The “Before.”

And so it begins.   Over the weekend we FINALLY got into the storage room downstairs and were able to commence operation “prepare nursery for baby.”   It’s scary shit.   The photos above depict both the newly filled storage room, a.k.a. where excess mid-century furniture goes to die (does it make you cringe to consider that all of that crap was somehow crammed into our apartment?) and the center photo depicts our greatest hurdle:  what the so-called nursery looks like today (or, the pile of crap that’s left in there now that we’ve removed the couch, the elliptical, and most of the office furniture.)

[Minimalists beware: I’m a very serious pack rat.   And while I’ve gotten better about tossing out the nonsense crap that overtook my walls/closets/car for years, my hording seems to be at it’s worst when it comes to furniture.   What you’re looking at is all the furniture that I’ve collected and have deemed “house worthy.”   That’s to say that when we finally buy our elusive future home, I don’t want to have to do all that work again by re-collecting all that sweet furniture.    Sure, some of it’s broken, and needs reupholstering or refinishing – but I’ve never shied away from a challenge.   Case in point, the Plycraft Lounge Chair (often mistaken for the Eames Lounge) which is only temporarily in the storage room as it awaits re-upholstery.    One of the main differences between our vintage Plycraft and the prestigious Eames actually works in our favor here – the Plycraft conveniently rocks, so it will serve as our “rocker/glider” in the new nursery…once Scott and I complete our first major DIY undertaking of reupholstering it ourselves.   It’s sure to be entertaining blog fodder, if nothing else.]

Anyway – you’ve seen the horrifying “before.”   I’ve left images of our living room re-do off this post, because while my mind is cluttered by the task of creating an office in the living room without making our place feel cluttered, I’ve decided to spare you the gory details – before and after shots will come when that less-daunting portion of our massive rearrange is complete.   There’s also the issue of to paint or not to paint our main living room wall, which will have to be majorly spackled to hide the battle scars that my love of shelving and our heavy-duty TV mount have left (so to paint it a color or to re-paint it white is really the question.)   We’ll have to find a new home for our six guitars which currently line the wall of our nursery – and spackle and paint in there as well – before we hack our ikea crib into something cool and Netto-looking, figure out the conundrum of a changing table, and bring in the [hopefully] reupholstered rocker.   All in the hot hot heat of a valley summer.   Good times ahead.

Here’s my nursery inspiration board, to give you an idea of where we hope to end up.

The background is the shade of lime we’re considering for her walls, and…clockwise from left… The David Netto Case Group Crib (which we plan to copy, not buy;) Bird Wall Decals shown in fuchsia because that’s most likely the accent color we’ll use to offset the boyish-ness of our greens and browns; A nursery in lime which inspired me; how the Plycraft might look when finished (although we’re also considering a bold pattern, but patterns are going to make our DIY reupholstery a much bigger challenge;) The Ikea Stolmen (we already have one piece as office furniture, which we plan to add to to serve as her dresser, and possibly changing station;) Dwell Studio Toys (because they’re freaking cute;) Two Wallpaper Swatches that we particularly like (we’re considering papering the one wall behind her crib, but might forego that idea in favor of some wall decals – above- or some cool artwork, since wallpapering sucks and we’re already biting off a lot with the DIY projects;) and finally, the awesomest mobile I’ve ever seen from Elsewheres.