Nesting?

I guess that is what you call this....

Lincoln's Nursery has been in the works for quite some time, and we are finally ready to show pictures of it.  When Tim and I got married and I moved into his 'Bachelor Pad', re-decorating was a battle the whole time.  He was surprisingly opinionated about me changing his space, and had lots of restrictions No pink frilly crap.  This time around Tim let me pick everything I wanted and he did most of the work.  Awesome!  I did get several strange looks when things like the red mustache pillow started arriving, but I think we ended up with something we are both happy with. 

Phase 1: Clean Out

The whole process started just after Christmas when Tim and I spent 2 solid days (9am to 10pm) cleaning out our house.  Three truck loads to Goodwill later, (this was before we knew about YL Garage Sale) we were no longer occupying all three bedrooms and all three closets in our house.  There was space for our little man :)

Phase 2: Move the guest room from Barry's Room to Jonny's Room. 

Phase 3: Paint Barry's Room Blue & start calling it Lincoln's room.

Phase 4: Chevron Stripes

This was Pintrist project number one.  Like everyone else, I am in Love with Chevron stripes right now.  Luckily I am married to an engineer who is on top of stuff like this.  I attempted to help with the dots and taping, but my dots were off and I was going to quickly (sloppy), so I got fired.  She gets fried and rehired pretty regularly.  Here is what I got:

  Happy Girl.

Phase 5: More Pintrist projects.

Lettering: I fell in love with this super cute sign on Pintrist and tried to order it.  At first I was surprised and estatic that the sign I found was actually in a price range I wanted to pay and I ordered it.  I quickly received an e-mail back that yes, in fact this sign did come in that price, but it was tiny.  Plan 2- I talked with an artist friend about painting the sign, but she had just had a baby and needless to say her hands were full!  There were some Etsy options, but Tim and I decided to give it a go on our own.  I free handed EVERY and ALRIGHT with some direction from Tim while looking at the sign.  The smaller words are stencils.  Once we finished the lettering Cassey and I went to register and Tim surprised me by painting while I was gone.  I Love the way it turned out! 

Lincoln: My most random purchase for the nursery was a large Abraham Lincoln wall decal.  I know I'm crazy, but I thought it was Hilarious!  Tim decided the decal was to big, so he decided to alter it a little.  This painting went through several phases.  His 'bust' was first cut off.  Tim then decided to paint stripes leaving a white background.  (which looked like it belonged at a Bob Marley concert with our sign)  Then Tim made Lincoln's features brown, and his smile a little more pleasant.  In the end we decided stripes were a no go, so his face turned yellow and the background blue.  This canvas is a little creepy, but after all of Tim's hard work we couldn't not put it up.... so it is hanging behind the door :)  We usually move the door to show it to people, then cover it back up.  It is weird, but overall I like it.  I really like having stuff we made in his room, it makes it more personal.

We FINALLY decided on a middle name.  We have actually known for a while, but we wanted to tell Tim's dad before we 'officially' announced it, so here it is... Lincoln James Davis.  James is Tim's dad's name and Tim's middle name.  We had severally really random middle name requirements and this one fit them all.  Family name, one syllable, biblical, southern, etc. (I also tried to say it was also funny b/c Lincoln was killed by James Wilkes Booth,  yea, definatley John not James, but it was worth a try)

We spent our day yesterday making these letters.  I love how they turned out, but am not sure they are worth the work.  FYI you can not just go to the bank and get new pennies.  Penny rolls come with all kinds of gunk and gew all over them.  After a long debate over cleaning etc. I finally found 3 random rolls of new pennys lying around the house.  After I opened them and spaced them on the letters I realized they were un-circulated, and meant to go with the coin collection my grandpa has given me.  After calling and discussing it with my mom, I'm pretty sure there is a roll for Billy and Crilion on these letters too because she didn't have any rolls for them at home.  Luckily we looked it up and they are not worth near as much as the other coins Grandpa has given us, so boys we will pay you back for yours.  Unfortunately 3 rolls only got us half way through.  The rest of the penny's we had to clean.  Trust me.  You never want to do this. 

If it wasn't days before Lincoln gets here we would have ordered more un-circulated pennys, but we are in a time crunch so yesterday we (mostly Tim) spent three hours scrubbing coins and watching re-runs of Khloe and Lamar.  Aren't you jealous!  Luckily the finished project turned out great... and Tim only scrubbed off the top of three of his fingers with a brillow pad.  This kid better not ever say we didn't do anything for him :)

Just in case you missed it, Lincoln is on the Penny, so these letters are covered in Little Lincolns :)

Phase 6: Set it up!

We went to Jill and Jarred's last night for dinner, and when we came home we couldn't help but finishing up.  Final Stretch!

 

Check out the AWESOME quilt over the chair!  Ashley's mother in law made that!  Along with several matching burp cloths. Barb is amazing!

Kassidy and Kelly also made the diaper cake.  It is too cute to take apart.  I should post a closer picture!  Eventually it will probably get replaced by a lamp, but it is staying as long as I can go without using the goodies in it :)

 Thoughts on the Lincoln banner? It may be coming down and saved for parties.  It is from a shower and I love it, but Tim thinks the wall is to busy. I am starting to agree.  Always right. 

I left this phase out, but we now have closet doors!  These used to be sliding mirrors with gold trim which were taken out several months ago.  Apparently the closet is an abnormal shape, but with the help of my dad's cabinent man we were able to get these cut down & Tim put them in!

And last but not least, our hiding Abe Lincoln.

We also finished up the bathroom this weekend!  I was planning on going with rubber duckies, but Tim found this and it matched the monkey theme :)  It also picked up all the brown accents that were already in there, so we didn't have to re-paint and change the fixtures, so I guess it is a win win!

It feels so good to be done!  We are ready!  ... now if we could only get the weights out of the Tim Gym and the playroom set up.  There is always something that will have to wait.  We are headed to the Lake!