The Nursery

To be honest, Edward and I haven't done too much with the back guest room, other than start referring to it as the nursery, although we have ordered a custom built-in that will be placed in a five foot by two and half foot alcove behind the door - this is a tiny room, and we need to use every square inch to our advantage. The built-in will have shelves, two sets of drawers and a five foot long surface for changing babies, etc. It will also have an appliance garage for the crock-pot and space for a bar fridge: two appliances that come highly recommended by other multiple moms so that we don't have to run down to the kitchen every time we want to access and warm a bottle. Although I do plan to breastfeed, due to obvious physical limitations, if all are fed at once one baby will get a bottle of expressed milk.

Before the built-in can be installed, we needed to do some serious cleaning and purging. The nursery contains the only real closet in the house, and as such was stuffed to the rafters with linen, clothes, books, magazines, shoes, handbags, fabric, wrapping paper etc. It was a slow weeding out process, given my limited mobility, but with Edward and my mother's help, we managed to ship out 4 bags of garbage, 4 bags of donations including a desk and a drawer unit, and 3 tubs for storage. We already had a "tall boy" type dresser, so we put that in the now empty closet which still leaves us quite a lot of space to fill. Everyone tells us that babies come with a ton of stuff, but we're really trying to limit what we buy (so far, so good: I've bought some blankets and 3 wall prints!) and what we accept from those generously offering their baby items. Basically, we're concentrating on gender neutral clothes, washclothes, blankets, sheets, etc. right now - everything else will wait.

Also, we're having an electrician come in to check, redo and add to the wiring in the room. We've been very skeptical of the quality of the electrical in the whole house, but particularly the nursery. A few years ago, Edward borrowed a gizmo that tested the outlets in the room and we found several problems (no ground, highly variable current etc). The electrician will also create a circuit specifically for the nursery, so we can add extra outlets and plug in a fridge and new lamps without burning the house down.

Happily, we won't have to paint the room. I love the creamy colour it is now, and I'm planning bright red and green accents to keep the palette fresh and gender neutral. The look I'm going for is cheerful, vintagey and cosy - I'm having a lot of fun looking at things on-line! We don't want to overdo the whole organic thing, but given my asthma and allergies (and Edward's) and the fact that our preemies may have lung/breathing issues at birth, I'm going to buy organic matresses and bed linens. For cost-saving reasons - and to keep the room from looking too cluttered and "theme-y" - we're not buying crib sets: just fitted sheets and blankets.

I'm really excited about putting the room together! I have a few crafty projects lined up for when I'm finally bedridden, including a sampler (I've never cross-stitched in my life), some floor pillow covers and a really neat fabric book sling. I'm also going to buy a single air matress for the corner of the room, because that's where I'll be sleeping for the first few months!

I'll post pictures as the room progresses...