The Evolution of a Nursery

One of the reasons I fell in love with our house was the room right off the front hallway with the big, pretty windows. For two years, it served me well as a home office and studio.

Eventually my studio outgrew the room, so we converted the two back bedrooms into a waiting room and office/studio space. So for the last two years, that pretty front room has been sadly neglected (except for in December when we’ve put the Christmas tree up in front of the windows). That will soon change, though, because it’s about to become Baby Rambach’s nursery!

Now that we’ve cleared out the daybed and bookcase that found a temporary home in this room, it’s completely empty and waiting to be filled with furniture. Today our painter came and touched up the crown molding, and the carpet is being cleaned on Wednesday. Hopefully by next weekend, the furniture will be assembled and in place…but for now it looks like this:

These gigantic boxes have been sitting unopened in the front hallway for several days now. I can’t wait to get everything set up so that I can start decorating — until then, I’ll just keep collecting ideas on my Pinterest board.

Music Therapy on TED.com

Tim Ringgold is a music therapist in California with an amazing story to tell. But if you watched the video above, you know that already.

I met Tim a few years back at an AMTA national conference, and we’ve kept in touch ever since via social media, email, and seeing each other once a year at conferences. I’ve been reading his blog, Bella’s Blessings, which has chronicled his family’s journey since his daughter was born with a rare skin disease called Epidermolysis Bullosa, or EB. Though currently there is no cure for EB, Bella took place in a clinical trial at the University of Minnesota where through Bone Marrow Transplantation, she grew her sister’s skin on her body over time. Unfortunately, she died from complications of transplant on October 11, 2010.

Tim has been raising money to find a cure for EB, and he’s also been busy spreading the word about the power of music therapy. His video has been watched almost 5,000 times, and now it has the chance to be featured on the official TED.com website. If that happens, it would be the FIRST ever TED talk about music therapy.

Please watch the video if you haven’t already, and then share it with your friends and family. This is a story that should be heard by everyone!

The Nesting Begins!

This is what our basement storage room has looked like since the great flood of 2010. Almost three years later, after living in denial that this room even existed, the nesting urge kicked in hard and I decided it was time to tackle it.

Zach wasn’t quite as excited as I was about whipping this room into shape, but he was a great sport. He took every single thing off of those shelves, and we went through all the boxes to decide what was worth keeping and what we’d be trashing. We filled the next room (our little boy’s future playroom!) with all the stuff that didn’t make the “keep” pile, and soon were left with a fairly empty storage room and a GIGANTIC trash heap.

Guess who then made about 12 trips to the dumpster? Zach was a trooper once again, hauling everything upstairs and out of my sight forever. While he did that, I organized the rest of the shelves in the basement and wiped down all the tile dust that still remained from the post-flood basement renovation. After all that work, we were finally left with a room that looked like this:

I can hardly even believe it’s the same room as the one in the “before” photo. It’s no longer a safety hazard to walk in, and I actually know where everything is! A miracle after three years of disaster zone status. Everyone keeps telling me we’ll accumulate TONS of stuff once the baby arrives, so now we have a nice organized storage space to put everything that gets displaced by baby gear.

The nesting bug bit me hard, because I didn’t stop after finishing the basement. Next, we tackled the future nursery, which meant dismantling the daybed in there (and laundering/putting away all the linens and pillows) and completely clearing everything else out. Then I moved on to the laundry room, for which I bought matching storage bins and organized everything that had been cluttering up the shelves in there. The next day, I did a clean sweep of the master bedroom, closet and bathroom.

So what’s next? I have a huge list of all the projects I want to pursue now that the spring cleaning is mostly done, starting with the nursery. I can’t wait to get to work setting it up!

Week 26

Week 26 has been a good one. I am feeling better than ever lately, and life is going just swimmingly. Work has been fantastic between my students, my online business, and my new class, and I’m excited about working on some new projects. I’m also getting really pumped to finally get to work on the nursery (beyond just collecting ideas on Pinterest) and the downstairs playroom.

This past weekend, Zach and I ordered our first BIG baby item: the stroller! I spent hours and hours researching, and finally chose this one based on the great reviews and its versatility. We have my grandma to thank, since she bought it for us — I told her we’ll think of her during all those walks we’ll be taking this summer.

Then yesterday, our changing table was delivered to our front door, thanks to my mother-in-law. All of these baby items are currently occupying our huge closet in the basement, and it will be so nice to finally get everything put together and moved into the nursery. I love how real this is all beginning to feel!

Week 25

15 weeks to go! Not much new to report pregnancy-wise lately; baby boy is still kicking up a storm and growing bigger by the day, it seems. I am feeling pretty big these days, and doing things like bending over to put on socks and shoes is becoming quite the chore.

I am also feeling super loved lately! I’ve had three people offer to throw baby showers for me, including my best friend Katie who is flying all the way home from NYC. I’m counting down the days until spring (only 14 to go) because I’m so over the crappy winter weather, and now I have even more reason to be excited.