Decisions: The Name and The Room

If you don't know by now (since I can't seem to hold a secret :P) we are naming the baby Katherine Teal but calling her K.T. (pronounced Katie).

I remember my Mother telling me a long time ago (pre-marriage, I believe) that when I had kids, I had to make sure one of them had a Saint's name. If your Catholic or know of Catholic traditions, this may make sense to you. The rest of you are probably shaking your heads. But seriously, this is something that stuck - and while I'm not a practicing Catholic anymore, I've still got the guilt thing stuck in my conscience pretty good. So all the names I've ever come up with satisfy this requirement. It was a hard decision, with so many great Female Saint names such as Ermenberga, Agathoclia, Darulagdach and Trypbaena. Personally, I thought Ermenberga Teal sounded beautiful... no? *wink*

So we decided to go with a traditional Saint's name, and chose Katherine for her first name. My first name is Katherine, but I don't really think we are naming her after me. I really just like the name and both Jeff and I agreed that it was beautiful. And hey, would you look at that, it's a Saints name. *check*

The middle name you may be wondering about - Teal!? Isn't that a color?! Why would you name your kid after a color?! But, we are actually naming her after Jeff's grandma. Her name is Lucille, but her nickname is "Teal" and I always thought that was such a cool, unique name. Interestingly enough, I knew a girl named Teal my first semester in college. So see, it's more common than you think (and also one of my favorite colors)! But the more and more I mulled over the name, the more and more I liked it. So we settled on it - the critics be damned!

So there you go, Katherine Teal Koenig - KT Koenig :) - prepare yourselves.

Now on to the ROOM! This whole decorating a girl's room has actually come a lot easier than I thought it would. I really had no idea what I was going to do a week ago. The moment that doctor said, "Girl" my mind started cranking. I am not an interior decorator by ANY means. Actually, I think I'm pretty horrible at it, but I want her to have a kickin' baby's room - so I started thinking and planning and it all came pretty easy. Behold, the storyboard (click on image to enlarge):
First off, the paint color was a given (don't you think?) - we decided on a teal color and we actually picked it out last weekend and did some sampling in the room. I've convinced Jeff to do some wainscoting on the bottom half of the room. While I LOVE the color - the entire room in it would be a bit overwhelming. So I'm breaking it up. The wainscoting will be white.

Jeff and I've had this IKEA dresser for several years but back in December we replaced our bedroom furniture but held on to this for obvious reasons. I love this dresser. It's huge and practical and the top is wide enough for a changing table. The color is black-brown but honestly it just looks black - so i built the baby furniture around that.

Mom and I visited Babies R Us yesterday while the guys were biking - and we found the most awesome deal on a crib. It's black and exactly the style I wanted and get this - 45% off - YES, PLEASE! So we bought it! *check*

Now I just need a mattress (which my mother-in-law has offered to take care of - thanks, Debbie!) and a rocker/glider or recliner and a rug (hot pink shag) which Jeff and I will get. We also bought flooring last week because the carpet in her room is just NASTY. Having 3 animals can really gross out a carpet. And while we could of had it steam-cleaned, I felt that all that hair would just weave it's way back into the carpet. We found a really good deal on some flooring at Lumber Liquidators. We looked at both pre-engineered hardwood and laminate and ended up with the latter. It actually looks really nice. I'm excited to get it installed.

Baby stuff is super cute, but I have to admit something - everything is in PASTELS. Don't get me wrong, pastels are cute, but they are not me. And since this baby is a mini-me (I can wish!) I can't see it as her style, either - so I'm pumping this room up. I want to bring in fabrics that have hot pink, bright yellow, green and oranges in rich saturated colors. I think it will look pretty awesome. I'm also planning on using taupe to balance some things out and prevent me from going too crazy!

The fabrics on my storyboard are just examples of the type of fabric I'm looking for - something that has all the colors in a pattern but also balancing it with solid colors as well.

Overall, I really like the idea - I hope we are able to make it work. I plan on taking pics along the way and documenting them either here on my blog or on my Flickr site - so make sure to check them both out!