Prepping the House for Abigail - New Guest Room

We're prepping the house for Abby! I thought getting ready for Baby #1 was a lot of work. I was wrong. Baby #2 is MUCH more work! Not only do you have to rearrange rooms/closets, you have to keep a toddler entertained while you do it. And no - you can't just have ice cream for dinner when you're tired from working all day. That toddler has to eat!!

We've done a lot in rearranging rooms. The room that made the most progress this weekend is the guest room/office (formerly exclusively the office). It may seem that Grant's room or Abby's nursery is more important to finish. But really if Abby comes tomorrow, she'd be fine in the co-sleeper and Grant could stay in the crib. What's REALLY important is to have space for my mama to stay when Abby arrives!!

Here's what the room looked like before:
Oh yeah - I don't have a photo. Imagine 2 large desks, dingy white/yellow walls, a bookcase and a dog crate. Beautifully framed degrees. And imagine an utter mess on each desk. We kept the door closed to that room and never gave it another thought.

In the past few weeks, We sold 2 desks and 1 bookcase on Craigslist. We turned around and spent that on a new, compact desk that will hide all sorts of goodies! We waited for a good sale and snagged this puppy for 25% off. It still makes my heart go pitter-patter! Derek had to talk me out of this desk. While I love the white wood and the larger file cabinet, I despise the price tag. Plus, with the darker wood, we can move this piece into our bedroom if we want to at a later date.

We needed a smaller bed to accomodate the new combo of guestroom and office. So we handed down our old queen size bed, and we were given this wonderful full size bed from Derek's Grandpa! They also gave us the matching night stand and armoire!! (The whole set will one day be Abby's big girl room.)

My father-in-law drove over 800 miles this weekend to bring this to us from Arkansas. He's pretty much the BEST father-in-law ever! Seriously though - sometimes we wonder if he's going for sainthood.

We hired painters and went with gray walls. Derek was scared of the dark gray I had chosen, but the white furniture really brightens it up!

I picked up the bedding and lampshade at IKEA. I think I need one accent pillow, so I'm waiting to find that for a steal. No rush though - I'll just lurk at Tuesday Morning.

As for the walls, I wanted to move out the typical office decorations (degrees and my law license) and replace them with something more fun and more us!

I have saved Playbills over the years - not to every single show, but to most of them! I thought it'd be fun to have a wall of Playbills, but framing them was REALLY expensive because of their custom size. I asked my cousin Lynette for tips because she's the crafty type, and she recommended getting a mat cutter. Again IKEA came through for the frames (BTW - definitely the cheapest place to buy frames. Don't even bother with coupons to Hobby Lobby/Michaels or the buy-one-get-one-for-a-penny at Aaron's Brothers). I've got the frames and Playbills, but still need to cut the mats and hang them up.

So one wall will be very ME - another wall should be very DEREK. My plan is to make use of the mat cutter again and frame some sports memorabilia:

*Tickets from the NCAA Rose Bowl Championship (Hook 'em);
*Tickets from the last Monday night game at Texas Stadium (a back and forth battle with the Eagles - the good guys came out on top though);
*Tickets to a Monday night game at Cowboys Stadium (where Romo broke his collar bone in the second quarter - ending his season last year);
*Tickets from Grant's first Rangers game; and
*Mementos from Game 4 of the 2010 World Series (tickets were electronic).

For behind the bed, I found a simple idea on pinterest - covering a blank canvas with fabric! I have the large canvas but I'm still on the look out for the right fabric. Again - I don't have to rush this - just keeping my eyes open.

I did want to add one big purchase to this room - a TV. It sounds crazy, but to me, it makes a guest room complete! We found a TV and saved some $ by not hooking it up to cable. We picked up a TV on Saturday (while I was having those crazy contractions). It was already on sale, but then today it dropped in price again. Derek and Grant went to Best Buy today for the difference and were just in time for the power to go out. A simple trip to get cash back turned into a half-hour ordeal with a toddler. God bless him!
Future TV wall
This room was pretty expensive - Desk + TV + frames and mats + mat cutter + canvas and fabric + bedding + painters + more tupperware storage for closet + new printer because the old one was too wide to fit in the new desk - Craigslist income from old desks = around $500. The other rooms are MUCH cheaper (it's not even close), so that makes this splurge a little easier. I'll update with the fully decorated room and of course the new rooms for the kiddos in the coming weeks.