This room was formerly our guest room. I never decorated it. I never even painted the walls. We moved into our house in October of 2011, we setup the room for guests and honestly for boxes too. In the spring of 2012 we had some wonderful friends move in with us. They were in transition from one home to the other and they stayed with us for a few months. That was a sweet time in our home; I'd arrive home to see the cutest little 6 month old playing in our living room, his mom cooking dinner, and multiple impromptu dance parties between mom dad and baby to keep the baby happy. Every night seemed like a slumber party of sorts, dinner around the table and a home full of love.
These friends have wonderful style, so our little guest room looked so cute for those few months. After they moved out we reset the room. It was white and off-white and more white. Back to the clean slate that it had been the fall before.
We had a friend move in for a few weeks and she was out into her new place before we knew it. Again our blank room.
This summer we coerced a friend to come live in our house while we spent the summer away in Colorado. She is someone who also radiates love and warms and genuine caring. She told me about her sweet times with Jesus in our little guest room that summer. It blessed my heart. Because by then I knew after she was gone, the room would be filled with a baby. She moved out before Kyle ever got back from Colorado and we had our empty room back.
But our room was filled with love already, stories to tell, memories made. I laugh and cry at some of the stories. Watching our friends become new parents and learn and love. And being able to give a still small space to a friends who loves so well.
And now it's filled for our sweet baby. The walls have been painted, the artwork has been hung, and the room is literally filled with things from the people we love.
The shelves that hang above the bed were built for me by my Dad for the room I grew up in. I think I'd been watching too much HGTV and wanted to hang multiple picture frames and put multiple holes in 'his' walls. He suggested maybe he'd just build some shelves that I could put the frames on. They hung in my room until I cleared it out after getting married, my dad asked if I wanted to take the shelves. I took them right off the walls and have been looking for the prefect place to hang them. I love that my Dad's handiwork is in this room, he's very handy and I know there's a little love built right into those shelves.
The picture of the women of the family hangs aside the shelves. This is my mother's family. I want so badly for my baby girl to be like the women in our family. I didn't know my grandmother or great grandmother too long before they met Jesus, but I see the wonderful things I've heard about them every day in my own mother. You may not be able to actually see my mother in that picture, but surely she's there. I hope our little girl wakes up in her crib and points to the 'pretty ladies' someday and knows who they are. My aunt in the picture is still living and she sent the most beautiful knit set as a gift for the baby, I sent her a thank you note and made sure to include a picture of her picture hanging in our nursery.
The dresser I so painstakingly repainted is one of my pride and joy pieces in the room. This very pregnant lady worked so hard to get it painted and ready for her little girl. I hope someday as she colors it with Crayons her dad reminds her of that. The dresser grew up in my Aunt Pam's bedroom. My aunt and uncle live next door to my parents and so our next door neighbors were not just someone we called family, but they actually were real blood-linked family. Here in East Texas we're far away from our family, but growing up right next door to my cousins was so fun. My mom knows what their knocks sound like on the front door... but I think they stopped knocking a long time ago. I love that this dresser was my aunt's and now it's here in the nursery.
Then there's the crib. We were so blessed with this crib when one of our family camp families this summer asked if we needed one. It's beautiful and it used to hold their only baby girl. This family inspires me to be a mother that loves well with the Lord's love, but to not take myself too seriously and enjoy being a mom sometimes too. To me it kind of represents all the families that we love so dearly from camp. So many of them are praying for our little one, she'll be surrounded in a crib of prayers as she sleeps.
The changing table will surely get much use, it's packed to the brim now with diapers and wipes and all the things they say you need to keep a baby happy. And this changing table kept the Hess babies happy for years I'm told. Kyle and his sisters were changed on this very table and Kyle's mom so generously gave it to us. When I tend to focus so much on 'my side' of the family, I'm glad we have a piece of my new-ish Hess family in our nursery too. Because they are family, and I've really lucked out with all my 'in-laws.'
But not every item in the room has a long story, not every piece has a meaning, but it was all placed there with love by a momma who's ready to meet her baby girl. And by a dad who did the heavy lifting and the drilling and the leveling to get things ready, too.
My husband and I are in the process of painting our children's bathroom sea kiss. It was nice to search the name of the color and come across the nursery you painted the same color. I think we will stick with it.
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