Welcome To Babyland

The final piece of The Baby Suite arrived in the mail today, with just 22 days left until D-Day.  That's D for delivery, btw.  At least according to the ultrasound technician.  I'm still going to try to squeeze 'er out on the 4th of July as a demonstration of my patriotism.  At any rate, that final piece - this mobile - is hung and The Baby Suite is done! 

If you've spent any time in Ikea lately you'll recognize a lot of this stuff.  The Swede made A LOT of trips to Ikea just to swipe the debit card and carry things to the car in the process of putting this bad boy together.  I'm pretty sure that's not what he had that in mind when he said I could do the baby's room on my own.  He also painted and helped put furniture together and was endlessly patient with the constant flow of incoming packages in the mail.

It was definitely a challenge trying to make it neutral and I think some things like the curtains and some of the art and maybe the rug cross the border into girly but, well, it's a baby, darn it, and I'm pretty sure it's not going to care.  Which begs the question, of course, of why I went through all the trouble.  Trouble, you say?  Bah!  This was one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done.  Plus, my nesting instinct required it.

Okay, so here is the part that took the most time and thought and Etsy.com browsing and is for sure one of my top 18 favorite things about the room.  I ripped the idea straight off of Young House Love and, like they did, tried to use as much art as possible that meant something to us.  You see, for example, the vintage maps of North America and Scandinavia, the watercolor of Sweden with a heart in the middle, the US print with a heart over Cleveland, where we met, and the Dalahästar in love.  There's also a vintage postcard from Niagara Falls, where we got engaged, a card I sent to The Swede when we were long distance that says "You will not believe how glad I am that I have met you.", plus Baby Swede's ultrasound picture and photos of The Swede and I when we were toddlers.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

And finally, that mobile that makes me smile just thinking of it hanging over the crib, which will actually reside in our bedroom along with a diaper-changing station for the first, well, geez, who knows how long.  The crib is extra boring (except for the quilt from Selah, of course) and will become even more boring once we remove the stuffed animals and pillows because apparently anything and everything that might make a crib cute could suffocate your baby.  It should look like baby prison in there.

So there it is!  All that's missing is a baby.  Now do me a favor and maybe look at the bill after I leave.