This is what our nursery started as... A quilting "room." I have room in quotations because I don't think it qualified as a room but that's what the previous owner called it when she showed me around the house. My sister called a "dark awkward little closet thing" which I think is a much better description. I think the lady had her sewing machines set up on the counters and several of the drawers had pattern dividers in them. Lots of storage but basically a waste of square footage for our family's needs.
It had a doorway into our massive closet (excuse the mess. I never spent the time to organize it because I knew we were going to do this remodel so there was no point) Our closet had a bunch of wasted floor space in the middle of it that we just didn't need. So...
We decided to get rid of the counter and cabinets...
And tore down the wall in between the "room" and our closet. Kit needed a little help to actually get through the sheet rock.
We had to have a very serious conversation about how "you may ONLY hammer holes in the wall if Mama and Daddy tell you too!" We just knew we'd discover them trying to hammer holes in other walls but so far so good *knock on wood*
Right about as I took the picture above Monte goes, "Look!! I found a pipe!" Not what you want to hear. Turns out it was the vent pipe from the kitchen sink and dishwater below.
Wall gone!
Before...
After...
Gunnar and I both grew up working with our dads so getting to make and allow the boys to work with us was an awesome perk of doing this remodel ourselves!
So after ripping up the carpet (Guys! Every inch of green that leaves my house is cleansing for my soul!) removing the lights, and scraping the popcorn ceiling, Gunnar built a new wall about 3 1/2 foot into our closet. Because we eliminated the door between the room and closet we will be able to have the same amount of storage in our closet as before just without all the excess floor space. And it seriously feels like we added on because we basically gained a whole new room instead of just having a weird closety thing.
Gunnar has never done any kind of construction like this before so I was really proud of how he just figured it. I was able to contribute some advice but he did it all.
Watching him take the time to figure out ways to include the boys when it would have been faster to just make them watch and do it himself was really great too!
Thankfully after consulting with Dad we figured out that we could throw a few 90s into the pipe and move it into the wall! Pipe in the room....
Ta-da! Pipe in the wall, soon to disappear! That proved to be more complicated than we were hoping because of the location but Gunnar got it done! We also had to move the attic access into the hallway. I don't think I got any pictures of that process.
I was really impressed with how thoroughly Gunnar taped and floated. I've seen people who chose to do a project themselves and it was very obvious that they did it themselves and since I grew up with a contractor dad I wanted it to look well done. He sanded and floated a lot and it looks sooo good!
I tried to help for like a whole ten seconds. Because I was 34+ weeks pregnant the general consensus was that if I sanded I needed to wear a mask. Well being 34+ weeks pregnant, I was having a hard time breathing anyway then add the mask...yeah not gonna happen! So Gunnar had to do that part on his own and he did a really great job!
Well the boys "helped" a lot too!
Even Jaxson got in on the action! Wyatt helped Gunnar tape and float and sand a lot too and I didn't get one picture of it!
Monte took his "job" of cleaning up all the sheet rock dust VERY seriously! He would disappear to go play during the day and I'd find him with his putty knife and bowl pushing all the dust into piles then scooping it into the bowl.
Buzz supervised much of the work.
After Gunnar got the room taped and floated and sprayed texture, I could finally take over and actually help! Monte actually pretty much did the whole first coat of paint everywhere within his reach!
They loved helping me paint! They wanted to help paint their room soooo much when I painted it a while ago and I couldn't let them just help unsupervised but because there were no floors in yet and no furniture or anything I could let them help in the nursery on their own
He's gonna hate me for this when he's older but this might be my favorite picture from the whole project! Underwear on inside out, wedgie, no pants, reaching up as high as he can!
After I got everything painted, I could finally do the floor, the final major step! The boys helped me scrape and clean the sub floor. Caught Kit mid trip and crash!
Ann came over and helped me that day too. She cleaned mounds of sheet rock dust off of everything and I mean EVERYTHING upstairs while I put the floor down. Also installing a floor at 37 weeks pregnant is not necessarily something I would recommend....at all!
We want to refloor the whole upstairs at some point soon and when we do we will tear up this floor and make the whole upstairs one fluid floor throughout, well besides the bathroom, so we didn't want to spend money on flooring. We were just going to leave it as the sub floor until we do the whole upstairs and just put in a large rug but then I remembered that when we had to refloor our kitchen in Angelo we had a bunch leftover and it was up in storage somewhere. I found it and was able to only buy a little bit more so that we have a floor in there until we eventually floor the whole upstairs. I had to estimate how much I needed and ended up with two 1 foot pieces of extra left! Like no room for error!
We turned the weird outset part into the changing table. I planned to paint the drawer and then add a stained wood top over the cheap Formica stuff. Kit and I had a horrible miscommunication, it was totally my fault, not his, and spilled my dark teal/blue paint all over our floor! Our couch is RIGHT there and NOT ONE drop hit the couch! There were drops 10 feet away and yet not one drop 1 foot away! Gunnar was able to scoop most of it back into the can and it came off the grout even! It kinda blended into the tile so even if it didn't come off totally cleanly you can't even tell and then we still used the paint!
I sent Sara lots of texts similar to this during this whole process because of the whole curse/blessing of having grown up with sisters and not being able of making a clothing or decoration decision without their input.
We cut out one shelf and turned it into a closet for Steele. I have since added baskets and other storage for socks, pants etc. and it works so perfectly!
Gunnar stained the wood for me, and then we covered the counter with it. Painted the drawer and window sill a dark blue/teal, added a gold handle and we have a beautiful changing table area!
I wanted to include some of these next few pictures just to remember. We did a lot of work after the boys were already in bed and because our room looked like this... vanity, tile, scrap lumber from the closet, clothes, storage, and who knows what else! I had to work through an obstacle course to get to my dresser! Did I mention that we were also remodeling our bathroom at the same time?!
Anyway, because our room looked like that, the only place that had enough open floor space to cut sheet rock was the boy's floor. Even after they were asleep, Gunnar would quietly slide sheet rock into their room to cut it. They never woke up! haha
This picture cracks me up and sums up our lives during this time so well! Gunnar trying to work, Monte asking five hundred questions while patting Gunnar's arm, Kit watching and holding a live turtle they caught in the creek earlier that day, ladder in the hallway, sheet rock, tools, stuff everywhere!
Ann gave me this chair before I had Monte and it is the BEST nursing chair EVER! Ugly and outdated, yes, but so comfortable for those midnight feeding sessions, and let me tell you, when it comes to nursing in the middle of the night, comfort will win out over looks EVERY time! I have a prettier glider that I could put in there but I just couldn't part with my comfy nursing recliner. Haha but I was able to find a chair cover and sorta make it look better. Ann used to rock Reb in this chair when he was a baby so it has lived a good life! Gunnar remembers sitting in his dad's lap watching Wheel of Fortune when he was little.
So after adding trim, rewiring and adding new light fixtures, new outlets, and a few other finishing touches we were officially done with the construction part!
Penny got some pictures of the completed nursery while she was here taking pictures of Steele's birth.
The bank was mine when I was little, two of the books were mine when I was little, the middle book was my Dad's when he was a baby, my grandmother gave it to me when I had Monte, the monkey and soldier, Bo, were also mine when I was little.
Gunnar has a family friend who know has her own art small business. I commissioned her to paint this sonogram watercolor from Steele's actual twenty weeks ultrasound photos. I LOVE it!! We are planning to make a frame from the same stained wood as the changing table but that just didn't happen before baby so for now we just have it hanging and I honestly really like it without a frame. So simple.
You can also see more pictures of the finished room in Steele's newborn session post. I am so glad we went ahead a tackled this project before we had him. I still want to decorate some more, update the cabinet doors, and maybe add an end table for the chair but for now it is so cute and functional and has been so great to have with Steele.
