B3 Gets Its Own Room

Ten weeks to go and we've decided to do a little demo to our house to make a proper nursery for baby.  No big deal, it's how we roll.  We went back and forth so much about what to do with this baby.  We have a 4th bedroom that we use for an office, and for the first 7 months of this pregnancy we both agreed that we wouldn't touch the office.  We NEED our office, right?

Not finding out the gender made things a bit more complicated.  Our plan for a long time was to have Syd and Taylor share a room for the first year, let the baby have one of their rooms while it's napping all day and screaming all night, and then after a year, depending on the gender, we'd have two of the kids share a room.  Sounded like a decent of enough plan, but then which room do we set up as the nursery?  Both the kids rooms are unabashedly very boy and very girl.  If we set up the baby in Taylor's very pink room, and it ended up being a boy, do we switch everyone around or repaint?  Try telling a 7 year old girl you're going to repaint her room for a year, then you promise to paint it back.  Yeah, that goes over real well.

The other thing that was really bothering me was the age space between the kids, and asking them to share a room.  I grew up in a 3 bedroom house with 1 bathroom and 4 kids, and shared a room with my sister, who is 9 years older than me, until she moved out when I was about 12.  I certainly don't theoretically believe that each kid has to have their own room.  Art and I felt it was important not to disrupt our lives and cause a great deal of expense just so they could each have their own room.  But at 5 and 7 years apart, the age difference does have to be considered a bit.  Especially if this baby turns out to be a girl.  Long term, I know how hard it will be for Taylor to have to share a room with her 6 year old sister when she's a teenager, because I've experienced it.  Kids that far apart are in such different stages of their lives and they often don't intersect well. By sharing a room with my older sister, I probably found out about sex way too young. Had I still found out if we weren't sharing a room?  Maybe, but being together as much as we were in such close quarters certainly didn't help.  If the baby is a boy, and considering that boys are a bit more adaptable and flexible, a 5 year spread might not be that big of a deal, but still has to be considered.
       
Now I know it really doesn't matter if the baby is a boy and sleeps in a girl's room for a while.  I know if we wanted to put our foot down, we could tell Taylor that she had to put up with getting her room painted.  But the more we thought about it, it seemed like we were asking our kids to make the most adjustments and accommodations, while we were willing to make none.  At the end of the day, is it going to be harder for them to make some transitions, or us?  We decided that it would just be easier for us to be displaced a bit then 3 kids.

So for now, my desk is moving out in to a corner of our formal living room (fancy right?), and Art will just work off of his laptop.  And the baby is going to get its own nursery.  And everyone will live happily ever after right?  RIGHT?  Ha!  We'll see.  I do know that once we decided to set up a proper nursery, I suddenly got very excited with the idea of choosing gender neutral bedding, paint color, etc.  I was trying to play it cool for a very long while, but it turns out that for me, nothing spells getting ready for baby more than setting up a nursery.  My best memories of being pregnant with both my kids is setting up the nursery, and then sitting in it at night after it was all done.  Touching their freshly washed clothes, rocking in the rocker.  Makes me tear up just thinking about it :)

The one thing I do know is that decision makes me even more relaxed rather than more stressed, so I think that's a good sign.  Stay tuned for updates on how we make room for baby.  A wall has to come down and a new closet rebuilt, but all manageable and should be done in 2 weeks or less.  My biggest worry at this point is what to do with all my crazy craft supplies!  Me and my sewing machine may be moving out to the garage ;)

1. & 2. crib & changing table our own; 3. handmade quilt 4. & 5. sheet & crib skirt 6. artwork 7. light fixture 8. kid chair 9. rocking chair
In the mean time this is what we have in mind for the nursery.  The crib and changing table we held on to, but everything else will be new or borrowed.  The inspiration for the entire nursery is based off of this quilt I found on Etsy and I think is perfect for a gender neutral space.  I'll add in pops of color here and there to make it a bit more bright, but overall I want a really clean and light space with white walls.  What do you think?  Too drab?  I think colorful decor will really make the difference though between drab and boring to light and bright.  Fingers crossed!     

*footnote added that what I mean by "I learned about sex too young", is that girls having sleepovers talk.  I learned about the birds and the bees during one such sleepover my sister had with her boy-crazy friend Tricia.  Nothing horrible or dirty, just stuff I probably shouldn't have been hearing when I was 8.  I never thought much about it until I had kids of my own.  Now I know 8 is in fact way too young to learn about the birds and the bees ;)

This post is sponsored by Disney Baby. I'll be joining the Disney Baby blogging team next month, and look forward to sharing these kinds of stories (projects/ideas/etc) with you over there! Stay tuned for more details!