I have been accused by many readers of not contributing heavily to our personal blog. What? Why… I never!
Actually, it is probably true. I’ve got dozens of lame excuses, but the reality is I’m just not as expressive as Meredith.
With a new baby on the way, I think Meredith was hoping it would cause a surge of emotion that would clear my writers block and compel me to write my deepest thoughts in this most public of spaces.
So far, no dice. I’m really excited about being a dad, but I haven’t felt a great need to talk about it online (maybe that’s a guy thing? or just an Adam thing?) Besides, there’s no way I could say it as well as Meredith! Just look at the size and depth of her posts! Incredible.
What has impressed me though is the sheer amount of preparation that it takes to get a house ready for a baby. Seriously, I had no idea. I was born in an era where cars didn’t have shoulder-belts and “car seat” meant “milk crate”. Sticking a knife into an outlet was considered a learning experience… like a pre-school science class or something.
But 2009 is different. After a quick look around it was obvious that our house was child-unfriendly to the max. It contained (among other things):
- Unsecured, heavy, tippy furniture
- Highly charged and unstably-placed computer equipment strewn all over the house.
- Weights that were barely adult-friendly, let alone baby-friendly.
- A 13-year old car that blew so much smoke it probably shaved a decade off my life, and airbags that may or may work.
- No bedroom suitable for a baby.
So, despite being very comfortable with our deathtrap of a house, this past couple of months I set out to be the best dad possible & make real changes.
The Nursery
The space formerly known as Adam’s Office. Needed to clean, paint, add new window treatments (and all the furniture.) Turned out OK, only took a couple of days to do
Nursery: Before! Blech!
Nursery: After! What a difference some paint & carpet makes.
Adam’s Office
Since my office became the baby’s room, I decided to repurpose part of the downstairs as my new office.
Had to build a wall downstairs to enclose the office
The resulting space needed some help.. it was dingy.
More scrubbing, moving, and painting! And they say pregnancy is easy for a man! (BTW, the color is Behr Restful 400F-4, in case anyone got here from a search engine trying to figure out what it looks like on a real wall.)
Next step: Fix up the Bookshelves of Death. That’s for another post. Man, does my back hurt…
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:10 pm
WOW! Very impressive! I can relate to this very well. We had to do a lot of remodeling before our son was born. We ended combining are office with my craft room…made things tight.
My husband and I share a blog too. Like Meredith, I tend to blog a little more than my husband does, at least on parenting. He has a gaming blog that he writes on all the time.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
I just wanted to say thanks for posting the name of the paint…I did get here from a search engine trying to figure out what colors look like on real walls! I thought it was hilarious that you mentioned it. Looks good. Thanks again!
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:15 am
Hey Jen, glad I could be of service
Good luck with the paint job.
February 5th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
I did get here from a search engine trying to compare the Behr restful I painted on my walls and what it looks like on someone else’s walls! I’m very confused by this color. There on your walls in the office it looks like such a nice neutral, soft, sagey, color which is what I was going for, but that might be my monitor again or it’s tricking my eyes. Mostly during the day on the walls I’ve painted with it, it seems to take on this very yellowy green hue for most of the day and at night, it’s like pure GREEN. Although in photos of it I’ve taken, it appears that it takes on many different colors. The first photo I took of it at night while it was being painted on, looked like grass green. Then, in the morning, it started to get that sagey look to it agin.
Very interesting color.
February 8th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Hi Chelsea,
I can confirm that on our walls at least it is a very sage-y color. It has been over a year since we applied it to our walls, I wonder if Behr messed with the formulation at all which made it look different on your walls (?) just a wild guess!
Adam