2 coats of paint later, I am feeling much better about the whole room. It is still bold, but I think it is going to look great once it is all put together. db and I put the Ikea Malm dresser together today and put it in the room and I think he agrees the green looks great with the white.






I even put the baby clothes that I have received in the drawers. I am thinking about making some drawer liners using this tutorial, but probably won't use any scents and will use some low tack double sided tape to keep the liner from shifting around.


For this week, a lot has been accomplished! The hallway and the baby room has been painted. The dresser/change table has been put together. Count down is on... only 8 weeks left!

~ariane

The Baby's Room - Designer Perspective

So... Ariane has been talking about the Baby's room here for a little while, ane we've been hard at work on it since she told me I'm going to be an Auntie! Going to the Olympics and becoming an Auntie in one year - what can I say 2010 is going to be awesome all round even if only those two things happen.

We started looking initially at all the kids rooms on several sites for inspiration mostly Ohdeeoh - which is the kid's version of Apartment Therapy. We perused, and decided that kelly green was the way to go - so I put together a mood board based on the green and the overall the modernist vibe Ariane and I thought would be great for the room.



The theme is titled - lions, and tigers and bears... and I took the idea for shapes and general theme for the room from the photo in the top lefthand corner of the moodboard, Francois Pompon's "Polar Bear" which is at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. I then compiled a list of animals and did some silhouette illustrations of the animals to be stenciled on the walls in white chalkboard paint - it is a kids room afterall -and Ariane and I LOVED drawing on the walls when we were little, so why not build that into the room - I can hear people already thinking it is a reciped for disaster, and it is a bit, but no more than having a two year old with crayons is normally.

This is what at least one wall should look like when we are done. There will also be a lion and a giraffe and possibly a monkey.

We're onto the fun part now - buying all of the furniture, and we'll get that done within the next couple of weeks so it arrives when I'm visiting, and I'll paint the animals on the walls, and put together all of the furniture, and make it ready for my neicey/nephew (who I truly can't wait to meet)
<3 Stephanie

Back on Track - Baby Room

This week is going much, much smoother than last week. The painter called on Monday and he was ready to go! He started painting on Tuesday and today there is 2 coats of paint completed in the baby's room. If only I could find the cord for my camera! I have pictures! It is quite greeeeeeeeeen, but my sister assures me that there will also be lots of white. DB is calling it the "Insane Asylum" right now (YIKES!)

The hallway is also getting painted! Horray for no more pink! It looks great and there is only one coat of paint!

Now to find that camera cord... where could I have put it? I must have put it "away" with all the organizing I did. This happens to me often, I organize things so well that I can't find anything. I am sure it will turn up soon!

Other news, db and I went for another ultrasound on Tuesday. Baby is looking good! All this time I thought he was kicking me, well it turns out he is kneeing me! Wow! Could he have db's tall genes? I guess we will find out in 8 weeks. Oh ya - I don't know if it is a boy, I just use the "he" because I am lazy and don't want to write/say "he/she" all the time. It truly means nothing. I have no idea what this kid is and I don't have a preference.

My sewing machine is calling me... yet, I still have no desire to sew. Hmm... when will I get my craftiness back?

Set Back Week - Baby Room

This was a frustrating week for the progress of the baby's room. A couple of things happened:

1. Painter bailed - Okay, I am not exactly sure what happened, but the painter failed to call me back. It has be almost a week since he sent his quote and I asked when he could start, but he hasn't called back. This makes me soooo sad! Now Steph and I will have to paint. Or I could try to find another painter... anybody know of a good painter in Victoria?

2. The Crib - The crib that my sister and I picked out is beautiful. Well, actually Steph found it and I agreed it was pretty. It is the BabyLetto Modo 3-in-1 Convertible Crib.

One problem that we didn't realize is it is made out of pine. Pine is such a soft would that it would get dinged up very quickly and if baby chews on it... well, there would be teeth marks all over. The Babyletto webpage does say they use lead free and safe paint... except, I don't want a dinged up crib after 5 months! Call me crazy!

So, back to the drawing board. Now I am thinking that I like the ducduc crib that my mom and I saw when we visited a store in Calgary. It is very pretty (and very expensive).

I attempted to get a store in Vancouver to quote a shipping price for this crib, but the lady was slightly... well, to put it nicely, slow. There is another store in Vancouver that carries this crib, so Steph will try and contact them this week and see if they can ship it to Victoria. I hope so! I wish we had more furniture stores in Victoria :)

3. Stroller - From day 1, I have been pretty set on which stroller I wanted to get. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I was checking out the ones people use at the ball fields (since baseball is such a huge part of our lives and I don't see that changing). Well, today I went shopping with a friend whom is also pregnant and I think she found a better stroller for approximately the same price! Now I am confused! Which one do I get? Can't someone else do all this shopping for me? Hahaha... so, I will go get a demo of the one that I first was interested in from a friend who has a toddler and ask her for her input and help. Goodness!

This week is full of doctor's appointments, meet the doctor, and prenatal classes. I am exhausted already!

Baby Room - The Clean Up!

The painter came yesterday and it looks like we can get the hallway and the baby's room painted in the next couple weeks. The colour that we are painting the baby room is called Herbal Tea by Behr.

That means I have a lot of organizing to do! The room currently looks like this:




Yikes! So, hopefully this next week I can get it all cleaned up and ready to go for the painter. The large IKEA boxes contain a book shelf for the office and the baby's dresser/change table, which I will get my sister to post all about on here in the next couple days. She created a hack that my dad will be building to make it more functional as a change table.