Archives for January 2019

Oh hey! It’s been a busy month for all of us here at Dimitri Balor as we prep the nursery for Damy. We converted the guest room into a nursery/guest room of sorts. Basically, if we have guests, we can simply wheel Damy’s crib into the master’s bedroom so the design of the space should be versatile and not too-baby-ish.

First off, the baby pieces came in weeks before. But we basically left these to gather dust until the A/C and TV were installed. So the A/C was finally installed and this is what the room looked like when that’s done:

Gotta start somewhere, right? Admittedly, the room was left neglected for years. Even before we moved in, some parts of the room have to be repaired and for some reason, we never saw the urgency of having these busted areas repaired. For instance, parts of the floor have to be replaced, the main bulb has to be re-attached to the ceiling, the roof may be leaky, etc.

We are spending as much time as we could having these busted things repaired. After the AC and TV have been installed, the husband got around assembling the crib while I started shopping around for decors. We got another dude installing the shelves and the changing station’s knobs.

Oh, and yes, there is such a thing as knob shopping. I am so hands on that I insisted on making the knobs extra special. The knobs were installed a couple of weeks before the changing station was set up, which was cool. I chose this design because we wanted the changing station to be gender neutral. Who knows, I might get pregnant with a girl at some point and even if I like the rocketship knob, I went with something vintage-y and timeless.

More repairs were done on the floors. Honestly, this was the reason why we experienced weeks of delay! And yes, we have ugleh flooring. I tried my best to have these replaced but the cost of updating the flooring is so expensive so we’ll do that in the future. Meanwhile, we have to make do with the ugly red floor, which I hate so much. Some of the plats were replaced and retreated because they got worn out during the last termite infestation. Again, this house was never occupied years after construction was completed so the pests feasted on the wood all those years. After the repairs were made, we moved on to the actual setup.

The crib, which took only 30 minutes for the hubs to complete, went through a slight modification. We had wheels installed so the crib is much easier to move around. Since the nursery will pull double duty as a guest room, we decided to install wheels to the rest of the nursery pieces too, just to make the furniture mobile. The house-shaped shelf, as well as the diaper changing station, are now wheeled, which was so cool.

I had to swap the new bed frame with my little brother’s old bed frame. I had a double bed sized bed frame done but it took a huge chunk of the floor space. There’s barely room left for the crib, the changing station, and utility cart. I pretty much had no choice but to have this replaced with a smaller bed. I was seriously bummed about this but in hindsight, it’s just a guest room, not a main room so I can live with that.

I’ve also bought several artworks to dress up the naked wall space. I love a photo wall gallery but it’s something that I never thought about doing until now. In the image above, I was planning the layout of the nursery’s photo wall gallery, which got me so excited 😀

Here’s what the gallery wall looked like after! I bought the nursery wall decors at Fun Nest.

I promised myself that I will be spending our budget on the essentials only so the whimsical decors will have to wait. So far, I bought a Scandi-inspired baby gym (so frackin’ excited for this, took me a while to source this item), ordered beddings for the crib, a couple of soft toys here and there, etc. but nothing too major.

All the major baby items were taken care of in the beginning and I’m glad we did everything this way.

I had to exercise patience and wait until our shopping trip before I buy anything online simply because I might find better deals at the mall. I can tell you, I spent a lot of time adding shit to my cart and was thisclose to completing the payment processes. As in I was keying in my CC na, hahaha! Pero, I resisted in the end so I deserve an ice cream sundae for being such a good girl, hahaha!

The only *non-essential* item that I bought was a red coral baby bracelet for Damy. This will be his first piece of jewelry and my first gift so I wanted this to be special. As you know, I’m the kind who likes to use pieces of jewelry to mark milestones and I think having a son for the first time is a major milestone that deserves something sparkly. I really don’t care much for tradition but I read somewhere that coral bracelets were given to infants and toddlers to ward off the “evil eye” or “usog.” Who cares, I like it because the bracelet looks nice and I have an old one to match!

I was getting anxious about the nursery not being ready on time. Not sure if it’s the hormones or it’s just me being such a perfectionist but I had a running schedule in my mind and it was not met on time that’s why I was getting angsty about it. As soon as the floor repairs were done, we started setting up the baby room.

After months of preparation and delays due to repairs, the room is finally ready for the baby:

It’s really a simple setup that’s slightly grown up but that’s exactly what we were shooting for. Again, the room will also serve as a guest room so we had to tone down the matchiness of the decors. The image only shows the first half of the room, the other half being the bed and closets.

Incidentally, we seem to have built on a red fox theme. This was not intentional, I do find character themed decors tacky. I found several cute pieces in red fox prints and somehow, they ended up matching each other. Not a lot of pieces, just maybe five including the red box wall decor, which I thought looked so cuuute!

At the moment, that’s his shelf. We haven’t started buying baby books at this point because Damy is still too young. We should get into that real soon though! Below was the first time that Damy slept in his own crib. His soft toy collection has grown since then, hahaha!

Shopping for Baby Essentials

Quite honestly, I was in no shape to shop at the mall at all, being almost 8 months pregnant and all. But my growing girth and aching cankles didn’t stop me from wandering at the mall for hours. We spent a few hours of the day shopping because I could no longer spend all day at the mall. On the first day, we shopped at Rustan’s.

My legs literally gave up by the time we concluded our shopping spree at Rustan’s. I know our haul doesn’t look too big but I hunted most of these items down so that took a lotta time! At some point in the night, we had to crawl to the nearest cafe because my legs were killing me.

On the second day, we headed to Mega Mall’s Baby Company. It was much less stressful, shopping at Baby Company, can you believe it? I feel that how the merchandise was arranged at Baby Company was less cramped so there’s more breathing room for me. After shopping at Baby Company, we headed to SM home to pick up a few pieces for the nursery.

I’m sure there are lots of new moms like me who’d like to know where to start. There are thousands of baby stuff out there, it can be overwhelming if you don’t know where to start. That’s why I’ve made a list of all the retailers I used to source Damien’s (and mommy) baby items:

Retailers

For Damien

Baby Company Megamall: Crib, crib bumper and comforter set, soft toys, Uratex Purifoam Crib Mattress, waterproof changing mats, luxury fitted sheets, and pillowcases, sleeping blankets, bath essentials, baby bottles, most baby essentials basically
SM Home: rolling utility cart, plastic bins, weaved hamper, baby clothes hangers, baby bathtub
Rustan’s Shangri-la: Mamas and Papas playsuits, everyday white playsuits, stroller liner, receiving blankets, bath towels, drool towels,
Fun Nest: Nursery decors (fox wall decor, happy hamper, eyelashes wall decals)
Ace Hardware Megamall: Decorative knobs, wheels for the shelves and the crib, metal hooks
HappyStoryCo: Scandi-style Baby Gym, multi-colored grasping beads
Haenim Philippines: Haenim Multi-purpose Sterilizer
Crane PH: Daphni the Duck Humidifier
Mamas & Papas: Armadillo XT2 Stroller, 5-in-1 Yeti playsuits, red fox knitted dolls (we got two during the Lazada 11.11. sale!)
Medela PH: Freestyle Breastpump
Love to Dream: Swaddles
Eye for Treasure: Fine Italian Coral Baby Bracelet
Bébéar PH: Hipseat Carrier
Abensons PH: Sharp Air Purifier, Kolin aircon, electric fan, LG TV
LuluBabyPH: Red fox playmat
WaltermartPH: Artworks
OribelPH: High chair

For Maarte Marmi

Mamaway PH: Post-natal Recovery Belly Belt and Mamaway Nano Bamboo Postnatal Support Belly Band (bought the first one thinking I needed it only to find out later on that the other belly band was the better choice for post-partum recovery)
Simone’s Closet Catalog: Ruffled Maternity Dresses
Uniqlo PH: Lounge pants and soft tees converted into maternity wear

What Baby Essentials I Ended Up Maximizing

Some of the baby essentials that got a lot of use include the Haenim sterilizer (it’s pricey at 15k but worth every penny, guys, I highly recommend getting one), the Crane humidifier, Mamaway Nano Bamboo Postnatal Support Belly Band, and the Sharp air purifier. All these are investment pieces but trust me, you will not regret the purchase if you are infanticipating! Also, the rolling cart is a godsend so that deserves a shoutout too.

I wish I waited a bit longer before we got the stroller and the Oribel high chair especially since these are some of the priciest pieces we got but it’s nice that we have them waiting until Damien is all grown up. Also, the breast pump, I was unable to use. I was treated separately during the delivery for a severe infection and was on antibiotics throughout the pregnancy so I was unable to breastfeed Damien. I wish I skipped on the breast pump but who knows, maybe I should hold on to it for baby number 2 someday?