Fluffing up our nest!

Wow! We are down to 54 days until D Day - Dakota's Due Date! Granted I'll most likely go past my due date, I can't believe that we are getting so close to Dakota's arrival. Dirk and I have been busy little bees working on her nursery. Correction; Dirk has been busy, because he's put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears - yes blood, from scraping the ceiling! 

We emptied out what had been Kerby's lounging room/my office space, and slowly it is progressing into Dakota's nursery. We kicked off the conversion with a grueling sanding project. What we thought would be a Friday night project turned out to span 3 weeks, and also covered the whole house in a layer of paint dust. I found dust in every room of the house!!! It was not easy work, but Dirk would do a little each night and a lot more on the weekends. Even my Dad got in on the action! And yes, the bandanas were necessary to breathe with all the dust that was in the air. 

Once we removed the texture from the walls, we could start on our striped wall. Dirk and I made a fun Saturday out of measuring, evenly taping, cutting out, and painting Dakota's walls. We were so nervous with how it would turn out. We had thought of doing wallpaper instead, but the the wallpaper we were looking at was so expensive. I was impressed we were able to make it work with paint! We used a marshmallow cream color and and what I thought was a gray, but turned out to be a little more purple. I hope Dakota loves the stripes and that we're able to keep them in her room for a while. 

We painted the two contiguous walls the marshmallow color, and the opposite wall the purply gray color. Next to the striped wall, Dirk and I wanted to do a wall decal, and we found the sweetest little giraffe on Etsy. The color tied in perfectly, and gives the cream wall a little pop of color. It looks so great in there that Dirk and I love to walk in and just look around, imagining what it will be like when she's finally here! 

I had envisioned picking out a brand new crib and changing table for Dakota, but after reading a green baby book, I realized I wanted to be a little more eco-friendly (and also budget-friendly). We scoured Craigslist for weeks looking for a Jenny Lynd crib set that we had our eye on in a baby store I loved. Brand new we would have paid $550, which included painting them the color we wanted. We ended up only paying $230 for a set, and Dirk painted them himself. We also got the mattress and most adorable bedding set that was on the crib previously. It just so happened to match perfectly with what we were doing in the room.

There's still more to do; cleaning the bedding, working on finishing up the crib, and hanging up my own grandmother's baby quilt next. All that's left to buy is a rug and glider! We also need to hang up the fun rhino and zebra busts we found at Anthropologie. I want to find a unique way to display her name above the crib too. Very soon though we'll have Dakota's room complete. This is a huge relief - I was worried she'd come early, and I'd have nothing ready for her. 

We were lucky to have some financial support in the room from Mimi and T-Paw which has helped us create our dream nursery for Dakota. So far, it looks even better than we could have imagined! It is has been very helpful to have projects to work on as we anticipate her arrival. It feels like with each thing we finish in her room, we are letting her know how much we love her and are enjoying preparing for her special place on Earth!