Finishing Touches

Yesterday, I mentioned how the Husband and I made a run to Ikea on our way out to Mersey Island. Let me say, it wasn't just for the Swedish meatballs and lingonberry sauce. Nope, the main reason we made what was apparently the perilous trek into Croydon was to grab three key items for the house that we just hadn't gotten around to earlier.

1. A second light to fix under the cabinets in the kitchen for some cheap DIY recessed lighting. Snazzy.
2. The cover to our couch. Silly us, we didn't realise it didn't come in the box with the actual couch. Now, at least, our couch doesn't have awkward velcro securing points hanging out all over the place.
3. Most importantly (though the couch cover runs a close second): clothes storage for the nursery! One of the last things it needed (besides sheets and things).

The thing with our nursery is that it already has quite a bit of storage...just not storage that's useful for baby things. We have two Billy bookcases in there that are holding important files and food storage. The problem is, with all that stuff sitting on the bookcases, there really isn't any room for boxes full of cloth diapers and towels and sheets and baby clothes. Bummer. So we decided that we needed something else that would fit into the room that could be specifically designated Baby's Storage Unit. This was what we came up with:

Well...mostly. It's the Trofast system from Ikea. The version we got was about twice as tall and only had one column of buckets. Considering the small space we have to work with, we wanted something that would make the smallest footprint possible on the floorspace. You can judge for yourself how well that turned out:

Yes, there are bags of crisps hiding in the bottom drawers for now, but that will change. In the meantime, I think this provides enough space to stash baby towels, onesies, dresses/trousers, sweaters, hats, tiny socks, little leg warmers for chubby baby legs...the cuteness is starting to overwhelm me just thinking about it. Baby clothes are a dangerous abyss to fall into.

Anyway, now that baby's storage unit is all set up (thanks to a very helpful Husband/soon-to-be-daddy), this is the sum of what our nursery now looks like:

The picture makes everything look a bit yellower than it actually appears in real life. This is because I took all these pictures around 9 o'clock last night with no daylight to help out my camera's white balance. Nonetheless, I'm pretty pleased with how things are turning out. That's right, turning, not have turned. Oh yeah: this baby is still a work in progress.

As we can see, I still haven't gotten around to hanging up the two prints I framed ages ago. Those seem to be both the first and last things I'll get done for the room. Also, though it won't be a problem immediately, we know that our little munchkin will start crawling around one day. That day will be the warning to institute more baby-proof storage...the Billys will need doors on them to keep our little bundle of joy from pulling things off the shelves. I don't want to discover what it would do to my blood pressure to come into my child's room and discover that s/he had yoinked some bags of flour off the shelves and proceeded to "make it snow" indoors. Funny as those pictures would be, I think that's a situation I'd like to avoid having to clean up after. Luckily, Ikea makes doors for its Billy bookcases, so all is well in the world.

In the meantime, I'd like to find something to do with these:

I've been collecting fabric samples from my new-found love, Prestigious Textiles. My initial thoughts had been to make curtains. Then it was to make a Roman blind for the window. Then it was to make fabric boxes to put on the Billys so I could store baby things. Thanks to the Trofast, that last idea has been binned for the moment, and I'm now searching for a use for my lovely swatches. I'm thinking of framing 2 or 3 of them. That black and gold dandelion pattern would look pretty awesome hanging over my Poang chair. And I'm obsessed with the gorgeous blues in that swatch on the top right. Decisions, decisions. At least once Austin's wedding and my driving test have blown over (I am counting the days!) I can still count on tiny projects like this to keep me occupied until my little monster's arrival. My next project will probably be something for our bedroom, though. Aside from a new lampshade to match the sage curtains I lurve so much, I haven't done anything for it in ages. I still need a hook to hang my hat & necklaces, and some artwork on the walls wouldn't go amiss, either. Oh the ideas...