Great Expectations: Nursery Reveal

I have been slowly knocking items off my today list this week especially and finishing the nursery was top of that list. I designed the room to be gender neutral (yellow and gray) for two reasons. Reason #1: I didn't know our baby's gender when I started envisioning/ working on the design. I had more of a feel/ vibe in mind when I got started and then that morphed into the room we have today. Reason #2: This room will need to be shared someday in the future by a sister or brother. 

Without further ado...

The Nursery Reveal!!!

The room in full site.

View from the door into the nursery complete with our chevron wall thanks to  the help of Baby Herndon's Tati (aunt) Anna!

Another angle from the door.

Ceiling detail...puffs are from two of our baby showers.
Something perfect for Baby Herndon to look up at when nursing in the glider.

Swinging around from the left side of the room to the center changing table zone.

Board book classics ready to be read complete with whimsical bookends.

The center of the room is the changing zone complete with maternity photos in black and white.

These baskets will eventually be full of diapers and supplies.

Continuing around to the right side of the room, home of the crib.

Not a Peep bedding from Land of Nod

Our giant giraffe that Peanut's Nana found after seeing it in multiple inspiration photos.

Finally,  facing the door to the nursery where we have our book shelves, my papa's desk and a beautiful wall decal.

Complete view of the other side of the room. I've been asked if we planned to keep the desk and I figure it can't hurt to have a desk in a child's room. The monitor connects to my laptop, but isn't a computer on its own so no worries there.

I hope you enjoyed your tour of our new nursery. It's been a true labor of love and I can't wait for Baby Herndon to enjoy the space! We're pretty much ready for him to get here...which probably means he'll take his time...oh the irony!

Our New Place

I've been meaning to post a tour of our new digs since we finished getting settled in (which has been quite a few months now thanks to my parents and the Herndon's help), but life has been busy and I'm just now finally getting around to blogging about it and posting photos. 

I figured this was a good time to post a tour as well because the house is decorated for Christmas and my mom has asked to see pictures, so why not give the tour now. 

Here we go...welcome to our new home in Boston.

When you walk in the front door, you enter into our dining room and living room which have an open concept.

When we moved from Chesapeake, we knew we wouldn't have space for my nana's dining room set, which I so enjoyed while we lived there, so it went into storage at Brad's store and we picked up some new furniture at Ikea soon after arriving in Boston and completing the painting of the apartment. Speaking of paint, we went shade darker in our new place than our last with a color I describe as almost a Belgian hot chocolate whereas our Chesapeake color was more of a milky cappuccino color. With all the windows and light, the darker hue is really lovely and warmed up the whole space while making it really feel like home. I am so thankful we were able to paint!

We sold a few of our oversized living room pieces from our previous decor and then scouted out what we wanted in our new place. With our new furniture additions in the dining and living room, we went with a much darker brown wood that also has a bit more of a contemporary feel rather than the cherry finishes we've been drawn to in the past. The new dining table is also dark brown under my holiday table cloth. I'm loving the new pieces because they still store and display everything beautifully while be more suitable to the space.

The dining room is open to the living room and thankfully our red couches made it into the apartment. This was quite a saga because our couch is oversized and didn't fit on the elevator and almost didn't make it up the stairs. I was SO thankful it scraped by (literally...there were red lines left on the hall wall where it just squeaked by!)

Hi Samson...he likes our new place too! He's still adjusting to walking across the street three times a day to Boston Common, which is our new front yard, but he LOVES being in the apartment.

You may have noticed our bare living room wall...this is because I plan to print and hang some large photos of our new city once I capture a few that I love, but this project is still a work in progress.

The kitchen is behind you when you walk into the apartment and continues the whole open concept, looking our into the dining and living rooms. 

Thanks to Brad's Appliance Enterprise hook up, we were also able to bring up some new kitchen appliances to update the ones that had been in the apartment since it was built about 15 years ago.

The kitchen is a nice size with plenty of cabinet space and a great view of Boston Common. 

(All the windows in this part of the house look out on the Common actually. The view is AMAZING!)

Down the front hall are our two bedrooms, the bathroom, Samson's area and the back door which leads out to our laundry room.  

 Samson's area

 The bathroom 

(excuse the lighting...there isn't much natural light in the bathroom or hall of the house.)

The commercial toilet is pretty laughable but understandable since the apartment is part of the church.

 Last on the tour is the two bedrooms.

Our bedroom has a really spacious closet that Adam and his dad spiffed up with GREAT closet organization! (The closet served as a bedroom to the youngest child of the two families that have lived here prior to us...both families had three kids, which I could see being a bit tight in a two bedroom.)

I also LOVE the tray ceilings in our bedroom and the rooms a little bigger than our last bedroom, so our bedroom set is a much better fit.

The nursery is almost complete and will have its own post once it's all finished, but here's a sneak peak of my favorite corner in the meantime. It's turning out REALLY cute if I do say so.

We've been asked how we like living in the church, and I will say it's been WONDERFUL!

We are SO centrally located right in Beacon Hill on Boston Common. We could not live in a more picturesque part of town. Adam's commute is awesome...he just walks to his office which is one floor below our place (and his office is where our home office furniture found a home...I'll have to take and add a few of those photos too.) He says work feels pretty separate from home. We have some storage space for Christmas decorations, suitcases and such in the basement, which is nice too. Most people don't even realize there are residences in the building, so we don't get many unknown knocks on our door and I love having Adam so close by. I'm sure this will be really nice when the baby arrives too.

We feel so blessed to be in this new home and are excited about all the memories that will be made here!

Our new backyard and a BBQ

This past weekend we had a chance to enjoy our new backyard with some new friends.

Adam and his dad recently built our backyard deck. We got rid of an old, very ugly shed as well as an old, very large tree that dropped a TON of gumballs throughout the fall and winter.The Apples of Gold Gals Good times were had all around talking, laughing, playing and of couse eating.

Sadly I missed getting a shot of Adam as grill master...but believe me, he is! We enjoyed delicious hamburgers, turkeyburgers, hotdogs complete with yummy sides like pasta salad, potato salad and even keylime pie, a trifle and a vanilla cake with fresh whipped cream.

It was quite the smorgoubourg!

5k Bunny Hop and landscaping

This past weekend was a busy one. It started off Saturday morning when my sister was home for the weekend and we decided to run the 5k Bunny Hop, that benefited diabetes research, bright and early. It was a little foggy out, but overall a great race. It was Anna's first race and she did amazing finishing ahead of me. I ran the first two miles and struggled a little on the third having not been out running since the Wicked 10k (SAD I KNOW!) It was a great way to get motivated to get back into running though and fun sister bonding time too!

We grabbed breakfast at Cracker Barrel after the run with Mom and Adam. Then Anna headed home for a nap while the three of us headed to Home Depot to begin our front landscaping project.

We bought scrubs and flowers...

and a hose complete with container to hide it on the front porch.

Then we headed back to the house where we dug up the front yard and managed to get everything planted before it was time to get ready for the Saturday night Easter church service.

Here's how it turned out. Should be really pretty as everything grows in.

There's bright green shrubs in back with maroon shrubs alternating in front of them, followed by the planters for annual flowers, which will change seasonally and then hosta in front for some ground cover and another row of flowers. As they grow they'll be cut to tiered heights. Our neighbors have been working on their flower beds as well as you can see in the picture of the smaller flower bed.We still have to mulch the beds and outline them with brick pavers that used to be in the back yard (which is another project we've been working hard on all week, pictures coming soon).Let's hope I have a green thumb like my mom! Thanks mom for all your help picking out the plants and getting everything planted. We accomplished a TON in one afternoon! It is amazing to think what the house and front yard looked like a few months ago when we started from scratch.