trading spaces, gestation edition February 29, 2008

In order to make room for Sherman’s new sibling, we plan to move him into a new room and give the baby the “nursery”, which is the smallest bedroom and right next to the master. We’ve decided to go ahead and set up his new room with a big boy bed and give him time to get used to it, moving him to the new room at night after my parents’ next visit in April (after his 2nd birthday). At first I thought we needed to do either the bed or the room first, then the other, but it worked for other people so I’ll give it a shot.

This weekend we plan to get everything out of our downstairs extra bedroom (that only get used when my parents visit in the winter, when my dad decides to sleep down there with the dog because he coughs so much) and move everything from our upstairs office into that downstairs room. I am so excited. We have been slowly clearing out the office and it will be so nice to have an empty room to paint and fill up with Sherman’s new furniture. Not that we have decided what exactly to get him yet, but anyway. De-cluttering! Organizing! Arranging furniture! I’ve been looking forward to it all week.

So here are some before pictures so you know what I’m dealing with. Notes in Flickr, just click on the photos.

This is the downstairs bedroom. I cannot tell you how sad I am that I am going to have to space-bag that comforter set. I absolutely love it. I bought it from JCPenney when we lived in our first house, literally the day that my aunt and uncle came to visit Washington for a week. We had just finished painting our guest bedroom the weekend before and I wanted things to be nice. I managed to find this set and it was just what I was looking for. I’m depressed that I won’t get to use it on a bed…like, ever again. I even bought it in a queen size so that I could use it for a bigger bed in the future, and put this full size bed up on risers so the comforter and skirt didn’t hang on the ground.

Barely visible behind the bed is our cedar chest. It’s full of stuff from mine and my mother’s childhoods. It’s too full to fit anything else in there. My mom keeps saying to throw her stuff out but I want to keep it. This may get cleaned out though, and if it doesn’t “work” in here it may move to our bedroom.

We are giving the two dressers and the nightstand to one of Train’s coworkers.

The closet. Half of this stuff has to go somewhere else because I have to put the stuff from the office closet in here.

This is the upstairs office that will become Sherman’s room. We’ll take down the shelf. Walls will be blue. Because really…what other options do you have for a boy? The nursery is green so that’s taken.

The closet and bookshelf. The bookshelf will go downstairs with the desk and sofa. The closet…I want to get most of that stuff out of there. I might be okay with leaving some stuff on the shelf of the closet but probably not. Sherman accumulates enough stuff I’m sure we will need the space.

The loveseat will go into the “new” office.

Hopefully by the end of this weekend I will have “after” pictures of the downstairs room. Train keeps pressuring me to pick a paint color for Sherman’s room because I can’t decide between, like, 6 different blues. Usually it’s not a big deal but these colors are all so gorgeous. I ordered a dinosaur comforter which hasn’t come in yet, but it’s mostly blue too, so yikes. I’m thinking most of the other things in the room will be red and orange. I’m thinking bed, small bookshelf, dresser or chest, glider. Mom thinks we need to get, or at least save room for, a child’s table or desk, and she thinks he isn’t going to have floor room to play in his room. But he has the living room and family room where all of his toys are, where he spends most of his time now, so hopefully it will be fine.