Baby Projects

There are several things we've been doing around the house to get ready for the new baby. And I've not been very good at being specific in sharing them. :-(

One of the main things was to convert the guest bedroom closet from the previous office storage space back to a functional closet. Unfortunately I don't have a before picture, but use your imagination. The existing shelves were removed. The holes were spackled, sanded and painted. The hanging clothes rod and the doors had to be installed. Jeramy did an excellent job. Don't you think?

An unexpected repair was made to the ceiling fan. This is another testimony of God's grace and provision. One night Jeramy went into the room and pulled the cord to turn on the light then he proceeded into the closet to resume some work. Suddenly the ceiling fan crashed down to the floor while Jeramy was standing in the closet!! However the previous owners had it installed was incorrect. It was one of those where the motor hangs down from the ceiling mount and swayed while the fan turned. Imagine all the horrible scenarios had it happened at any other time!!!! God is good and He is sovereign and merciful!! Pictured below is the new ceiling fan, mini blind and the new location of the guest bed.

We really needed a new changing table. The one we have been using was used from Jeramy's cousin and we've put it to really good use. But it's been falling apart. The repairs could easily be made by hand, but some aspects of the design could be improved upon. For instance, the two shelves underneath have been unusable for most things because the girls pull items off or climb on it and the particle board pieces have finally broken. So, I designed a sketch for a new changing table that would be more stable, safe and enduring. Here are some pictures of its construction and the last photo shows that it has been coated twice with stain and once with gloss. It may be ready by the due date for functional use. It looks great, yeah?! And it's real wood. Notice that the side guard rails are removable so that one day it could be used as another dresser or furniture piece. Cool feature, huh?!

To go with the new changing table, Jeramy suggested I make a pad instead of buying one. I purchased another piece of polyurethane foam, this time 2" thick, and covered it over with a waterproof fabric. It came out much nicer, I think, than the hearth cover. It's 18" x 34". Normal retail price is in the $30-$40 range. I got the foam on 50% sale at Jo-Ann Fabrics and the fabric was discounted too, but I don't remember by how much. The total cost was probably around $20.

Afterwards, I considered that the baby might not like lying on some plastic waterproof fabric. So I decided to make some pad covers. I chose fleece because it's soft and doesn't fray at the edges. I turned the sides and corners, sewed them down and inserted some soft stretch elastic. Boom, there you go. I chose to use the elastic because simply laying a blanket on top of the slick pad won't keep it in place when the child is active or when lowering/lifting the child up and down. The covers were only a 2-hour project. When I saw how easy they were to make, I made some more for other friends of mine who just had babies. For them I made it easy to remove the elastic if they desired to use it like a regular blanket and I think they liked it. :-) It's not expensive (I got the fabric on sale at Hobby Lobby), not difficult and personal. If you bought a changing pad cover at Walmart it's $9.50. All the elastic and fabric together cost about $21 for 3 covers!! Here are the cute prints I chose for our new baby girl.