What Nesting Looks Like...

A post about "nesting" seems strangely out of place now that our baby girl is earthside. At this point, preparation is rather irrelevant because ready or not, she already came.

Fortunately, the nesting bug hit early and strong. More than with any other pregnancy, I found myself filled with a sudden desire to pull my act together and get organized. With Brooklyn and Talia, I was still a student so nesting looked pretty much like the conclusion of any other semester--a mad flurry of paper writing, group projects, and other major assignments. With Eli, by the time he showed up a week after his due date, any nesting energy had long since petered out, replaced instead by an unwilling tutorial in patience.

So even though Annika arrived eleven days early, I managed to pull together a few projects before she came. This one's my favorite:

Yes, indeed. Organized, magnetized spices! The first time I heard about these, I was filled with spice envy. You see, not only am I short on cupboard space, but I have a terrible time reaching what I need. It just so happens that our cabinets are all six inches taller than average--a definite problem when you are six inches shorter than average. There's nothing more humbling than having to leap up on the counter just to get a pinch of oregano...

Gathering all the materials was more complex (and pricey) than I anticipated. I found the super-strong magnets on e-bay, ordered the tins online twice because the first set was completely the wrong size, and took two trips to Staples to get something that would work for the labels. Despite the hassle, I'm really pleased with the result. Far less cupboard-leaping around here. :)

This next project was as simple and inexpensive as the spices were complex. I found an old cork bulletin board for two dollars at D.I. and picked up a dollar's worth of pushpins at Walmart. The kids helped me paint the trim white with acrylic paint we had hanging around. I then ironed a fabric scrap to the board using leftover Wonder-Under, pushing the edge of the fabric under the edge of the frame with a table knife to give the project a finished look. Twenty minutes total and voila, the girls had their very own place to keep their jewelry organized.

Continuing on--photo albums. My sister gave me a fantastic label maker for Christmas which I finally put to good use. Now that our family photo albums are dated, I no longer have to guess which album features such-and-such. Not only that, but I finally printed more pictures since our most recent album dates back to 2010... I had dreams of getting the new albums labeled before our baby girl arrived. Dream on, Kara, dream on.

The ultimate nesting project, however, belongs to Daddy Jason. This good man completely redid the closet in our master bedroom, bumping the wall out a foot and opening up the space over the downstairs stairwell to give us more storage.

I wish I had some pictures of the "before" to give an idea of how much the space changed. Here's Jason smiling because the project is nearing completion. It was a huge amount of work, involving wiring, framing, sheet rocking, caulking, puttying, casing, trimming, painting, sanding...everything but plumbing.

Concentrating hard. Jason's craftsmanship is impeccable.

None of the space where Jason is standing existed before. Just imagine how much junk, um, I mean treasure, we can fit in there!

Looking back the other direction. We switched the orientation of the clothing bars to make it a small walk-in closet.

All tuckered out, Jason naps peacefully with Annika.

Sleep well, mi querido. After so much hard work, you certainly deserve the rest.