Davis Imitating Aaron

About a month & a half ago, Davis starting trying to imitate us singing or talking or whatever it is we're doing.  And it's really entertaining.  Here is a quick video of him imitating Aaron howling... 

He already wants to be just like his daddy.  :)

Making a Swivel Rocker

I really wanted a swivel rocker in the nursery BUT they were not cheap.  All the ones I liked were like $700 (or more!) and I just couldn't justify spending that much $mula$ on a chair.  So that's where my handy husband came into play (he's so great!).  I got the idea here for making a regular chair into a swivel rocker.  I found a white chair at Ikea for only $199 that I really liked so Isaac & I took a little road trip down to Charlotte to get it.  

The Ektorp Jennylund chair from Ikea.

Then Aaron added a swivel rocker attachment to the bottom for me so now it swivels & rocks!  I ordered the swivel rocker attachment from this website for $81 so overall it only cost about $300.  It's a fairly small chair which I like because it doesn't take up tons of room in the nursery but it's still comfortable. 

Step 1: Aaron cut out the bottom liner.

Step 2: Add a 1x2 board to the back of the chair.

(This made the front & back level for when he attached the plywood.) 

Step 3: Add scrap plywood to the bottom of the chair.

Step 4: Add 2x6's to the bottom.  

Step 5: Attach the swivel rocker attachment to the 2x6's (centered). 

And now my chair rocks & swivels!  :)  

Luckily, we had all the scrap wood leftover from other projects so it didn't take long at all to fix up.  I heart my chair!  :)

Building built -in bookshelves!!

For my birthday, I told Aaron & my dad that I would really love built-in bookshelves and a toy box / window seat in the nursery.  Well, they must really love me (and Davis!) because they built them and I am completely in love with them!!  :)  They are going to add a lot of storage to the room & I think they look amazing!  They also added crown molding to the ceiling (not an easy task!), which was an added bonus that I wasn't expecting.  

This was my inspiration that I found on the internet.  So pretty!

And this was a sketch that Laura drew up for us at Home Depot.

Once we had the plans, Aaron & Dad did the building & I got to work (with some a lot of help) on the painting.

This was the room before.  It was definitely my least favorite
room in our house because it just got all the left-overs and there
was nothing special about it, so I wasn't too upset to see it go. 

So we cleared it out & got to painting!

The color we went with was Stonington Gray (HC-170).  It was a
Benjamin Moore color but we had it matched at Home Depot in the
Behr Zero VOC paint.  I love it!  I've tried to do gray paint before
and ended up with blue-ish gray.  But this is exactly what I wanted! 

Then Aaron & Dad got to cutting...

...and building.  This was the frame that everything went on top of.

Then we added kitchen wall cabinets to the bottoms for the cabinets
under the bookshelves.  We got these oak cabinets from Home Depot.

Working on the toy boxes.

The base is done!

Then we got Jake Landreth to move the 2 electrical outlets
and cable line that were behind the new bookshelves.
If you need an electrician, Jake's great!  :) 

Then they got to work on the actual shelves.

Mom was cheerleading.  :)  And she cooked lots of dinners for us!

Putting the shelves in place on top of the cabinets!

Starting to look like my bookshelves!

Aaron Lee helped me paint the molding. 

I wasn't actually expecting them to put up crown molding,
so this made me really excited!!  

Then they had to put edging on all the fronts to make it look better.

I'm one lucky lady & Davis is one lucky baby!

Then Aaron caulked... 

And helped me with a coat of Kilz primer.

We took the doors off to paint them too.

My wonderful paint crew painted with me.  :)
It took 2 coats of white (semi-gloss) paint after the Kilz. 

Putting the doors back on! 

Here are the toy boxes / window seats.

Hello crown molding.  :)

Finished!!

I love, love, love them & can't wait to fill them up with kids books!!  :)

The next nursery project involves a lot of sewing.  My mom & I are planning to sew some throw pillows, cushions for the window seat (above the toy boxes), a crib bumper, & a crib skirt. We'll see how that goes.  :)

Here are some of our fabrics.  

Thanks Aaron & Dad for all the time & energy you guys spent building the bookshelves & toy boxes for me!!  Hopefully Davis won't learn how to climb up them anytime soon...  :)  

Update: To see what the bookshelves look like full of books and decorations, click here!