The urge to “nest” has hit
hard. This blurb from an article I found
pretty much sums it up...
The Nesting Instinct
During Pregnancy
The nesting instinct usually sets in around
the fifth month of your pregnancy. Now some may not know what the "nesting
instinct" is. This is basically the uncontrollable urge to clean your
house, and generally go crazy doing all sorts of things that will prepare the
'nest' for the new member of the family.
This is a primal instinct and all the females
of almost every species in the world will go through this same instinct in one
way or another. …
…Nesting brings about some unique and
seemingly irrational behaviors in pregnant women and all of them experience it
differently. Women have reported throwing away perfectly good sheets and towels
because they felt the strong need to have "brand new, clean" sheets
and towels in their home. They have also reported doing things like taking
apart the knobs on kitchen cupboards, just so they could disinfect the screws
attached to the knobs. Women have discussed taking on cleaning their entire
house, armed with a toothbrush. There seems to be no end to the lengths a
nesting mother will go to prepare for her upcoming arrival…
With the other two, I felt a
little nesting that mostly centered on painting/decorating/cleaning the
nursery. But this time I am subjecting my family (including my parents) to
nothing short of a total house make-over!
I wonder if my neurosis has
anything to do with my recent discovery of the Pinterest
website???
The good news is: It is
going very well! I keep thanking this baby boy for forcing his Mom to finally
get organized!
The basement has already
gone through phase I of the re-do. We have cleared out all of the most
of the old furniture and junk, cleaned the carpet (Grandma – The Spotbot works
wonders! Thanks!), painted all three rooms (Thank you Chad for hiring someone
for this!), and moved the beds down to the Boys new bedroom!! A lot
accomplished in just one week!
I don't have any before pictures, but for those of you who have seen the before in person... you understand what has taken place here in such a short period of time!
The laundry room is also in
mid-transformation. Actually it was the laundry room what started this whole
thing… sometime right after I found out I was pregnant I realized that another
child (a baby creates a LOT of laundry) means my already maxed-out laundry room
might just burst at the seams. I was having nightmares.
As you can see, I needed a
better system… Duh. I have forced myself into a habit of ALWAYS folding the
clothes straight out of the dryer… putting them away is a whole other issue…
Sometime in early December I
painted three walls and most of the floor and started to build my new folding
table which is the foundation of my new laundry room haven’s design. However,
in building the table (BY-MY-SELF) I made a minor mistake and it frustrated me
enough that I moved on from it to concentrate on Christmas madness. I mean it
stood on four legs and it served its purpose but it wasn’t perfect… which, of
course, my laundry room needs to be. (nesting neurosis) So, post-Christmas I
finally got Chad to correct my mistake and finish it up for me. And, last week
I primed, painted, and stained the beautiful folding table….
… This table is not just a
table though; it is the start of a system! That’s right a laundry system. The
table holds eight baskets, four on the shelf and four on the floor. One for
each member of the family with three left over for unmated socks, towels, and
misc. stuff. Now the folded laundry will be sorted by person (location) and the
boys (all four of them) will eventually learn to put their own clothes away
given the sheer convenience of it. Yes, I hear you snickering, but a mother can
dream…
Now my laundry room has a
good start but it's not there yet. I still need to build/paint shelves for my
food storage. Build/paint a platform for my washer and dryer. Paint fourth
wall. Replace nasty utility sink. And, maybe add a few decorating details. And
for the boys’ space, I am on the hunt for a dresser and some old barn wood. I
will keep you posted on phase II of this basement edition of the whole house
re-do!!
Stacy
