30 Weeks and Nursery Updates!

As I write this there seems to be a little one man rave going on in my belly. This baby sure knows how to wiggle! I don't mind though :) This past Wednesday we hit the 30 week mark and things seem to be moving along right on schedule. My only pregnancy complaint so far is WHY ARE THERE NO MATERNITY PANTS IN LONG SIZES!? What are tall ladies supposed to wear?! Sorry for yelling, but I'm pretty fed up with searching for a pair of pants that aren't high-waters.

Anyway, before I get into nursery updates I'll give a quick rundown of what we've been up to lately. This isn't in exact chronological order but I'll try my best! Back in September we had Joe's parents in town for the weekend and had a nice visit with them, including a failed trip to our newly opened IKEA. We'll try again next time though! We've gone to a couple baby showers for friends and family and Joe and also went on a tour of some historic homes in the "Hyde Park" neighborhood in Kansas City. We saw some really cool places and did some serious walking! I took a 2 day business trip to Charleston, WV then came home just in time to make back to back wedding cakes. (Those will get their own post soon enough.) Before, after and in between all these activities I've been spending LOTS of quality time in a respirator mask while working on painting projects for the nursery. These projects include stripping and repainting/staining a dresser, as well as painting EVERY surface in that room at least twice. But it's done and I couldn't be happier with the results!

This thing really does work well! When I'm wearing it I can't smell anything!

Luckily this pregnancy has been very easy on me, with the exception of a week or 2 of back pain, so I've been able to get a lot of work and projects done. I knew I wanted a dresser for the nursery that would double as a changing table wasn't sure what kind to look for. One option was to use the campaign dresser that we bought on Craigslist a couple years ago. I'm sure it would have worked great in the nursery, but honestly I love it where it is in the entrance and didn't really want to move it. So I headed back to Craigslist and eventually found this beauty for $30. Sold!

That dresser in the background is another Craigslist makeover from the beginning of this year that I've never posted about on here. 

I wanted there to be some natural wood on this dresser, but I knew the top at least had to be painted since it was just plastic laminate. So I decided to leave the draw fronts natural wood and paint the rest in a satin black to match the crib. To strip the paint I used a product called Citristrip which I'd heard good things about on other blogs. Even though it claimed to be safe for indoor use with no harmful fumes, I still wore my trusty mask. Even when I did catch a whiff of it, it just smelled like citrusy cleaner. It worked very well for taking the paint off the drawer fronts, and I decided to go ahead and try to remove the paint from the dresser frame as well. For some reason, this paint was more stubborn than on the drawer fronts.

Painting on the Citristrip. 

After waiting an hour or so, the paint started to bubble and ripple up. 

Using a couple different scraping tools, I managed to easily scrape off most of the paint. 

I didn't try TOO hard to get all the paint off the dresser frame. 

The paint on the top of t he dresser really did not want to come off. Even with multiple coats of Citristrip. 

The drawer fronts and frame all got a good sanding before paint or stain. For the drawer fronts I used Restore-a-finish and the wax that goes along with it to color and protect the wood. There were little bits of paint stuck in some of the drawer fronts around the raised part where the handles go, and I just could not get it off. So I grabbed some brown acrylic paint and just painted over those spots :) Probably not the RIGHT way to handle the problem, but it is the easy/lazy/pregnant way to handle it haha.

Looking much better after sanding. 

And even better after adding a coat of restor-a-finish!

When it came to painting the frame of the dresser I used some black satin paint that we already had on hand from a different project. Using a combination of a brush and a foam roller, I gave the entire frame 2 coats of paint. After a couple of days it became apparent to me that the paint on top of the dresser wasn't really sticking and could easily be scratched off. As much as I would have loved to just leave it, I decided to scrape the paint off the top of the dresser, sand it down again, then start with a coat of oil based primer before putting on more coats of black paint. This time it seems to have stuck! We got the dresser moved into the freshly painted bedroom and got the crib set up as well. Now it's time to finish up the little details, which honestly are the hardest part for me. I've got a couple months though so hopefully I'll get it finished!

This was after having to scrape off the first round of paint from the top and adding back on a coat of primer. 

All done! The little circles under the feet are just furniture moving pads that we were using. 

Well it's just about time to go carve some pumpkins! I've got a lot of little projects left for the room, but I can't promise that I'll get them documented on the blog. I will post about the 2 wedding cakes soon though! Have a great weekend!