Ugly House Diaries: It's the baby's room...not a nursery

We do not have a nursery in our home. Not according to Andrew. We have a baby’s room. Apparently the term “nursery” upsets him. Or it at least doesn’t sit well. So I have to remember to call what used to be our guest room the baby’s room instead of referring to it as the nursery, even though he did use that word once. It was only the one time though, and I made sure to call him out on it!

People ask me all the time…well, not all the time. It’s not like being 34 weeks pregnant means everyone and their mom talks to me. I do live in the North where it can take some people two years to strike up a random passerby convo with another human—no offense to my close Northern friends, y’all are definitely exceptions! Anyway, people ask me occasionally if I’m ready for this baby to come out. And the answer is no. Nope, it can stay in there awhile! That’s because we still have a little ways to go before we have things ready for this child.

I posted earlier about my baby shower in Alabama. Because it was so far away, we set it up as a gift card shower, so I came home with lots of checks, cash and gift cards to different stores. Andrew and I have begun using our stash to slowly gather things we need for the room, but we’re waiting to do the majority of it in April after my shower in Massachusetts.

We have bought a few things, but our first day of shopping was not entirely what we expected. We found a glider and ottoman at Target, bought it and headed to Home Depot. Easy enough? Not quite, but that comes later. At Home Depot we were looking for an area rug for our living room. We wanted to put the current rug that is a 5’x7’ in the baby’s room (it doesn’t completely coordinate, eh, details), and get a new, larger rug for our living room. This way the baby has more comfortable floor space, and I just wanted a larger rug. Also—we decided we’d extend Sherpa’s boundary into the living room. We don’t want him feeling even more left out when the baby gets here, and this way there’s less hardwood floor for him to potentially scratch.

At HD we found the perfect rug—really a bound carpet scrap—that was less than $100. That’s fantastic considering most rugs in large sizes start around $400. We decided we’d come back for it on our way north. We then headed to IKEA to scope out some furniture.

Once there, we moved quickly. I’ll admit there are some great finds there, and it’s nice to study each space to dream of what could work for you; however, we’ve also had some nightmare experiences with their larger furniture (large piece + particle board = DO NOT BUY). When I go with friends we generally spend hours there, but with Andrew or alone, we're in and out as quickly as if it were Wal Mart. We hit up the dresser area to look for something that could work as a combo dresser/changing table. We found two options that unfortunately did not hold up to Andrew’s shimmy and shake test. We also found two options for storage but decided to just keep those in mind. After a quick walk through the marketplace for some glass jars, we were outta there in well under an hour! Oh, and we got cinnamon rolls. Those or ice cream are an IKEA requirement.

Here’s where the problems began:

a) I was slightly disappointed we didn’t buy the storage bookcase with baskets. It would have been great.

b) The awesome rug at HD had a grease stain. We then checked two other HDs and a Lowe’s. Nothing similar.

c) After Andrew put together the rocker (while I was napping), we realized it was the wrong one. The price should’ve been our first clue, but since we paid with gift cards we didn’t notice.

Needless to say I was definitely disappointed now and frustrated. However, we rallied and the following actions were taken to solve our problems:

a) I returned to IKEA about three weeks later and bought the bookcase and baskets. By then we determined it would fit just fine in the baby’s room and was a needed item.

b) I returned to the initial Home Depot where I rechecked the stain—it was pretty tiny—and found an associate to inquire about a discount. If this was a no go, we did have a second choice of rugs at the same store; however, he gave me 25% off! And I got the stain out, no problem.

c) I returned to Target with my disassembled rocker, returned it, purchased the correct one AND it happened to not be on sale but was marked down for some strange reason! Wahoo!

Then last week at the Trading Post (used/vintage furniture, often at great prices) I scored a dresser for only $45 that will be perfect for a changing table. I need to repaint it and do a little work on the drawers, but it's gonna be great!

Now we need a crib, some organization and motivation for me to finish the crafty touches on my ridiculously long list!