Nursery Ideas and a Sneak Peak !!

For so long I have wanted to decorate a nursery.  I am so excited that now is finally our time to do this, that in two months we will have a beautiful baby boy to bring home and love.  I know there will be many beautiful moments in this room.  Hopefully there will also be A LOT of sleeping, especially in the middle of the night going on in there too.

Ever since Paul and I went to OBX for our 4th anniversary and saw this picture of a chocolate lab playing in the surf, I knew I would do a beach and Bailey nursery. 

I love a blue, orange and white color theme and knew it would be perfect in a boy or girl nursery.  I really loved this serena and lily bedding but with a $400 price tag that wasn't going to happen.  I tried to comission my Mom into making our bedding and while she agreed, I had doubts that she would actually get to this to me in time. 

Unfortunately I had to scrap my desire for blue, orange and white bedding and settled with a cute whale set from pottery barn kids.  I had a $100 gift certificate from christmas so I only had to pay about $40 for the 100% organic set after they gave me 10% off for completing an item from my registry.

I highly recommend getting your bedding from PBK when you are in the market.  Customer service is worth the extra $10 you might spend.  I looked everywhere for close to a month and couldn't find anything comporable in price, cuteness or quality.  Even at babies r us, buy buy baby, target and amazon a bedding set will set you back $150 and the quality and service is just not the same for the exact same price.

On our 5th anniversary trip to Cape May NJ, we saw the Bailey picture again in an art gallery.  This time we purchased it and had it framed in anticipation of starting to try for a baby once Paul was done with school.  We spent about $120 for the picture and frame.  For about two years the picture was hanging above our awesome craigslist desk in what was the office now nursery.  Now it is hanging above a beautiful changing table my sister bought for us off our amazon registry.

The duatilier glider/ottoman and pottery barn bassinet on the left were passed down from my best friend's brother in law (thanks Laura and Rob), the pillow also came from our cape may trip as did the two pictures with beach dogs to the right of the glider, the changing pad and cover I purchased for $5 (came with three covers) from a yardsale last year.  The lampshade I purchased earlier for the office is from pottery barn and was $20.  Unfortunately I had wanted to use the lamp we already owned with a small table but based on the lack of space we had to purchase the tall lamp from Walmart for $50.

That is it for now, once we get a few more items up, I'll show off some more of the nursery :)  Enjoy

Loving my Yard Sale Finds

DISCLAIMER:
This is a post a meant to finish a few weeks ago, but I just now got around to getting some pics downladed

As fall sets in, yard sale season wraps up for the year in the DC area.  I used to go to yard sales all the time with my Mom when I was a kid.  I loved it, loved the bargaining and the bargains!  Until this summer it had been a really long time since I hit up any good yard sales.  Somehow though the yard sale gods were with me this summer.

It started with the mammoth of all yard sales in our neighborhood at the end of August.  Remember the $2 cashmere sweater my sister and I missed by a millisecond, and the carful of slightly used baby paraphernalia for Paul's expectant sister and the cute little bird house I originally bought for Paul's Mom that I kept for myself (haha). 

Following the neighborhood yardsale, my neighbor was so cool.  She didn't end up selling her brand new Lucky Jeans, so she brought them to my house and GAVE me her $80 brand new jeans!  I love simple acts of kindness and repayed her by a very anonymous BOO on her doorstep a few weeks later.

In early September, I started work on a church retreat in Vienna every Saturday morning and got to go past yard sales in a very affluent neighborhood.  This was awesome.  The first saturday I stopped at a yard sale at this beautiful reconstructed old home where the woman was a buyer for BareMinerals (my makeup of choice) and Spanx (my fat ass loves spanx).  I got close to $70 worth of brand new makeup and brushes for $3, a $30 pair of brand new Spanx for $2.  The makeup find was so amazing it was like I dreamt it!

To finish up my yardsale finds is a quick and easy DIY tip for tired light fixtures.  I was just about to leave a yardsale hands empty when I spotted out of the corner of my eye the glass lamp shades that cover the bulbs on bathroom lights and/or ceiling fans.  I knew about these little gems because the builder grade lights in our home came with terrible glass covers.  I had bought four shades for the bathrooms when we moved into the townhouse from Home Depot for $7 a piece.  Even for that price it was an awesome very fast upgrade.  The yardsale though had $4 shades for $2!!!  I've been looking to replace this ugly ceiling fan for 3 years now.  I honestly can't seem to find one I like better.  In the meanwhile my $2 upgrade helps this tired looking fan look just a wee bit better.

Before Yardsale:

 After Yardsale:

Did you find any yardsale gems this year?