More nursery progress

We were busy last night!

I worked on organizing the laundry room shelving. We have a wire shelf on one side of the room, above the washer and dryer, that had laundry supplies on it. Across from that, we have 2 wire shelves that had cleaning and pet supplies on them, plus a countertop that DH installed awhile ago for folding clothes and other projects. Then there is space underneath that countertop for storage. That's where our cat's litter box and extra boxes of litter are, along with a plastic 3 drawer unit for all of our "junk" (because we don't have an extra drawer in the kitchen to make into a junk drawer), the vacuum, and a stepstool for my incredibly short self.

I consolidated all of the cleaning and laundry supplies onto the shelf above the washer and dryer because everything was just spread out way too much. This freed up the entire bottom shelf on the other side! The top shelf still has our cat carrier and a box of pet supplies, but now has about 1/3 available for storage once I moved some stuff around. I also organized underneath the countertop so that it looks a lot neater, plus there is a space for our cat's bed (that she has never slept on) because we are going to start locking her in there at night. She makes too much noise and scratches on doors all night long and we can't get a good night's sleep anymore!

DH put the dresser together and we just love it. It's bigger than I thought it would be, which is good, because we were both worried that it was going to be too small. The cherry colored wood matches the built-in desk unit that we have in there PERFECTLY! Yay! He also moved the small bookshelf that was in the corner near where the dresser and glider are over to another wall in the bedroom, so the furniture is more spread out now. I moved two baskets full of magazines(that I haven't read yet) that were on the floor between our bookshelves out of the way, but need to have DH carry them into the guest bedroom because they are WAY too heavy for me to lift.

I haven't washed the baby clothes that we've purchased (I'll do that when it gets closer to his arrival), but I took them out of all the plastic shopping bags that were laying around and put everything into the dresser, so the room looks much neater already!

Then we decided to hang the valances, wall clock, and wall canvases. I had only bought two valances, thinking it would be enough to put one over the window and one covering the top shelf of our desk unit to hide some storage space. I never looked at the measurements. It was obvious when we opened the packages that we were going to need 2 valances for each of the spaces. So, I'm going to need to order 2 more from BRU online. Onto hanging the curtain rod. Well, we just had the regular white metal valance curtain rod that was originally in the room when we bought the house. Just the standard one you get at the store. Well, that would have been fine if the valance we had was the kind that you stick the curtain rod through the hole at the top and it scrunches up at the top and you don't see the rod. But ours weren't. The valances were the kind with little fabric loops spaced a few inches apart, so you can see the rod in between each piece of fabric. It looked terrible with the white curtain rod. So, I asked DH at 7 pm last night..."Want to go to Home Depot to buy a brown curtain rod?". He didn't have to be asked twice! He had his shoes on, keys in his hand, and was waiting by the door before I could even turn around. HA HA!

The adventure begins. They didn't have any curtain rods that we liked at Home Depot. I somehow convinced him that we should go to Lowe's to check. I couldn't believe he agreed! He was also going to get the new door for the nursery while we were at HD, but decided to wait to check the ones at Lowe's to see if they were cheaper. We checked the lighting section at HD while we were there because we need to buy a lamp for the nursery too, but they were all pretty fancy and expensive and looked more like living room lamps. We checked the rug section too, but there was nothing that came close to coordinating with the nursery. We left empty-handed.

On our way to Lowe's, I asked if we could pop into Michael's to check on the wooden letters for the nursery. It was just in the next shopping plaza over from Lowe's, so he agreed. (You have to know that all of this is so surprising because he hates running errands on the weekends, let alone a weeknight!). By now it was 8:45 pm. They did have letters in the size that we wanted and a style we liked, but they only had the letters B-R-A-_-_-E-_. They were missing the Y, D, and N! They checked and saw that the D's would be coming in soon, but they didn't know anything about the Y or N. Well, we didn't want to buy half the letters and then find out that they weren't going to get the rest in, so we skipped it. They said to check the closest store in Ocala, so I'm going to call and see if they have the remaining letters and if they can ship them to the Gainesville store. Michael's doesn't have online shopping capability on their website. :( Again, we left empty-handed, but at least I knew that I wanted the letters from Michael's.

Onto Lowe's. It was almost 9 pm by then, and they were about to close when we got there, but we snuck inside anyway. ;) We found a curtain rod that I REALLY liked in cherry wood, but they didn't have the brackets to hang it onto the wall! They had them for every other color: black, white, multiple wood finishes...but not even a place on the shelf for where the cherry ones would be. Sheesh. The staff person we spoke to said it must have been an oversight on the ordering department's part. I tried to convince DH to just buy it, and he could figure out some way to mount them because of how handy he is. Or we could check the website and order them. But he said no. He wanted to buy a complete set. Allllllright. :( We ran around checking a few more things while the sales people were staring at us and silently begging us with their eyes to leave. lol. No wooden letters. Lamps were too fancy again. Rugs didn't go with the nursery. Too late to check on the doors (DH will go to either Lowe's or HD after work one day to buy one since he knows exactly what he's getting). Left empty-handed.

Walmart was right next door to Lowe's, so we stopped in there last. We found a brown metal curtain rod that I wasn't thrilled with, but we figured we could try it out and return it if we hated it. We found wooden letters, but they were smaller than the ones at Michael's and not in a font that I particularly liked, so we decided we would definitely try to get the ones from Michael's. We checked the lamps, but they only had a couple that were just the stands (we already have the lampshade) and none of them were brown wood like we want, so I'm just going to go ahead and order one from the BRU website that I found. We checked on the rugs, but nothing looked like it would go with the nursery. We checked on the hampers while we were there too, but there was only 1 kind and it was too big. I found one at Target a few days ago that is short enough to fit underneath the desk unit (where the office chair normally slides under), so I'm going to get that sometime. Finally, at 9:45 pm, we actually made a purchase! We have a curtain rod!

We got home around 10 pm, and I was exhausted. DH wanted to finish the original project we started...which was hanging the valances, if you can remember back that far! He hung it up and I was surprised that I actually liked the rod we bought. So we're going to stick with that one. It looks really nice. We hung the wall clock and the wall canvases that match the bedding, and the room is really starting to come together now!

Even though we spent almost 3 hours driving around town to only come back with ONE item that we needed, it was definitely a successful venture because of the fact that we figured out what stores have the items that we need to purchase.

Here is our current to-do list of things we need to buy right now:

-Call Michael's store in Ocala to see if they have the additional letters we need and if they can ship them to the Gainesville store (me)
-Go back to our Michael's store to purchase the letters they DO have (me)
-Buy the new bedroom door at Lowe's or HD one day after work (DH) >
-Buy hamper at Target (me) >
-Look at Bed, Bath, and Beyond to find a rug for the nursery (both of us) >
-Order the lamp stand and 2 more valances online from BRU...and maybe a couple of the canvas bins that I registered for...shhhh, don't tell DH. ;) >

I'm anxious to have the nursery set up with all of the basics, and just be ready to fill it with the baby items that we receive from the baby showers!