Our highest priority over the last few weeks has been whipping the nursery into shape. 

This little room has always been the biggest question mark in our minds. 

First it spent a long and unglorious period as our storage closet:

Bedroom3

This was also known as the room that made Cherie weep.

At this point we were thinking that it would make a nice office.  After moving the closet back out into the hallway , we finally got the place drywalled and primed and decided that it
would make a good nursery.  It’s quiet and, due to only one
north-facing window, dark.  (That’s really all we look for in a
nursery: is it conducive to sleeping?)  So its fate was decided but… it sat.  And sat.  And sat.  Until the unceasing growth of this:

Belly

finally prodded us into motion.   

(Please note: objects in this picture are way, way larger than they appear.)

As we’ve mentioned about 150 times, this is a tiny little room.  Therefore, our plan for it has always involved maximizing the space as much as possible.  We planned to build a loft into the attic for use as storage, playspace, and even guest sleeping quarters.  We also had hoped to utilize the "stairs to nowhere," as these are fondly known

Stairs

(they really are the headroom for the stairs below) by building a dresser around them.

For right now we’ve given up on the dresser.  We’d like to make that built-in really nice and we don’t have the time or money to make that happen at this very moment. 

Instead, Michael whipped up a changing table for storage right now. 

Changingtable

But we decided to go ahead and try to put the loft in.  First we had to take down the temporary ceiling, a piece of drywall that we’d tacked up there last winter to keep the heat in the house instead of the attic.

Removingtempceiling

Once that was done, Michael cut back the rafters with the Sawzall and pulled them out. 

Removingrafters

(Apparently this process was very damaging to his hairstyle.)

Next he framed out a wall to block off the loft space from the rest of the attic, with an access panel into the attic space.  Our plan was to run wood, either beadboard or v-notch pine, up along the ceiling and on the walls to make the loft space as cozy as possible.  But after framing out the wall, we reassessed the situation.  We had a whole room to finish and only a little time to do it.  Perhaps this wasn’t the best time to get ourselves knee deep in a loft-building project that wasn’t really necessary yet. 

So we canceled that project too.  (Clearly, we are just fine with being quitters.)

We pulled a piece of plywood over the hole, packed some insulation in the space to help keep the nursery warm this winter and moved on to other baby-related activities.

Loftgivenup

We admit that this isn’t the most attractive view for a baby to have, but then again, why fill this kid with delusion?  The rest of the house is still in chaos; why should this room be any different?  I mean, we don’t want this little one to grow up thinking she’s better than the rest of us.  Really, we are just starting her off with a little dose of reality.

That’s healthy, right?

Coming up in Part II: painting and why you should always measure furniture before assembling it.