Big Summer Project #3 - Nursery Clean Out

As you might suspect we already have a room in our house that's a nursery. This room used to be our guest room and I used it to store my scrapbooking supplies. We painted it and bought the decor while pregnant with Myles. The walls are painted a pretty lime green color with a few small accent walls in lavendar. The nursery theme is Tiddli.winks safari (the pastel version shown below). I love the bright, happy colors and cute safari animals. I think it's perfect for a boy or girl.


We had an artist friend make paintings of the safari animals to match those in the bedding. We have a changing table, dresser, glider rocker, bookcase, and other accent pieces. The only piece of furniture we are missing is a crib(s), which we were just about to buy when I was hospitalized. After Myles died I put all of his things in the room and closed the door. I didn't want to look at it every time I went upstairs to our bedroom, so I kept the door closed at all times. I couldn't enter the room in the first year following Myles's death without having a complete meltdown.

After not really going into the room for so long except to toss things in there it turned into a complete disaster zone, so cleaning and organizing it was on my summer to do list. I was avoiding it because I knew it would be difficult to take all of Myles's things (e.g., footprint molds, hats, NICU shades) and put them in his memory box. Well I finally did it yesterday with my mom's help and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I had moments where I felt teary while reminiscing, but I didn't have a total breakdown. I feel good that Myles's things are safely stored in a box rather than randomly sitting all over a messy room. Having the room cleaned and organized makes me feel excited too! It now looks like a nursery--a place where these two babies will hopefullly live. We put all of Myles's books on the bookshelf and put a few toys/accessories on the dresser. We didn't hang anything on the walls, but we arranged the furniture in such a way to accomodate two cribs. So, now all we need to do is buy the cribs.

I know it seems crazy early to be doing stuff with a nursery, but remember we had all of this stuff for Myles. We probably won't buy the cribs and hang anything on the walls for quite awhile. I just needed to get the room organized and to put away some of Myles's things. To be honest clearing out the room and leaving it looking like a nursery made this pregnancy seem more real to me. I even went into the room again this morning to look at it and it made me smile!

BTW ... thanks for all the great baby gear recommendations and advice! Someone mentioned getting Baby Bargains, which I already have and used when I was researching baby gear while pregnant with Myles, and am using again during my current research. I highly recommend this book to those of you who are starting (or will be) your baby gear research.