The nesting has begun

The nesting stage has definitely begun in the Cinadr apartment.  I was starting to think this whole "nesting phase" was a scam.  I haven't really had a chance to clean, let alone a desire to clean and organize.  However yesterday I had some time to go through some of the baby items we have gotten and I started to think about what we still need to buy in preparation for his / her arrival, and then it hit me pretty hard... an incredible urge to move all our furniture in our bedroom to make room for the baby.  Before I knew it I was on Pinterest and baby websites looking up ideas for nurseries in small spaces and I found some really helpful ideas (which I will share below :)

And, can I just say how amazing my husband is?  He woke up yesterday at 6:30 to make it to church and apparently slept on his shoulder wrong because he was really struggling lifting anything, and he still spent 2 hours moving around furniture in our bedroom to help prepare for the baby.  I love him so much :)

Ok, so here are some pictures I found of actual nursuries in a bedroom- what we will be doing for the first few months until we move out.

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Here are some additional ideas I found from here and other random websites on line about decorating a small space:

1. Use baskets!  For diapers, blankets, wipes, anything!  They even recommended buying a large one and keeping it in the living room or family room to store extra baby blankets/ additional baby items (diapers, toys, etc) that you don't use on a regular basis. I like the idea of possibly using them and then labeling them with a label and a ribbon like this here.
2. Closet Organizers.  Thankfully a friend in my small group got me one already so my next step is totally reorganizing our closet to make room for this baby!  Hopefully I get to that this week!



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3. Hanging shoe holder.  We will be getting one of these to put on the door of our bedroom to create some extra storage for shoes and other small baby items.
4. Use the space under the bed.  Unfortunately, we already thought of that so it is filled :/ 
5. Many people recommend turning your closet into a nursery.  However, if you are like us and store EVERYTHING you own in your closet, it doesn't make sense to do that :)  Some of them were cute though!
6. Use your own dresser as a changing table.  Also, I am planning on cleaning out one of my dresser drawers to store baby items.  Lord willing, I can go without that space!
7. Put a rug in the area where your baby will be so it feels like a separate space for them. I like something like this.. we will see if we can find a cheap yellow one!  When we rearranged our room we kept this in mind so the crib has a separate little corner and we hope to put *most* of the baby items there.
8. Some people recommended buying a room divider because babies like to sleep in the dark.  I am not sure Dan and I are quite sold on that idea... we may try it later if we feel that we need it! 
9. We are definitely going to purchase a sound machine for our baby.  With the small quarters that we will be sharing, I really hope that we won't need to be tip toeing around everywhere when the baby is sleeping!
10. Lastly, we are looking into purchasing this (partially because it's gray so it will go with our yellow and gray theme!) but if we have some baskets we can store some extra blankets, onesies, and books on the shelves as well. 

As you can tell I found some really helpful ideas that definitely got me thinking and planning!  We are obviously hoping to do this as cheaply as we can, so wish us on luck on that, too :)  Here are some other fun small nursery spaces that I found inspirational. 

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Hopefully I will be able to show you our little space when we have everything set up!