A minimalist nursery in our 1BR apartment (with photos!)

After all the talk about keeping our baby stuff to the bare minimum, and the list of baby stuff we amassed before the birth, I thought you might like an update on what that looks like in practice. Our goal was to spend as little as possible and keep the baby stuff from taking over our apartment, and I think we've done a pretty good job.

We converted my dresser into a changing table by stacking cheap blankets on top of it, rotating through them whenever one gets dirty. You can see the wet bag for cloth diapers on the right (we use a combination of cloth and disposable):

The nice thing about this set-up is that we can expand the size of the "changing pad" as Frankie grows, plus we didn't need to buy anything new. 

The top two drawers of the dresser hold my stuff, and the bottom drawer is for Frankie's clothing and cloth diapers. It turns out that baby clothing is TINY so all his outfits (and he has at least 30!) easily fit in one drawer. If we had a whole dresser for him, I honestly don't know what we would do with all the other drawers!

As for bedtime, Frankie sleeps in a little travel crib next to our bed. It's just the right size!

I set up this "nursing station" in the living room, with a stack of books to read while nursing, a charging station for my phone, water, snacks, etc. Several moms suggested doing that and I'm so glad I took their advice! The quilt was mine when I was a baby. We can easily move the quilt and nursing pillow to the bedroom when we have company coming over and want the room to look a little more grown-up.

We also have a container in the bathroom for Frankie's bath supplies and two cubbies in the closet for all his blankets, swaddle cloths, sleep sacks, etc. (I have one of these which I share with the little guy). We keep his stroller in the trunk of the car and just pull it out whenever we need it.

The one thing I would like to have if we had more space is a swing. I've heard they are lifesavers. But I substitute my own low-tech "swing" by putting Frankie in his car seat carrier and rocking it back and forth with one hand while reading a book or checking my phone with the other. That works for now, and maybe we'll get a swing for the next baby. :)

Finally, we have this little bouncer seat where I set Frankie when I'm cooking/showering/doing anything where I can't wear him. He loves it, especially with his musical beehive toy that we tied to the top. Here's the little man modeling it himself:

Andddddd that's it! That's all the baby stuff in our apartment. It's working out really well so far. We don't feel like anything is missing. It is so true that you don't need a lot of stuff for baby. We are loving the minimalist approach!

p.s. I stumbled across this article called "Getting ready for Baby: what do I really need?" and thought you might enjoy it! It definitely describes our approach!

Let's talk coffee tables

When we got married and moved into the mouse house, we got a few new pieces from Ikea—a queen-size bed and our beloved red sleeper sofa that so many friends have slept on—but mostly we filled it with furniture from our old homes back in Virginia. Which was lovely, because it was economical. But which was not so lovely when you consider some of the pieces that Frank-the-former-bachelor brought with him.

In particular, we are still using this gem of a coffee table:

Did you ever own this coffee table? I feel like half the people I knew in college had some variation of it in their dorm common rooms, myself included. I mean, you can't beat the price.

The thing is, this coffee table is huge, taking up half the living room. And it has very sharp corners. I have a thing against sharp corners—not only am I pretty clumsy and apt to run into them in general, but once when I was four years old, I banged my forehead on a sharp-cornered coffee table at a friend's house and had to go to the emergency room for stitches. That experience convinced me that sharp-cornered coffee tables are The Greatest Hazard when it comes to small children. So the coffee table must go, before Baby is old enough to run around and bang its little head.

Frank and I have been talking about replacing the coffee table for months (and its best friend, the ugly black living-room rug—another holdover from Frank's bachelor days). But we haven't made much progress. We just can't quite commit to a plan. Do we want a coffee table with a shelf to hold board games? Should we look for a chest or storage ottoman instead, to hold Baby's toys? Do we want to get rid of the coffee table altogether and leave an open space for the baby to frolic around in? As you can see, it's a difficult decision.

While we try to make up our minds, I figured it might help to see what options are available. I looked at a few websites and pulled together my favorite cute and (relatively) baby-friendly coffee tables.

Sources, clockwise from top left: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

Any suggestions? What kind of coffee table do you have at your house? Was this decision as hard for you as it is for me?

St. Patrick's Day party

What with the whole me-being-eight-months-pregnant thing, we decided to keep things pretty low-key for the First Annual Barber Family St. Paddy's Day Party. Our friends said they were bringing desserts and booze so we decided to only provide "real food" instead of the excess of sweets I normally make for parties. Frank made delicious ham and cabbage, and I copped this "fruit rainbow" idea from Pinterest.

I learned how to cut a whole pineapple and cantaloupe melon for the first time, and added a vanilla yogurt "cloud" on one end and a "pot of gold" on the other. It was my masterpiece. :) I also wildly overestimated how much fruit we would need. Frank and I will be eating fruit salad and smoothies for the next week!

The real highlight was a gift from our friend John. He is a master beer brewer—like, the man teaches classes at breweries—so he and his wife Anna brought a keg of their home-brewed Irish stout and homemade Irish cream. They were a huge hit!

Giedre, Theresa and I decided we needed a picture together... which turned into an impromtu goofy photo shot.

Despite our St. Patrick's Day pride, none of us three are Irish!

I turned around to see Frank doing what he does best, deep in a discussion of Irish history. I snapped a phone photo to remember it. He was having so much fun.

This picture makes me so happy, blurry as it is. I remember how I felt when I first found out we would be moving to this little apartment. Although I tried to put a brave face on it, I was dismayed to be moving somewhere so tiny and so far away from the "cool" parts of Chicago. I derisively called the apartment "the mouse house" because it was so small. I was sure that I would never like living there, and I looked forward to finding a bigger place and moving out.

Now fast forward 10 months later. Frank and I have spent hours and hours decorating our place "just so" and customizing it to fit perfectly with our needs. We go in for ambiance in a big way and fill the place with candles and mood lighting. Our home is still tiny, but instead of being cramped like I feared, it feels like a perfectly curated little "jewel box" with everything arranged just the way we want it. Best of all, our friends come to us from all over the city, and we never need to worry about not living as close to them as we would like. I have grown to love the little "mouse house" and I can't imagine living anywhere else.

Frank and I decided that this was our best-planned party ever, small and simple as it was. We had a super easy time with clean-up and had the whole apartment ship-shape less than an hour after our last guests left. I'm so glad I married a man who loves having people over as much as I do!

And now one last thing. Frank and I found an Irish Shop down the street from our birth class, and last week he insisted we get there early so we could spend time browsing the shop before class. We found something there that we both agreed I absolutely had to have...

It says, "Pray for me... I'm married to an Irishman." Too great.

Someday Dreams: The Craft Room

Whenever my thoughts turn to someday moving out of our little apartment and into a house, there is one dream I have in particular. Ever since I was in high school, I have dreamed of having a whole room in my home dedicated to crafts and creative pursuits. This dream is so vivid in my mind and I've sketched it out so clearly that I don't think I could ever forget a single detail. But you know what a finicky thing the memory can be. Just in case I forget when the time comes, I thought I would write about my craft room here so I remember just what I was dreaming of and can make it happen someday.

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I envision a room with tall, floor-to-ceiling windows framed by long, white, sheer curtains. Bright sunlight streams through onto yellow walls. The center of the room has either a big, sturdy work table or a few smaller tables, with room for lots of different projects going on at once.

Each corner of the room will be dedicated to a different medium: knitting, sewing, painting and writing.

The knitting corner will hold yarn and needles.

The sewing corner will have a sewing machine, needles and thread and cloth.

The painting/drawing corner will have a nice supply of oils and canvases, watercolors, drawing pencils, sketchbooks and sturdy paper.

Finally, the writing/correspondence corner will have stamps and envelopes, nice pens, journals and notebooks and lots of good stationery.

I envision white cubbies all around the room, filled with all the craft supplies. On top of them will be general supplies like scissors, pins, and glue. We'll keep some aprons next to the door for wearing during our messier projects.

My children will be welcome to come and work in the craft room as soon as they are old enough to wield scissors, but there will be rules: you have to put back your supplies and you can't leave a mess. We'll try to keep it as orderly as possible.

I picture good music playing—sometimes oldies or country for me, sometimes classical or Irish for Frank. Mostly I envision a really useful room, designed so we can find what we need easily. I'd gladly sacrifice a dining room or second living room for a room like that.

Do you have a "room of your dreams"? What are your favorite plans for your future home?

Happy News: We Have an Apartment!

Such exciting news—Frank and I have an apartment!

He went to visit it last week and sent me pictures. Then, knowing my love for Pinterest, he created a Pinterest board to get me all excited for living there (as though I wasn't already excited enough!).

Here's the outside; it's on the second floor of this little four-apartment building. We even have a little deck!

Here's the front entryway. We have a little (non-working) fireplace!

I'm envisioning creating a little entryway like this next to the door:

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Most of the walls are exposed brick...

which has led me to pin a million photos of exposed brick. I'm dreaming of something like this:

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Aren't those "floating" shelves amazing?

I also adore this look ... although something tells me our tiny little bedroom isn't going to be quite this glamorous. :)

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Then there's the kitchen. Oh, I have such dreams for the kitchen. It's a teeny little space but we both love to cook and we can't wait to get our hands on it and really make it shine.

Here's what it looks like now:

Oh, that microwave. What an awkward location. We want to buy some industrial shelving like this, and put the microwave on top:

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Then we'll use the rest of it for gorgeous, open, functional storage space.

We also want to expand our counter space with this awesome kitchen island:

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We've been having fun looking around the internet for awesome pieces and adding them to our Pinterest board. Slowly but surely, we're planning to make this apartment the coziest little nest.

My biggest dreams are for the fireplace. Here's how it looks right now:

Eh, you know. It's fine. Nothing to write home about.

But just imagine what some pillar candles could do. Something like this...

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Isn't that dreamy? Add some nice art or a mirror above the fireplace, and that little spot won't know what hit it. :)

This picture is my very favorite of all the "apartment dreaming" ones. It captures everything we envision for our place—exposed brick, huge bookshelves, pillar candles in the fireplace, and a simple homey feel.

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So, there it is. We have our first apartment! We really will have a "little house in Chicago" at this cozy place, and I'm so excited to decorate it and settle in together. I don't feel so worried anymore. The dreaming and planning has set in, and it's the best feeling in the world. :)