shelves

Finding baby furniture can be somewhat depressing when you start looking at the price tags. Why does something so little need things that cost so much?

We had wanted to find a dresser that we could redo into a changing table. After going to most of the thrift stores in town and looking online at various options, we kept coming up empty. Even at thrift stores, dressers were costing up in the 300 to 400 range.

So we settled on making shelving units ourselves to fit our need, which we saved so much. We were able to spend about $200 for two full shelving units that were exactly what we wanted.

Plus then we get to have these handmade items to pass on to our kids. I still have the bookshelf my dad made for me when I was a kid, so I love the fact that we will have personal touches to add to our kid’s lives.

I am just going to let the pictures do most of the talking.

We splurged on the paint to make sure it was a little higher quality knowing it was going in a kid’s room.

We stained the tops of the shelves and then used the gloss to make them smooth and easier for cleaning (which should be a consideration for something we will be changing dirty diapers on).

These were the tops.

All of the wood.

Frame for unit one

frame for unit 2

They are pretty similar, but these legs are just one little touch that makes them different.

Tom sanded the tops to make them extra smooth. Then he used a router to make a rounded smooth edge.

I helped with the painting, but you don’t need pictures of the big ol belly struggling to reach corners.

Here is the changing table. The boxes hold everything from clothes to diapers and bath stuff. We got the solid fabric boxes off of Amazon with our registry, but they also sell them at Walmart. The elephant print box I made. I will have a tutorial here soon!

This is the extra bookshelf for all the knick knacks.

I love that Tom is so handy and can make these things happen.

The nice thing is that these can change easily to change for whatever the need is. So if we get more books for example, we can change the arrangement of things. I tried several dozen variations of things before I settled on where things are now. With the boxes you can change the patterns up easily!

We were a little nervous about all the white, but I love how clean and simple it looks.

Now we just need to hang things on the wall and put a rug down, and I think this nursery is complete! The goal is to have everything in place by this weekend, so hopefully we can make that happen considering my bed rest limitations.

Also, I am guest posting for my friend Tiffany today! Check it out here!

It’s a Monday after a holiday weekend. So like most, I sit here reflecting on the amazing down time that I had and dream that it wasn’t over. My newsfeed this morning was littered with all the witty “I hate Mondays” commentary.

So to recap our 4th of July.

It was not full of BBQ, beer, red/white/blue ribbons, or personal fireworks.

It was full of rain…all weekend long.

Don’t feel sad; we managed to make the most of it. We had a great relaxing weekend being free of work and responsibilities. And seriously what is better than actually being able to sleep in and be lazy on wet and rainy days?

Fort Campbell had a 4 day long carnival event, which we did attend on the 4th in the brief parting of the clouds before they canceled the firework show. It was really cool to see all the families tredge through the mud to celebrate what our families have gone through to ensure freedom for our nation.

We did not ride any rides because after working at an amusement park for 6 years (this is where Tom and I met btw), I am pretty skeptical of any ride that can be packaged into a trailer as a traveling show. And don’t get me started on my nightmares of Ferris wheels. Plus it cost money, and we were being cheap.

I also worked games for 2 years, so I cannot wait until we have kids so we can win them useless toys. After working 8 hour shifts for 2 summers, you learn a few tricks of the trade. We just don’t have a need for the game stuff now.

We were not too cheap however for my ICEE obsession. I L.O.V.E ICEES.

We love that we are lucky to be together to celebrate our independence! I think about all those families who cannot say the same. (Special shout out to our buddy Andrew Martin and his lovely family! We can’t wait to celebrate with you when you get home! And also to the Landis family, you all are in my thoughts and prayers regularly!)

The night of the fourth we ended up watching from our backyard some of our neighbors shoot off their own fireworks.

Grace did not seem to mind her first firework display.

And yes we made an outside bed for Grace to be comfortable watching the show.

They had rescheduled the fireworks for Friday. But it rained all evening so we didn’t really want to pack up to go across the base. So we watched in the rain from a parking lot right by our house in our Jeep. Nothing more American than being barefoot in a mud covered Jeep watching fireworks I guess.

All in all it was a good holiday for us, and we cannot forget the sacrifices that are made to grant the freedoms we hold so dear.

Talking with my husband about how the fireworks sounded like war and his FB statuses for the day gave me a lot to reflect on, and I hope they do for you too.

“Today and every day, ask yourself two questions. Who sacrificed their life so that I could have mine? What am I doing to make myself worthy of that sacrifice?”

“Remember that rights aren’t something you are entitled to. Rights are something we have to fight for. Nothing in this world is free.”

Nothing like a national holiday to make you think about your priorities eh?

It’s ironic (don’t you think) that those who give up so much of their own freedoms are the ones that are making sure you and I have ours?

Now on to our home improvement project of the week.

We created these shelves so that we could have some flexibility on changing the deco in our house without the hassle of measuring and putting in new holes in the wall. Since we live in on-base housing, we are trying to leave as little damage as possible.

Shelves are pretty expensive if you want to buy more than one of these at the store, and you cannot get them in a very long size. I think the cheapest we were able to find was like $30ish bucks for one that was like a foot long. So Tom volunteered to make them for us. For 8 shelves, it was around $75 for us doing it this way. (If you are able to find ones cheaper than this, share with the world please!)

Basically you pick the size shelf you want from the wood selection. We chose a couple different sizes because of the what we had planned to put on the shelf, so we had 1X2s and 1X3s.

Then we picked out simple decorative molding to make the face of the shelf. You can make it relatively inexpensive depending on the molding you pick, or just not getting molding and just using the base wood only.

Tom did all the handiwork. It seems pretty simple from watching him. He made all 8 of them in an afternoon.

This is before he stained them all.

Then he added wall hangers/hooks on the back to make them more secure on the wall.

Then was the long process of measuring out the locations on the wall. This included a stud finder, tape measure, level, T-square, and Tom’s persistence for perfection.

Here they are empty.

And here is our new photo wall. I am working on getting some new photos, and it will be so easy to add. I can just move them around until I feel like I have the layout I like. Until the next day when I want to move them around again.