The Nursery - Sponsored by Some of Our Best Friends!

We have finally finished setting up the nursery and wanted to post some pictures to share it with everyone. Thanks to our incredible friends Derick and Shelly Thurman (and their son Andy), we have a beautiful crib, changing table, and rocking chair. Patrick's favorite thing we got from the Thurmans is a "touch up pen" that can hide marks on dark furniture. He used that to fix up an old dresser we had, which was a chore for sure. The dresser was straight out of the 70s with gold trim and bronze-ish pulls. He removed the gold trim, used the touch up pen to fix the newly-exposed wood, and also replaced the pulls. It looks MUCH better and works great with the furniture from Derick and Shelly. We are also so blessed to have received some beautiful crib bedding from our friends the Livingstons. Their daughter Lauren had this gorgeous pink toile bedding custom made, and since she has grown out of it, they gave it to us! It is a very classic style, which we absolutely love!

I'm also so excited to have my grandmother's radio in the room. My mom has encouraged us to play classical music in the nursery and that really reminds me of my grandmother. We used to have Family Friday Lunch at her condo with literally the whole family. It was such a great way to end the week and is really one of my favorite memories now that my grandmother and dad are no longer with us. Anyway, while Grandmother and Joan would make the sandwiches, she would have classical music playing on her radio in the kitchen. In fact, whenever Grandmother was in the kitchen, she always had that thing playing. So now it will be always playing the same station Grandmother loved in Herbie's room! What makes the radio even more special is that it sits on a side table that Patrick has from his grandfather "Bah." The table is a set of two that used to be in the beach house where Patrick has some of his favorite memories from growing up. We are so excited to have some special pieces from our grandparents that unfortunately Herbie won't ever get to meet - but we will definitely be telling her all about them and how important they were in our lives!

Ok, so our absolute FAVORITE thing in the room is the glider chair and gliding ottoman. We searched high and low for the best one and totally splurged on it, since it was one of the only things we had to buy. But it is definitely the most comfortable piece of furniture in our house. Best of all, it has a lifetime warranty and has a slipcover that can be washed or replaced -- so this thing is around for a while!! Our friend Emily who does interior decorating helped us coordinate the chair with the bedding and everything else in the room. She was a HUGE help during the whole nursery-decorating process because she has great ideas and I'm terribly indecisive. But she helped us pull everything together.

I also love the rug. Here is a picture from "Herbie's View." (and those wires under the changing table will be long gone by the time Herbie can crawl, so no need to panic about our ability to child-proof the room). My sister Joan helped me decide on the rug (with Emily's approval coming afterwards, thank goodness), and my stepfather Melvyn would've been proud - we got an INCREDIBLE deal from Pottery Barn Kids that even involved me talking them into a discount off the sale price since it was the last one in the store.

We are so lucky to have such AWESOME friends who have so generously shared so much with us. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!!!

(note - we know the walls look a little bare, other than the cute pink frame from my Godmother Portia. We plan to hang Herbie's name in letters above her bed once she's born -and obviously once we decide on a name, and Patrick gave me a pretty silver picture frame for Christmas, which we plan to hang above the changing table.)