…and I got really (like, insanely) excited for Christmas.  I don’t normally start planning for the holidays weeks in advance (I’m a bit of a last minute holiday girl, truth be told) but that red?  Against that white?  And all that merriness?  Yep.  It got to me.

So off we went (poor Patrick gets toted around a lot these days) (I think he’s developing an appreciation for shopping!) (or just a high tolerance for mommy) to HomeSense (of course.)  And I wandered around the pillow aisle for far far too long.  Did I emerge from all that soft and squishy loveliness triumphantly waving beautiful new red pillows in the air?  No.  But, as I’ve learned, that’s all part of the HomeSense experience.  It’s the thrill of the hunt.  It’s the glory of the chase.  And I, like a throw pillow stalking tigress, will be returning shortly to HomeSense (with my cute little kitten in tow, of course) to continue chasing the ever elusive perfect festive red throw pillows.

BUT, in the meantime, I’ve found even more Christmas inspiration on Pinterest.  Like this super festive living room…

…from HouseToHome.

And this pretty room…

…from SandAndSisal (omg I want that chair!!!)

And this beautiful and comfy looking living room from Four Generations One Roof…

Yes, I’m completely obsessed with finding the perfect new red throw pillows now.  And perhaps even a new red throw.  Patrick just rolls his tiny little eyes over the whole thing.  In his three long wise months, he’s become accustomed to mommy’s obsession with all things pretty.

But really, in this particular case, it’s all Ikea’s fault, you know.  :)

And I’m also very aware that I’m ridiculously ginormous…

Crazy eh?  I’m still not entirely sure how I manage to stay upright.

Last week, with nesting instincts in overdrive, I put a few last minute touches on the nursery.  Curtains were hung, art was placed up on walls, the more-complex-than-anticipated baby monitor got installed, and I fussed over silly little details (would bashful bunny look better here?  Or here?)  And, with Baby overdue as of tomorrow, I’m happy with the rather peaceful teal, gray, white and mustardy yellow space that this nursery has gradually morphed into.

My dad found this metal wall hanging at a street art fair.  I added the ribbon and hung it from the door.  It’s perfect in every way.

We’re using Ikea’s Hemnes dresser as our change table: it’s a good height for both normal-sized me and super tall Sweetie, it has lots of room for the change pad and diaper related stuff, and (most importantly) it’s rather lovely-looking.

(Unfortunately it was also rather difficult and time consuming to assemble.  But that’s a whole other blog post for a whole other day.)

The Celebrate Everything canvas was a HomeSense purchase (on clearance, no less!) made a couple of years ago, long before Baby and nursery planning had ever started.  Again (and again and again): I heart HomeSense.

And this trio of friendly stuffed animals will eventually be relocated to a shelving unit of some sort (I’m still in search of the perfect bookshelf for this room.)  I’m hoping to find something fairly small, but still very functional.  Until then, these three will bravely stand guard over the change table.

Because the nursery is fairly tiny, we didn’t want a crib that felt large and bulky (as so many of them do.)  Enter: Ikea.  Of course.  We fell in love with Gulliver (and hopefully Baby will too!)

My friend Nadia (we’ve been friends since Grade Nine) (which means we’ve been friends for… um… many many years) made Baby this gorgeous yellow and teal baby quilt.

And the small vintage rocking chair, that long ago belonged to my grandparents, was reupholstered by my mom and dad as a gift to Baby.  It’s the perfect size for this little space.  And I love knowing that I’ll be rocking Baby to sleep in a chair that once belonged to people who, while no longer here, were such an important part of my life growing up.

Keeping watch over everything from beside my beloved rocker is the ever adorable bashful bunny (along with his good friends the happy hedgehog and hilarious hare.)

But my absolute favourite part of the nursery?  This sheep mobile from amazing Etsier (and fellow Canadian) TheMemis…

Each little sheep has a different expression on its face.  It’s absolutely perfect, and I can’t say enough good things about Emi at TheMemis. :)

So there you have it.  Our sweet and peaceful (and gender neutral) little nursery.  I’ll likely continue to add to it as time goes on – I have lofty gallery wall plans for the wall opposite the crib, I still need to find that bookshelf for stuffies and books and toys and nicnacs and such, and I’d love to add a little more coral (if Baby is a girl) or greens and navy (if this belly-wiggler is a wee boy) once Baby arrives.  And my friend Shawn (who I’ve been friends with pretty much since forever) has commissioned a baby blanket for me as a gift for Baby from another mutual friend (Sheilagh) who is an amazingly and incredibly talented quilter (you can see some of her work over at her site, Lay it on Me Baby) – I’m so excited about planning the blanket with her once Baby is born!

But for now I absolutely adore this serene little space, just as it is.

Let’s hope that Baby does too.

Whenever he or she decides to make a big appearance.

But now I think I’m done.

Not because there aren’t a gazillion things I could be doing.  (Dear neighbours: please please please disregard our front flowerbeds.  I promise to be a far better gardener next summer.)  (And dear dustbunnies: please stop multiplying so quickly in the corners.)  But because I just don’t have the energy right now.

It’s a super hard thing for me to admit.  I’m definitely feeling a little defeated.

That said, I had two joyously productive moments yesterday: I finished a couple of tiny little projects.  And I’m quite proud.

First, I swapped out the front entryway doormat for a new one I picked up at HomeSense (oh how I love HomeSense!) a few days ago.  I went from this stripey snore-fest…

(Obviously file footage, since I’ve since painted those super ugly green walls!)

…to this…

Admittedly, it’s not a massive change, but it makes me happy to think that any post-baby visitors will have a much nicer mat to land upon when they walk through my front door.

Project number two involved dressing a long-naked window in our living room.  When we moved in, the previous owners had left some rather hideous and dirty-looking blinds on this window (which I promptly removed.)  I was left with this…

Unfortunately, and rather oddly, this window frame is positioned unusually high – it almost reaches the ceiling (I’m guessing that at some point someone dropped the ceiling in this room to run new, non-knob-and-tube wiring through the house since other ceilings on the main floor are a good foot taller.)  As a result, I’ve hummed and hawed over what to do with this window for several months now.  Yesterday, I had Sweetie hang a curtain rod right at ceiling height.  And yesterday, I finally added curtains to this window.

And today, I am very happy with the result.  The curtains (which are Ikea’s lovely Matilda panels, btw) don’t hide the ugliness of the window itself (see all that stuff on the window?  Spray foam.  Between the panes of glass.  Yup, some not-so-bright but likely well-meaning previous home owner decided that this would be a good solution to winter draftiness.)  (For the record, spray foam between the window panes is never ever a good – or, at least, nice looking – solution to draftiness.)  But the curtains do make the window look better (which this soon-to-be momma is content with for now, until we find a way to disassemble the window and scrape out the offending foam.)

So there.  Those are my two most recent tiny little accomplishments at the old mauve house.  Significant?  Not particularly.  But I at least feel like I’m still making some progress, despite that my body is most definitely slowing down.

Now, if you’ll please excuse me for a moment (or two), this momma-to-be desperately needs a nap.   :)

Yep.  If I have this baby tomorrow (which, mind you, I hope I don’t!) (just a sec – knocking on wood…) he or she now, officially, has somewhere to sleep.

And all of this makes me a very very happy momma-in-the-making.  :)

Nothing is set up yet, of course.  My parents are coming down to paint the nursery later this week (thanks mom and dad!), and then, once the walls are all prettied up, the furniture will be assembled.  I’m ridiculously excited to see this little room transform into the nursery that’ll belong to this wiggly little one who is currently doing pirouettes in my ever expanding belly.

But, until that all happens, he’s what we’ve settled on so far…

The nursery will be painted Benjamin Moore’s Woodlawn Blue…

Then there’s the Hemnes dresser that’ll double as a change table (currently sitting in a box in my living room, but it’s going to be awesome!)…

And our Gulliver crib (I’m so excited about our crib!), while really simple and small, shouldn’t overpower the tiny little room that’ll become Baby’s nursery…

We still need blinds and curtains for the windows, an area rug for the floor, some sort of dirty diaper collection method (be that a wetbag or an ubbi or a simple diaper pail liner plus ikea garbage pail (like this one here) or whichever system we decide upon), and a bookshelf of some sort (since we plan on doing a lot of reading to Baby.)  A footstool or ottoman (for mamma to put her feet up while nursing) would be pretty super swell too.

But, we have the basics now, at least.

Only eight more short weeks (until my official due date) to go!

And while I despise the ridiculously cold snowy winter we’ve had this year, I despise my current window coverings even more.  The previous home owners (being the insane awesome people that they are!) left us a plethora of flood-ready bright white sparkly-swirl sheers for our windows.  An intended act of generosity?  Perhaps.  But regardless of motive, the result is the same: the curtains are making me a crazy person.

Enter: Ikea.  Yep.  My beloved and dependable go-to for window coverings.  Their curtains are cheap.  They’re very cheerful.  They come in really long lengths (for those of us who prefer to set our curtain rods a tad higher than the average population.)  And their curtains come in pairs (which seems to be a bit of a rarity anymore.)  (But really, how many people only need one curtain?)  (Cough, cough, rip off, ehem…)  During an Ikea trip about a month ago I purchased no fewer than six (much needed) new drapery sets along with the accompanying curtain rods and hardware and doodads and such.  After a second Ikea trip a few days later (because a certain someone with a wee bit of baby brain forgot a few crucial curtain rod components…) we finally got everything up last weekend.

Here’s my front living room window before (with its icky swirly silver sheers all aglow):

(Here’s a closeup of the sheers’ sparkly swirls, just in case you’re interested.  Snazzy, eh?)

And here’s the after, featuring my all-time favourite front window drapes (Ikea’s Ritva) and a set of soft-ivory sheers (Ikea’s Teresia).

I’m a happy girl!  But why did we get another pair of sheers?  The glass panes in this window are no longer sealed properly (one of the hazards of buying a fixer-upper with archaic windows) so there’s condensation and dust between the panes and this window always appears dirty from the street (despite that – I promise! – it’s very very clean!)  The sheers help mask that a bit, which means we’ll likely be sheer-people until we replace that entire front window (which, sadly, will be a very expensive venture) (which, also sadly, means it’s pretty far down on our list of priorities right now.)

The Ritvas are waaay too long right now (I’m all for little drapery puddles, but this is a little silly) and will likely require shortening.  Tip I’ve learned?  Wash and dry Ikea drapes a couple of times before shortening them.  They sometimes shrink.  A lot.  Whenever they’ve accumulated enough kitty fur to require a trip through the laundry (which, sadly, will likely be soon) I’ll get around to making them a bit shorter.  For now, however, I’m just happy that they’re not sparkly.  Or swirly.  Or bright white.

Next up?  Here’s the before of my dining room window…

Apparently the previous owners weren’t bothered by the too-short panels (or, um, lack of baseboards) but I think the windows look much lovelier now that they’re dressed with a few Borghild panels from Ikea…

And we added the same curtains to this previously un-adorned window at the end of our dining room too.  Here it is pre-curtaining…

…and here’s the much improved after…

All of which makes me a very happy girl.  :)

The last set of the six sets of curtains I purchased is earmarked for the baby’s room (should we ever get around to starting the nursery) (hello?  Ambition?  You should probably kick in about now…)  If they don’t end up used in the nursery, we’ll hang them in our bedroom (since a certain black kitten has pretty much destroyed our bedroom drapes.)  (He thinks bedroom curtain-clawing is a really fun pastime.)  (Particularly at 5am.)  (It’s a good thing he’s cute.)

And now, for your viewing pleasure (and a little post-title clarity), here’s a little Drapery Safety Dance from Men Without Hats…

…because, well, it’s really, really weird, but so fun.  :)

(Although all this might also just mean I’ve hit the “nesting” phase of pregnancy.  Does nesting feel a bit like uncontrollable and obsessive spring cleaning?  If so, consider me a momma bird eagerly vacuuming her happy little nest.)

First it was my loo: after months of cursing over our overflowing (and not particularly pretty) bathroom cabinet, I finally tidied it up last week.  I ruthlessly threw out any old or outdated cosmetics and prescriptions, and then made it a bit more organized (and way more user-friendly) using some random baskets (courtesy of Bouclair) that I already had kicking around.  The result?  A much less chaotic and cluttered little cabinet that is not only far prettier from the inside…

…but looks way nicer from the outside too.

(I’m not a huge fan of these clear-ish frosted doors, btw.  These doors may eventually fall victim to a little DIY-ing.  Because, really, why would anyone want a semi-obscured glimpse at the inside our medicine cabinet?  The same medicine cabinet that, while tidy right now, will inevitably end up looking disheveled within a few weeks I’m sure.)  (It makes me super sad to type that, but, really, I’m a realist about these sorts of things.)

Organizing this tiny little utilitarian cabinet probably took less than half an hour, but it made me feel about a gazillion pounds lighter.  Like stripping away a big bulky winter coat.  And mitts.  And scarf.  And a super static-y winter toque that makes your hair all flooffy (techincal term) but you defiantly wear it anyway because, seriously, if you didn’t, your ears might actually fall off from the cold.  Good hair days be damned.

(Have I mentioned how much I dislike winter?  I really dislike winter.)

Next, I turned to my couch (which, btw, is overdue for its quarterly date with our washing machine.  Don’t look too closely.)

After months of looking at the same dark brown (and, admittedly, very boring) throw pillows, I turned to the brilliant, pillow-scouting buyers at HomeSense with a great deal of pillow-related optimism.

They did not let me down.  I found these…

And I think my exact words at the time were “Oooooh.  You’re pretty.”  Does anyone else talk to decorative objects while out shopping?  I most certainly do.  It helps me to bond with the blankets, and create rapport with rugs.  In this particular case, I got a little complimentary with the cushions.  They didn’t mind.  And now they’re sitting happily on my couch, looking all spring-ish, like this…

And, they almost match the spring placemats I pulled out of winter storage…

It’s textile fate.  It was meant to be.  :)

And, speaking of textiles, and continuing in my must-organize-and-improve-the-house-in-celebration-of-that-one-lonely-and-cold-looking-robin theme, I then went a little crazy at Ikea.  I purchased no fewer than six (six!) new sets of drapes for our living room/dining room (and all of the required curtain rods/brackets/fancy pieces to accompany said curtains too.)

Pictures of all this drapery actually hanging are still in progress (since, well, Baby decided I needed a day off from all this craziness and urged me to take a very long nap yesterday afternoon) but believe you me: it’ll be one epic and super happy day when the new curtains go up.  (Because the sparkly white sheers must go.)  (Immediately.)   You just wait!

So that’s the story of spring coming to our little mauve-coloured house.  At least so far.  There’s lots more cleaning and organizing and nursery-decorating and probably another trip to Ikea looming (yay!  I heart Ikea so much), but for now I’m happy with the progress made to date.

Now, please excuse me while I go play with my new, non-stark-white, living room drapes.  Whee!

Yeah.  That’s me.

And when I say that our curtains are too short, I’m not exaggerating:

Yep.  We have flood-ready curtains.  And no baseboards in our dining room (for some unknown reason.)  (But that’s a completely different story for a completely different day.)  And this picture is obviously from the day we moved in (I promise!  Our house is now fully furnished.  We’re not extreme minimalists!)  But just look.  Look at those curtains!  I’m not an interior decorator, but I’m pretty sure I speak somewhat accurately and knowledgeably when I say: that’s not how you hang curtains.

Ugh.

In our little 1940s home (oh, how I miss our little 1940s home!) we hung Ikea’s Ritva curtains in the front window.  And they looked lovely (and apparently lulled a very cute orange cat – who we miss very much – to sleep on our sofa the day I took this picture.)

My only criticism of those Ritva curtains?  They were wrinkly.  Like, mucho messy wrinkly.  They were definitely not wash-and-wear sorta curtains.  Nope!  A whole lot of ironing went into making sure that anxiety-inducing wrinkly-frumpiness was kept at bay.

So is pulling out my iron each time I wash my Ritvas a deal breaker?  I really really do hate ironing.  A lot.  A whole lot.  But, as much as I hate ironing, I do truly love Ritva.  The curtains have a linen-y texture that makes them seem far more expensive than they really are (since Ikea drapes are as delightfully cheap as they are cheerful.)  And Ikea’s long-length curtain panels will definitely be appreciated in this old mauve house, since our dining room ceiling height is quite high (Sweetie says 9-ish feet, but it seems way higher to me.)

Oh Ritva, you sneaky devil.  You really do have a hold on me.  You may be once again forcing me to dust off my iron.  But you’re worth it.

Queue forthcoming curtain-collecting Ikea trip.  Woo!  I heart Ikea.  :)

It wasn’t nearly so dire in the early fall, when the odd light jacket would occasionally end up temporarily draped across a chair.  Even in later autumn, when heavier coats began to appear once in a while, I remained impressively calm and sane about the whole situation.

But then winter hit.  Snow and scarves and jackets and more jackets and Sweetie’s ginormous jackets (he is 6’4″ afterall) and the odd mitten strewn haphazardly across the dining room table all happened, all at once.  And I sort of lost my marbles just a wee bit.  It was uncontrolled outerwear chaos.  And I decided that we desperately needed to find a containment unit for the renegade toques and the bulky parkas that were rather ruthlessly taking over our house.

The solution: a wardrobe.

My first instinct?  Ikea, of course!  My favourite of the bunch was this one…

Oh, Hemnes, you make me happy.  :)  But at $299 (plus taxes and travel), handsome Hemnes was a bit beyond my post-holiday budget.

So I turned to ever-dependable Kijiji.  And Kijiji didn’t disappoint!  I found this…

And after a little well-calculated haggling (aka begging) I brought the price down to a fairly reasonable (and somewhat wallet-friendly) $100 buckeroonies.  Was I happy?  Yes!  At one third the cost of my beloved Hemnes wardrobe, I got twice the character (and, truthfully, a far better fit for our space.)

I immediately gave her (since she’s far too pretty to be a boy wardrobe) a good scrubbing with good old fashioned Murphys Oil Soap – there were paint splatters here and there and old water marks everywhere and the whole cabinet reeked of smoke and dirt and old.  Luckily most of the paint came off fairly well with a little work, but there’s one big splotch on the side that refused to budge.  My next cleaning attempt might involve a wee bit of steel wool, but I’m calling the paint splotch “character” for now.

And then, like every good found-furniture fluffer, I swapped out the dirty brass knobs for something a little sparklier.  Because every old wardrobe deserves a little fancy new hardware.  And because glass knobs make me happy.

I also added a couple baskets on top.  Because scarves and hats and miscellaneous mittens seem to fit best in baskets.

And someday, maybe, down the road (if I’m feeling super ambitious and DIY-ish) perhaps my lovely little wardrobe will even get a new paint job.  I think she’d look rather pretty in a creamy white.  Or maybe even something more adventurous (if I’m feeling super wardrobe-brave.)

But, for now, I’m just happy to have a coat chaos containment unit.  :)

There’s painting.  Which room?  Take your pick!  Pretty much every room in our new (to us) house needs a severe repainting.  Including ceilings.  And trim.  And doors.  And (in the case of our second floor) floors.  True story.  We have here the potential for a complete repainting of every single surface in every room.  Daunting?  Absolutely.  But it’ll look awesome once it’s finished.

I particularly despise the dark mossy green colour in our living room and dining room.  It’s not terrible, but it’s just not “us”.

(Please pardon the off-centre star!)

Then there’s the flooring situation in our kitchen.  Remember this?

Yep.  That’s starting to drive me a wee bit ca-razy.  However pulling up many many layers of kitchen flooring could potentially be a monumental job.  Am I ready for that sort of work at this point in old mauve house home ownership?  I’m not sure.

And then there are the lights that all need to be changed.  This one (which currently resides in our living room) is of particular concern…

Looks harmless enough, right?  But the electrical connection is completely wrong.  Wrong wrong wrong.  And having a random chandelier in a location where a chandelier wouldn’t normally appear (rhyming not deliberate!) is a bit of a nogging-bonking hazard for those who are a wee bit on the overgrown side.  Yup -  Sweetie (my 6’4″ slightly taller than most awesome hubby) keeps whacking his head off the silly thing.  And unless Sweetie starts wearing his hard hat around the house, I’m pretty sure the living room light will be replaced with something flush-er (is that a word?) very soon.

Or, we could just surrender and agree to be held hostage by a little ugliness for now, and concentrate on the holidays.  Afterall, Christmas (according to a friend’s recent facebook post) is only six (SIX!) weekends away.  That’s six weekends that will likely be filled with parades, decorating, baking, shopping, and general merriment.  And, really, who has time for painting and reflooring and new lighting and such when there’s so much festiveness and happiness and awesomeness going on.  Not I (says the girl in the reindeer-patterned pajamas!)  I have pompoms to make and Christmas cookies to bake and a new (sorta ugly) house to make all pretty and Christmassy.  :)

That said, we need new curtains.  Desperately.  So one minor pre-holiday, low-effort change may be abreast: there may be a trip to IKEA in my near-ish future, in search of new, less hideous, window treatments (to replace the sheer/too short/ridiculously ugly curtains that the previous owners left behind.)  Which would feel like progress (and likely make our neighbours pretty happy – I’m sure they’re getting kinda tired of watching me dance around with the cats in my living room every night after work) (it’s weird, but the kitties rather like it) (and Irwin, despite his shyness, sure knows how to boogie.)

Yep, new drapes = easy and rather quick progress.  And a little cat-dancing modesty.  K.  Let’s start with that.

Me:  Yay!  The new Ikea catalogue is out!

Sweetie: Ooooh.  That is exciting.

Me: I know!  However, please note that I don’t yet have one.  This is extremely upsetting.

Sweetie: Well, can’t you just order one?

Me: Maybe?  [Insert frantic Ikea-website search here.]  Crap.  No.  It looks like they no longer send them out upon request to any household that’s beyond a certain radius from a store.  The site says that we need to visit our nearest Ikea location for a catalogue.  Oh despair.  My world is crumbling.

Sweetie: Well, we’ll just get you a catalogue the next time we pass by a store then.

Me:  But there’s all sorts of amazing new stuff at Ikea now and I don’t yet know about it.  I need a catalogue now.  Now now now.

Sweetie: [Eye rolling]

Me: [Pouting]

Yep.  That all actually happened.  And yes, it’s sad but true: the FAQ section on Ikea’s website does indeed state that I cannot order the catalogue and have it delivered by mail.  I must now trek to my nearest Ikea store in order to view the catalogue that’ll tell me what I want to buy at my nearest Ikea store.  To quote my favourite blue and yellow retailer:

The IKEA catalogue is mass-distributed annually in the area around each IKEA store. If you did not receive this year’s catalogue, stop by the IKEA store near you for a free copy.

It’s all a little silly.

Of course, I could peruse the catalogue online.  The website reminds me that I can flip through virtual pages as much and as often as I’d like until my heart’s content.  There’s even an app for that, the website claims, if I’d like to saunter through the virtual catalogue on my teeny tiny little smartphone screen.

Call me a purist (hell, call me archaic and silly and an outdated poop-head if you’d like) but I want my catalogue, with it’s slightly glossy, thin (but surprisingly durable), glorious real-life pages.  I want to dog ear the pages that feature those items that I really really want.  And I want to flip leisurely through the catalogue and marvel at all the Ikea awesomeness.  Over and over and over again.

Sigh.

However, despite my better judgement, I did indeed visit Ikea’s website.  And I did indeed view some of their new products.  And I did indeed squeal just a bit in delight.

(Although I would indeed still like a catalogue.)

Here were some of my favourite new items…

There’s marvellous Majviva, the pretty purple-ly duvet cover…

And Ullgump the spectacularly spotty rug…

…which claims to be listed at a new lower price (but I don’t remember it ever existing at an old higher price.)

And while we’re chatting about rugs, I absolutely adore this cheerful yellow swoon-worthy Stockholm rug in yellow…

…which actually does appear to be new to Ikea.  And actually does need to come home and live with me somewhere in some room in my not-yet-officially-mine house.  :)

Despite being a wee bit (ok, a lot) feminine, these beautiful Borghild curtains may eventually reside in our living room…

(Maybe Sweetie won’t notice that they’re floral?)

And I love that Hemnes now comes in blue…

So lovely!

And there’s more.  There are new kitchen items I’m swooning over.  And new lighting that I’d like.  And new storage options and mirrors and frames and so… much… more.

All discovered while perusing the Ikea website.

I still really, really want a catalogue though.

Dear Ikea folk: If you’re reading this, I adore you lots.  Lots and lots and lots.  Please please please send me a catalogue.

Love, Melissa.  :)