Cleanin out my closet

In the immortal words of Eminem, we are finally cleaning out our closets.

Here's the Nursery Closet before.

Kind of a hot mess as Nicey Nash would say on 'Clean House" back when we used to have cable and I would watch the show. The problem is that our nursery is really small, a little less than 8 feet x 8 feet and there is this weird niche thing on the left side of the closet making it hard to get useful storage out of all of it, which we desperately need. Plus, who really needs 2 closet bars in a nursery closet? We tried some cheap solutions, wire shelves and a little storage system, but everything just ended up getting crammed in. (You might make out some girl things in the closet, all things I bought for my niece Maya, but forgot to mail! So, if you're reading this Julie - sorry!)

So, the first thing I did was to remove the doors from the closet. That helped tremendously to open up the room. Then we had the closet system installed, and now I have more storage space than I know what to with! Add some boxes from Target, made some labels to store baby clothes by age and we're all set.

After:



And, here's the before closet of Nikhil's playroom, which is soon to be his big boy room. Again, mainly just a place for me to store my winter coats for our once a year trips to Boston.


After:


And, I really feel so much better, so much more organized, now that I have rid myself of the clutter of the closets. And, though it's only one item on my Never Ending List, it's actually on Part 1 and Part 2, so I think it counts for 2 tasks.

As for the rest of Never Ending List Part 2, this would be the list of all the things that need to get done before Baby #2 arrives.

1. Organize closets - Done

2. Create new custom name art for baby - I did these squares for Nikhil before he was born.


Actually we hadn't settled on a name for him, we were down to 2 names and we just saw what he looked like and Jeff decided he was Nikhil and so that's who he was. So I did all the different letters in both names and and created the squares for the letters that were in common between both names. When we came home from the hospital, I finished off the last 3 letters and hung them. I just bought very inexpensive fabric and binding from Walmart and cut the letters out of cardboard and painted them with leftover paint from the playroom. I wanted to make something for baby #2, but this time I think we should settle on the name because it is way too labor intensive to do this twice.

3. Hang mirror above changing table. These silhouettes that I made that are currently hanging over the changing table are also for Nikhil and the main problem is sometimes when it's very humid, the AC drips. It has damaged the Nikhil silhouette 4 times and I have re-done it 4 times.


So I'm giving up on the silhouettes there, moving to Nik's new room and figure a mirror will be easier to wipe off condensation.

4. Change the curtains - I love these gingham curtains that my Mom made, but I found this cute chevron fabric on sale, that I thought would really be fun for new curtains. The blackout liner will stay.

5. Add wooden blinds to the windows.

So, actually not too much to really do, more things I'd like to do to make the room special for baby #2. If we were having a girl, I had planned on changing everything and I don't want the space to be any less unique just because we're having another boy.

The Never Ending List, Part 1

I know everyone has one, it's just a product of not having enough time and too much to do. I think about my list all the time, especially when falling asleep and I've even dreamed about it. I have separate lists - work, house, Nikhil. Jeff says he has never dreamed about a To Do list, nor has it ever kept him up at night, but that's probably the difference between us!

With baby #2 only 12 weeks away, I have a lot to do in the next couple months. Add to that a full time job, this book I'm writing with people from Boston (not a fun, fiction book, just a book on surgery), and spending time with Nikhil, then it literally leaves 2 hours a week to get everything done. That's every working mom's problem, I guess!

Since my parents have generously volunteered to come stay with us in Hawaii for 3 months when the baby is born, there is also lots to do to prepare for their upcoming stay as well. So, the list has 3 parts - Part 1, the playroom conversion into Nikhil's room, Part 2 - changing the nursery, Part 3 - updating the guest room for my parents.

Since Nikhil will soon be moving into his big boy room to give up his nursery for his new little brother, I have to get everything organized in his new room. Currently, that room is his playroom, so at least the groundwork is there.

If you're interested, here are pics of the play room when the previous owners lived in our house. Different, huh? Somehow, it seems so much smaller because of the peach color paint and lack of a rug.

Before Before

And, here are pics of the playroom now.

Here's what I need to do in this room.

1. Add a bed - this has been ordered but shipping being what it is in Hawaii, it'll arrive maybe with one week to spare (fingers crossed).

2. Refinish/paint the little table and chairs with chalkboard paint

- These were generously gifted to me by my sis-in-law, but I've been dying to try out the new chalkboard paint and wanted to refinish them.

3. Refinish/paint blue dresser

- This was an awesome Craig's list find. I love the vintage style to it, but it has like 16 coats of paint, which are peeling, so it needs to be stripped and then primed and repainted. I also want to change out the knobs on it.

-I'm hoping my dad will help me with this, since it'll require an oil based primer, which does not come in low VOC and I don't want to use that when I'm pregnant (hint, hint, Dad if you're reading, for your first task when you come out here!)

4. Reorganize closet

-I briefly contemplated us doing it ourselves and buying stuff from Home Depot. But, once I started measuring, I realized this closet has lots of funn

y angles and lips, that make it difficult to install something pre-fab. So, this will be outsourced and we'll have a closet company come do it

5. Install art project.

-I was perusing my favorite mag, Coastal Living, when I came across this pic. I love the molding with the clipboard clips. I thought it would be a neat way to add some architectural detail to the room, while allowing me to rotate Nik's artwork. I bought 2 pieces of pre-painted 8 foot white molding from Lowe's and ordered the clipboard clips online. I had to ship the clips to my parent's house in NC b/c of course for some reason, amazon wouldn't ship the clips to Hawaii. So, I'm just waiting for the clips to arrive in the mail and I can get started on this one.

6. Install blinds for light control

-Currently, I just have some West Elm linen curtains hanging (on sale!). They're nice, but don't provide any of the shade necessary for an afternoon nap. We just bought the faux white wood blinds from Home Depot for $30 which they custom cut for you, so all we have to do is mount those and hopefully, we're done!

Source List:

On the off chance that someone other than my fam and friends is reading this and really wants to know where I got stuff in the playroom, here's a list.

-White storage cabinet/toy box - I know, it looks like Pottery Barn Kids, but I couldn't pay $1000 + the mandatory $350 flat rate shipping to Hawaii, so I actually bought all this from JC Penny. Here's the link. And, it was like 1/3 of the price, thought it took me forever to put together b/c we had left the power drill at the office to I hand screwed it, approx 100 scress.

-Navy poufs - specialty Indian boutique store, Chai Honolulu

-Blue dresser - craigs list

-Train table - Target, on sale for $50! And, it reverses to a blank white side for when the boys have outgrown trains, it can serve as a craft table

-Rug - Thomas Paul robin rug in blue, from www.spunkysprout.com. 100% wool and free shipping to Hawaii (which is HUGE!)

-Nature artwork - http://www.form-baby.com/modern-nursery-decor/

-Framed pics of baby and family - PBK, photos all courtesy of my friend, David Lau

-Baskets - on sale at JCPenny ( no longer available),

-Chalkboard labels - 4 for $2 at Ben Franklin's (beats the Pottery barn kids price of $8 each!)

-Green kid chair - gift for Nikhil's 1st birthday, PBK

-Animal growth chart, etsy.com by aluckyhorse. It's a decal, but it literally took Jeff and I 2 hours to get it up because of all the little lines and we were super anal about it being exactly right. I write the date and height on the little birdies to the left for Nikhil. I have butterflies to record baby #2's height.

Hmmm...I'd like to give myself a deadline to get this stuff done and then move on to Parts 2 and 3 of the list, but that usually doesn't happen. So, we'll just see.