Prepping...Talk birdy to me

I've been planning on making a mobile out of fabric birds and a stick for a long time (since November of 2010 perhaps?), maybe I copied the idea from somewhere on the internet, but I don't remember at this point. 

I found this lovely bird pattern on the internet since I wanted a slightly different bird style than the ones I created as Christmas ornaments back in 2010.  I made this test bird from the pattern (sized down from what the actual pattern suggests), and liked what I saw except for the wings.  I picked over my stash of fabric for anything blue/gray/yellow and cut out 10 birdies.  After rearranging to the best combinations, I spent a couple hours sewing these together and stuffing them.  I actually ran out of polyfill, so I stuffed them with some random cheap brown yarn instead.  This was the most time-consuming part of the whole adventure.

A month or so ago, I went on a backyarding adventure for a sizable, not-too-branchy-yet-somewhat-branchy stick.  I let the stick dry out for a short while in the nursery.  Then, I hung it up in the best position from my dining room light fixture from 3 points using clear thread.

See? Stickish but not too branchy. 

As a quick side note, I do not like this light fixture at all.  Don't you think it looks like a blobfish?

Light fixture

Blobfish.

Back to the birdmobile (said like "batmobile").  I simply hot-glued each bird to the stick in a hopefully-pleasing manner. 

Then this birdmobile sat in our nursery for a few weeks because we struggled putting 3 tiny eye hooks in our ceiling.  We finally started by nailing a small nail into the ceiling and then removing it and screwing in the eye hook.  This captain morgan pose happened a lot.

Did not have a little captain in him

Marionetting

During the time when the birdmobile sat in the nursery, the clear thread that had held it up during it's construction became tangled up and frustrating to work with.  We played around with it like a eyeball-threatening marionette until we liked how it sat and tied it up.   Right around this point it was late in the evening and we had been attempting to hang this little thing for about an hour and a half, we were pretty slap-happy and the "talk birdy to me" song started happening.  This is going to be over the changing table/dresser, so we had to make sure it was fairly high so that Dillon could work comfortably underneath.  Since he's going to be changing lots of diapers!

Pardon the terrible photo and the pile of stuff on the dresser.

The view from the changing table.

The nursery is really coming together now! 

TO BUY:
-Rug for nursery (still waiting for a 75% off sale at Rugsusa) (It was ordered, but is now backordered until March 20th.  I finally committed during a 70% off sale)
-anything that's not a gift off our registry
-diaper sprayer (I realized we won't really need this until baby starts solid foods, unless our washer can't handle the poops.  Breastfeeding poop is water soluble, so it's actually easier to just throw it all in the washer without pre-rinsing)
TO DO:
-read birthing books
-tour the hospital (by the way, I was the only mama there writing things down and asking questions!!! Do these ladies not understand this stuff is IMPORTANT??? or am I just a little too type-A for this?)
-preregister at the hospital
-make sure our insurance will still all work out since Dillon's place of work changed providers (grrrr)
-Take our birthing classes (we still are practicing our hypnobirthing every day!)
-Take our "breastfeeding and newborn" class
-Finish up our registries (since Target's in-store selection was limited and we haven't even started the 2nd one)
-Look into placenta encapsulation  (It is something I'm interested in, but we can't afford to have it done at the moment and we're too squeamish to do it ourselves, so we'll live without!)
-Attend shower (thanks everybody!)
TO MAKE:
-sheets
-cushion for rocking chair
-footstool (Bean bag beans are ordered and it's been started!  Now, to finish...)
-mobi wrap (don't have to! Thanks, Meghan, for offering to send us one of yours!!!)
-mobile (DONE!)
-portable high chair thinger
-Nursery decor (some sort of sign with a favorite hymn written on it)
HOUSE TO DO:
-Paint nursery
-Finish Railing (Only those handful of small touch-ups, but most Dillon will have to do since stain/poly/everything causes cancer)
-complete flooring (transition strips and heating vent) (FINALLY DONE!)
-Finish our pantry cabinet (add shelves, paint, and fill with all the crap that's covering my counters and stressing me out)
WANT TO DO:
-mini-babymoon by showing up at a friend's house for the weekend (thanks Ryan and Josie!)
-Ikea Trip
-Knit a onesie
-Make and freeze a bunch of meals  
RECENTLY ADDED:
-pack hospital bags
-install carseat and have it checked
-shop for new-mama supplies
-finish thank-yous from shower (they're coming, ladies!)
-write out address labels for baby announcements now, so that I won't have to later

Prepping...Showers!

My lovely family threw me two baby showers recently.  It's unfortunate that Dillon's family and mine live so far apart, it would be so fun to have them all in the same place at the same time.  BUT, instead, I got to be showered with love, gifts, and congratulations two different times.  Here's how it went down:

My sister and Mom threw my shower up north for my family, and then my sister and mother-in-law threw the one closer to where we live now.  And I only remembered to take pictures at the first one up north.  I think it's because this was happening in my house at the same time as my second shower.

What was happening while I was at the shower.  Lots of thinking and direction-reading.

It was all "Peter Rabbit" themed which was adorable.  Terra cotta pots filled with carrots and flowers, carrot cake cupcakes for one shower, 3 of these adorable diaper cakes.  It was too cute! 

Thanks, Rachel!

Thanks, Mom!

At the first shower up north, my mom and sister had it all set up to have each guest decorate a onesie for Baby P, and I got to pick a "winner".  This resulted in an incredible and glorious number of onesies for us.  And it's my favorite thing in the world to force other people into crafting, it seems.  I couldn't have been happier.  Just look at this setup!

The other games we played at both showers were a quiz about what traits the baby will have, if he/she will take after me or Dillon.  We also played a lovely game of "guess what baby food you are tasting".  And THIS lady (both thumbs pointing toward myself) got to enjoy both "Turkey" and "beef".  Thanks, Rach!  (the other foods were much more paletable things like green beans, carrots, and pears).

At the 2nd shower, we also played a "guess what baby item is in the bag" game that was surprisingly difficult.  And we all ate a lot of (Uncle-ish) Junior's pinwheel wrap things.  Yum!

Of course I was showered with gifts for the baby, and feel so blessed by everyone!  When I got home, I did this:

So many blessings!  So much that I panicked!

Then I freaked out because...something.  Overwhelming!  But we got it sorted out.  I've been washing baby stuff to prepare, and then last weekend we put together our stroller and carseat.  It's a fancy dancy "travel system", which sounds admittedly hoity toity and crazy, but I think it will be amazing.  Especially for a spring/summer baby.  This baby clicks and locks and snaps and adjusts with one hand and I am pumped. We installed our carseat in the car, and I have to take it over to the local police department to have it checked out.  Though I think it's fine since it doesn't budge whatsoever. 

Inflating the tires.

So thanks everyone, and I promise I'm working on thank you cards.  When I'm not staring at baby clothes and feeling overwhelmed.  Things are getting pretty real nowdays!

"Two Lists" & "Prepping...the nursery plan"

We got something in the mail the other day....

I physically could not get the belly out of the  photo.

Tada!  It's this lovely wool rug from rugsusa.com.  Remember I was holding out for an elusive 75% off sale?  I had heard those happen once or twice a year.  Unfortunately, I couldn't hold out for that long because 1. baby is coming! 2. I saw that the size I wanted was on backorder until March 20th.  3. It was 70% off at the time.  So I decided not to squabble over $10 and dove in.  We spent $109 on this baby.  It's the perfect color for baby's room, where we're going for a gray/mustard yellow/teal color scheme.  I had been a tiny bit nervous that the color on my computer screen wouldn't match what showed up on our doorstep, but it was spot on!

I set this bad boy in the room myself, which was a bad idea because it is fairly heavy and I was a bit sore afterward.  After sitting on it to look through some baby things (which I am doing frequently these days), I started to get really itchy on my legs/butt.  Well this thing is shedding like nobody's business.  So I've vacuumed it heavily the past few days and think things are under control now. 

Want to see what's not in control?

The rest of the room.  Oh man do we have some organizing to do!  Piles of stuff are everywhere!  At the beginning of next month, my mom is bringing down my childhood (great grandpa built, if I remember correctly) dresser.  Then, Dillon and I will do a little switcharoo with our dressers and the one he is currently using will go into baby's room.  We're planning on putting the changing pad on the dresser and hope to house all of baby's clothes in the dresser rather than too much in the closet, which is pretty well stocked with Dillon's things.  Since, you know, my things take up our entire bedroom closet.  Sorry, Dillon.  Then, we'll put the mobile up above the changing pad once we know final placement.

At any rate, now that you've heard the plan, I need to share some things.  I was up from 1:00-4:00am last night thinking of things I would miss and things I would NOT miss about being pregnant.  So here goes:
Things I will miss:

• feeling baby move, especially when he or she moves a lot when there is music in church (Easter will be wonderful this year!)
• singing to the baby and knowing that he or she can hear me, and actually likes my voice
• planning and thinking and prepping for baby
• having ambition and time to craft things for baby
• sleep
• our 2 person family
• the freedom to do whatever we want, without thinking about babysitters, naptime, diapers, or "how to fit it all in the car"

Things I will NOT miss:

• Feeling baby move in the middle of the night when I'm trying to sleep, or when he/she jabs me
• Oh the aches and pains and having to sit on a pillow on our couch just so that I will be able to get up
• people making jokes about how much sleep I am getting now (ie. "sleep now because you won't be able to for the next 10 years! har har har")
•  People telling me their stories of their labors/birth.  Quite frankly, unless you are immediate family or close friends, I don't care.  Sorry.  A person can only hear so many.
• People looking at my belly.  I was talking to Dillon about it yesterday, and if I had been one of those ladies who gain a bit too much weight or broke out with acne, or grew hair places or had some other unfortunate visible pregnancy symptom, I would hate being out in public; I would be so self-conscious.  So many people glance at the belly, as if to remind me that I'm growing a person in there.  YES, I KNOW.  I even had a stranger in Menards yesterday point at me from across the aisle and make a "big round belly" hand motion.  Thank you, ma'am.  That was totally necessary.
• Planning and wondering and thinking about baby because BABY WILL BE HERE!

I really am very excited for this kiddo.

Here's the most up-to-date list of to-do's:

TO BUY:
-Rug for nursery (still waiting for a 75% off sale at Rugsusa) (It was ordered, but is now backordered until March 20th.  I finally committed during a 70% off sale)
-anything that's not a gift off our registry
-diaper sprayer (I realized we won't really need this until baby starts solid foods, unless our washer can't handle the poops.  Breastfeeding poop is water soluble, so it's actually easier to just throw it all in the washer without pre-rinsing)
TO DO:
-read birthing books
-tour the hospital (by the way, I was the only mama there writing things down and asking questions!!! Do these ladies not understand this stuff is IMPORTANT??? or am I just a little too type-A for this?)
-preregister at the hospital
-make sure our insurance will still all work out since Dillon's place of work changed providers (grrrr)
-Take our birthing classes (we still are practicing our hypnobirthing every day!)
-Take our "breastfeeding and newborn" class
-Finish up our registries (since Target's in-store selection was limited and we haven't even started the 2nd one)
-Look into placenta encapsulation  (It is something I'm interested in, but we can't afford to have it done at the moment and we're too squeamish to do it ourselves, so we'll live without!)
-Attend shower (thanks everybody!)
TO MAKE:
-sheets
-cushion for rocking chair
-footstool (Bean bag beans are ordered and it's been started!  Now, to finish...)
-mobi wrap (don't have to! Thanks, Meghan, for offering to send us one of yours!!!)
-mobile (DONE! except for hanging, which is proving more difficult than I had anticipated.  Update to come!)
-portable high chair thinger
-Nursery decor (some sort of sign with a favorite hymn written on it)
HOUSE TO DO:
-Paint nursery
-Finish Railing (Only those handful of small touch-ups, but most Dillon will have to do since stain/poly/everything causes cancer)
-complete flooring (transition strips and heating vent) (FINALLY DONE!)
-Finish our pantry cabinet (add shelves, paint, and fill with all the crap that's covering my counters and stressing me out)
WANT TO DO:
-mini-babymoon by showing up at a friend's house for the weekend (thanks Ryan and Josie!)
-Ikea Trip
-Knit a onesie
-Make and freeze a bunch of meals  
RECENTLY ADDED:
-pack hospital bags
-install carseat and have it checked
-shop for new-mama supplies
-finish thank-yous from shower (they're coming, ladies!)
-write out address labels for baby announcements now, so that I won't have to later

Raisin' the Rail

This weekend was a big one.  I had my second baby shower on Saturday, which was a blast and I'll share another time.  Also, we installed our railing on our stairwell.  As I started writing about in this post, we purchased our home with a giant hole in the floor with 2x4s keeping people from falling over.  We were finally able to finish the railing this weekend and it feels so great! 

Optimistic "before" picture

When we left off, Dillon was staining staining staining away.  He stained and poly-ed two newel posts, two chunks of landing tread, two chunks of guardrail, a rosette, apron pieces, and handrail.  He was working hard! 

Again, a portion of the wood things Dillon stained and poly-ed

My sister and brother-in-law came over this weekend, and my father-in-law, Tom, came by quite a bit to help out also.  Those boys worked so much!  Early on Saturday morning, (pre-changing into jeans, even), the fellas removed our 2x4 guardrail.  The drills were so loud and the floor was rumbling, and the baby was going crazy kicking!


My sister and I had to leave to attend the baby shower, so the next few steps don't have much detail.  In fact, I didn't ask for much detail because it seemed like whatever happened while we were gone is going to be a secret for life.  There were lots of nervous laughter and shifting eyes when we talked about it.  "Don't ask, don't tell" it is!

The area of wood floor that had to be cut to fit the landing tread

They had to cut a portion of our wood floors because the ends of each board were uneven.  Something about a skil saw (cue the shifty eyes).  But they got a nice straight line, so I'm happy!  They had to be careful because if they cut too much off, they landing tread would not fit properly.  After the wood floor was cut, they used the finish nailer to install an apron piece along the top of the drywall in the stairwell.  

Beautiful mitered corner

Last week, Tom had come over to screw some wood to our floor joists in the basement so that our newel installation would be nice and smooth over the weekend.  Our newel post locations fell between joists downstairs, so the added wood gave the newel post bolt something solid to hold to, so that our newels are nice and steady now.  The fellas installed the newel post using this kit.  

You can barely see the gap underneath the landing tread bullnose and the apron piece. Soon it will be covered by cove molding.

The landing tread had to be cut to length and then mitered in the corner.  Oh what a beautiful job they did with this miter!  Thank you, Joe, and your fancy chop saw!  Then, they set the landing tread on top of the subfloor & apron and it fit pretty well.  It turns out the wall wasn't built very straight.  So there is a tiny gap underneath the landing tread and the apron that will get covered up with cove molding eventually.  No one will be the wiser.  Except all of you, who are wiser now that I let out our secret.

This is about the time that my sister and I returned from the shower, and it was time for the math!  Each baluster has to be installed so that there are no gaps 4" or greater anywhere.  So, we did some math...looked around at each other...did some more math...fiddled...looked around....and settled on installing each baluster 3 7/8" apart along the long side of the railing, and 3 3/4" apart along the short side of the railing.  That would create nice equal distances between each baluster and newel posts (so the two end gaps wouldn't be significantly different than the rest of the gaps), and would keep the distances similar on each side of the railing.  So even though the distances are slightly different, no one will ever notice because a person cannot physically look straight at both sides simultaneously.  Hope that makes sense!








The boys cut the guardrail,  drilled the holes and test fit the whole shebang (using this kit)  so that we were ready to install the balusters.   So we marked the centers of our newel posts along the floor with a string, and then measured 3 3/4" (or 3 7/8 on the other side) marks all along the floor and handrail.  After a bit of confusion about how deep to drill the holes (each hole should be the same depth so that the balusters all fit the same), the holes were all drilled. 

Joe cut each baluster to length using a fancy metal chop saw (thanks, Tim! It worked great!).  Technically, I cut one of them.  Sparks were flying and I felt pretty nifty with my 8 month pregnant self. 

All taped, lined up, and ready for installation!

Shoving the balusters down into each hole

We taped a shoe to the middle of each baluster, making sure to orient the shoes so that the allen wrench hole was in the correct direction, and lined them up.  Suddenly, all hands were on deck as we added a glob of PL400 to each hole in the landing tread(we discovered that the best way is to squeeze a glob onto a paper plate and then smear it inside the hole with a tool, in our case, a pen cap.  Otherwise, adhesive gets everywhere and you end up taking off the polyurethane trying to wipe it off with mineral spirits and you will have to go back and touch it up.  Just sayin).  Dillon then shoved the baluster into the hole (it was a tight fit) and we tried to make sure they were square to the stairwell.  They stood up on their own pretty well.  Then, we used the same pen cap method to add a small glob of PL400 to each guardrail hole and flipped it over onto the balusters.  There was no dripping of PL400, which was a major concern.  I'm sure that we were working pretty slowly with the stuff, which went in our favor for this job as it dried a bit and became less gloppy.  We started at one end and worked our way to the other, getting each baluster into it's designated hole.  We double checked each baluster so that it was nice and straight, rotating it slightly if necessary.


The rail bolt kit for installing the guardrail to the newel posts had us use a 1/2" wrench to tighten a bolt from the underside of the rail.  This was tricky on one, because the wrench was just a tiny bit too snug to actually fit in the deep hole.  So it wasn't able to catch the next angle on the bolt because we couldn't turn the wrench far enough.  Joe was a genius, and used 2 different brands of wrenches, which had the corners at slightly different angles to the handle and it worked perfectly!!!

Then, Joe (and me! with my awesome 8 month pregnant self!) used the nail gun to nail our rosette to the wall. 

Watch out! it's me with a nail gun!

Finally, we lowered each shoe to the floor and tightened them with a tiny allen wrench. 

Installation of the handrail

They then cut our handrail to length and installed it using these brackets.  The screws that come with the brackets were horrible.  Several broke apart.  So we got out some random screws and finished it off with those. 

We still have a bit of tiny finishing work to do: stain and install the "plugs" to go in the holes from the newel post installation kit, the rail bolt kits (on the underside of the guardrail), putty a couple of areas, touch up some stain, putty a few spots, and install a piece of tiny trim around the newel posts to cover up the edges of the bottom (you can see the small gap in the picture of the beautiful miter above).

But I'd call this project a success, wouldn't you???  I'm so incredibly happy with how this turned out.  It finally feels like our house is ready for a baby. Oh, and that $1000 budget?  We won.  We spent $821 so far, have a few thing to return (an extra handrail bracket and 3 types of adhesive since I wasn't sure what would be used) and a few things to buy (a small piece of trim, putty, cove molding) so I think it'll stay around the $800 mark.  BOOM. 

before

after

And if you see any of these people, feel free to drop what you're doing and applaud them.  I couldn't be happier!

Prepping... the vintage (Part 2)

Good news, guys.  I've gotten my act together and finished a couple of projects over the weekend and will be ready to share shortly!

First, the second installment of the vintage finds I've collected for the baby over the years.  I saved my favorites for this post! 

The first item was a recent purchase, while we were in Green Bay visiting friends on this trip.  We were walking downtown and us ladies forced the fellas into an antique store for a few minutes.  Fortunately, there were some "mantiques" in the building that kept Dillon from going crazy.  Like a terrifying antique dentist chair.  No wonder people are afraid of the dentist *shudder*.

Anyway, I found this adorable tiny shirt, with "Little League"  and baseball bats embroidered on the front.  It might be a doll shirt.  I don't care, I will put it on my baby as long as it fits.  It's so hard to find suitable vintage boys clothes, remember?  And at 50% off of the price tag of $3.50, it wasn't a bad splurge. 

Next up is this set of wood blocks.  I haven't even taken them out of their bag yet.  I know wood blocks have been a hot item for the past few years, particularly if you can get them in letters spelling out baby's name.  These have mostly numbers and symbols on them; after all, what baby wouldn't want to learn about division symbols?  They're still cute, and were a great deal for only $2.  I got them while shopping at the worlds greatest antique mall with Jamie this fall.  I'm going to try to find as many multi-use toys (ie not single use "this is how you play with it" plastic toys) as possible for baby and this is the start of that goal.  Yay imagination and creativity!

Finally, my favorite vintage find in the whole world.  It also comes from the worlds greatest antique mall, a few years back.  I actually left it behind once because it cost too much for me at that point.  But I returned to the antique mall later that week and prayed to the antique gods that it was still there.  It was!  So I splurged on a future baby girl.  I don't remember what I paid, but I think it was in the $12 range.  I cut the tag off so I wouldn't scare Dillon. 

   

The sweet white piping...the peter pan collar...that adorable "puff" to the end of the sleeves...the gorgeous color...  What could be better than this?  I think if we have a girl, she will wear this as a dress with white leggings (which I'm still knitting) and then as she grows it will be a great light spring jacket.  Oh do I have plans for this thing!  It's in spectacular vintage condition with no fading, stains, holes, repairs, or anything!  If it was my size, I'd be in heaven.

 

 Needless to say, Rachel Elrod, you are my favorite person. 

How about a quick recap of our "pre-baby to-do's"?

(recent changes are in RED, things done are crossed out)

TO BUY:
-Rug for nursery (still waiting for a 75% off sale at Rugsusa) (It was ordered, but is now backordered until March 20th.  I finally committed during a 70% off sale)
-anything that's not a gift off our registry
-diaper sprayer (I realized we won't really need this until baby starts solid foods, unless our washer can't handle the poops.  Breastfeeding poop is water soluble, so it's actually easier to just throw it all in the washer without pre-rinsing)
TO DO:
-read birthing books
-tour the hospital (by the way, I was the only mama there writing things down and asking questions!!! Do these ladies not understand this stuff is IMPORTANT??? or am I just a little too type-A for this?)
-preregister at the hospital
-make sure our insurance will still all work out since Dillon's place of work changed providers (grrrr)
-Take our birthing classes (we still are practicing our hypnobirthing every day!)
-Take our "breastfeeding and newborn" class
-Finish up our registries (since Target's in-store selection was limited and we haven't even started the 2nd one)
-Look into placenta encapsulation  (It is something I'm interested in, but we can't afford to have it done at the moment and we're too squeamish to do it ourselves, so we'll live without!)
-Attend shower
TO MAKE:
-sheets
-cushion for rocking chair
-footstool (Bean bag beans are ordered and it's been started!  Now, to finish...)
-mobi wrap (don't have to! Thanks, Meghan, for offering to send us one of yours!!!)
-mobile (DONE! except for hanging, which is proving more difficult than I had anticipated.  Update to come!)
-portable high chair thinger
-Nursery decor (some sort of sign with a favorite hymn written on it)
HOUSE TO DO:
-Paint nursery
-Finish Railing
-complete flooring (transition strips and heating vent) (FINALLY DONE!)
-Finish our pantry cabinet (add shelves, paint, and fill with all the crap that's covering my counters and stressing me out)
WANT TO DO:
-mini-babymoon by showing up at a friend's house for the weekend (thanks Ryan and Josie!)
-Ikea Trip
-Knit a onesie
-Make and freeze a bunch of meals 

The Railing...

My apologies for the absence.  Has it really been 2 weeks since I posted last???  Time is flying!  I had a couple of icky sick days combined with a pulled muscle along with complete pregnancy exhaustion to deal with the past few weeks so I have a fairly valid excuse.  Although I feel like I haven't finished a project in a long long time.  Lots of starting things, not a lot of finishing.  I suppose that means I will finish everything really fast and have lots of blog material soon, right?

Back to the railing: we finally got semi-started!  First, I should explain the situation we're dealing with over here. 

Yup.  We've had 2x4s keeping us from falling overboard since we bought the house.  The family that sold the house to us had relocated the stairwell, and then decided to get a divorce before finishing the project.  So we said "Hey, that looks totally manageable and like we will be able to do it ourselves quite easily!".  Ha! But we definitely didn't want to pay someone to take care of this for us.  And so it sat there looking at us for the past 6 months.  But now that baby is VERY MUCH on his or her way, we need to take care of it ASAP. 

I've done a ton of online research and hope that I'm enough "in the know" to get this done correctly.  I'm keeping meticulous records of how much we're spending and we are hoping this comes in under $1000. Here's the plan:

We've ordered and received custom length landing tread and handrails.  And I'm placing our order for balusters this morning.   (Thank goodness for Tax refunds!)  Dillon has started staining and applying polyurethane to them all to match our wood floors. 

The staining station.

Newel posts

We are going to install these two squareish newel posts we picked up from Menards (One at the top of the stairs, one at the corner) using these newel post fasteners.  In order to do so, we'll need to bulk up the underside of the floor, since our newel post placement isn't going to match up with the floor joists underneath.  I'm told my father-in-law has a plan for this.  I'm sure it will include a lot of nails. 

Around each newel post, we will use this landing tread (seriously, click the link to see what I'm talking about) that we special ordered from a nearby millwork place.  It's just wide enough to accommodate the gap in the wood flooring and a thin apron piece along the wall underneath.  Hopefully the picture and this link will help make sense of it.

Notice how the wood flooring ends, then there is just subfloor, then a strip of drywall.  The landing tread will cover the subfloor, drywall, and strip of apron, and have a small bullnose over the edge.

The shape of the landing tread we ordered.  See how the bottom has an overhang? That will cover up a tiny amount of our apron piece.

Then we'll install our guardrail at the top using these, connecting the newel posts and the corner newel post to the wall (in an L shape). 

The shape of our handrail.  OOOHHH. AHHHH.

Finally, we'll cut each iron baluster to length and slip it into the deep holes we'll predrill in the handrail, and then drop them down into the holes we'll predrill in the landing tread.  We'll slide a shoe on each baluster top and bottom to cover any exposed holes (since the bottom of each baluster will be a square baluster going into a larger round hole). 

Bada bing, bada boom, we're done!  That sounds easy, right? 

Well let me tell you, as a couple of people without a ton of home improvement knowledge or equipment, it's been tricky.  So far, the trouble we've run into involves the question of "Where do we stop", since the treads and rest of the stairwell is unfinished and pretty rough.  We've decided to stop at "this needs to be safe for a baby".  Which for us means an handrail and standard 4" or less gaps in the railing all the way around.  It doesn't help that new treads alone could run our budget up $600 or more.

Also, we spent a long time figuring out what to use for a landing tread.  But I finally figured out the right things to google and we got it sorted out.  Then, we made a small miscalculation when ordering the landing tread to accommodate the width of the apron we'll be adding.  We had originally planned on using some nice molding for a small decorative touch, but had to nix that after I didn't order a wide enough landing tread.  So we're just using strips of straight, non-decorative wood.  Oh well.  Finally, we want to use straight, plain jane iron balusters without baskets or decorative swirly bits or anything.  Let me tell you those are hard to find.  Everyone loves the swirly bits except us, I guess.  So we're going to special order them from a place online.  Hopefully they'll come in without damage and perfect.  We had found another online place that was significantly cheaper, but it seemed shady and the reviews were less than stellar, so we'll pay a bit more for peace of mind.  I'll let you know how it goes!

We're also planning on borrowing:
1. a finish nail gun (for the apron piece and landing tread)
2. a chop saw (to miter the ends of the landing tread)
3. a fancy chop saw for metal (because the iron balusters come a long length and then have to be cut to size, and since we'll have around 40, a hack saw would be exhausting)
4. a bunch of special sized drill bits (for the newel installation kit and handrail installation, and the baluster holes in the top handrail and bottom landing tread)

Thank goodness for friends!  And relatives who feel obligated to help! Wish us luck!