Nursery Tour

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Hi! I’m finally sharing Baby Heid’s nursery with you! These photos were taken nine months ago, so things have definitely changed.

When we started planning our nursery, people kept asking me what theme we were going with. While I love a themed party, I honestly just couldn’t think of a theme that I wanted to stick with for baby girl’s nursery. I knew I wanted it to be bright, fun, and to have a mid-century modern feel. I found a color palette that I loved (below) and started a mood board. During that process, I came across Within the Grove’s nursery wall and decided that an accent wall was the way to go. Shortly after that, we bought a dresser on Facebook Marketplace, which solidified our mid-century modern plan.

Color palette inspo

Color palette inspo

Mr. Heid and I plugged the dimensions of the nursery space and the dresser into floorplanner. From there, I searched for a crib and a bookshelf that we’d like and added those in. We added in the dimensions of a rug, glider, pouf, hamper, house plant, and side table and started rearranging things to come up with a functional and beautiful layout. Then, I dropped the floor plan into InDesign to play around with color choices and artwork. We finally agreed on what color each item should be and where they should go, and we set out to make it all happen.

Floorplanner layout

Floorplanner layout

InDesign overlay

InDesign overlay

We started with the wall, researching different ways to construct it and testing a few paint colors before getting started.

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For the color, we landed on the Behr Ultra interior eggshell enamel in Roulette. For construction, we decided on the following process:

  • Design the wall in InDesign, using the dimensions of the slats for accuracy

  • Use rollers and brushes to paint the entire accent wall

  • Use a paint sprayer to paint the slats

  • Use a nail gun to affix the longest slats first (we decided to only use 45- and 90-degree angles to make this as easy as possible)

  • Use a nail gun to affix the remaining slats (we strayed from our original design a bit)

  • Fill in the gaps and nail holes with wood putty and allow it to set

  • Use paintbrushes to paint the filled gaps and holes (shoutout to my girl Jeannie for helping Mr. Heid when my very pregnant body wouldn’t let me!)

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Once the wall was complete, we collected all of the other furniture and items and put everything into place.

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I don’t have a before picture, but the nursery had a pretty open closet with just two long shelves at the top and a long rod to hang clothing. We wanted to have a bit more shelving and drawers to organize all of her tiny things. We found the MALM 6-Drawer Chest and SYVDE Open Wardrobe both from IKEA. Since our closet doors are bi-folds, we had to make sure the chest of drawers was centered in the closet or else they wouldn’t open all of the way. So my dad and Mr. Heid assembled only the shelving side of the wardrobe and attached it to one side of the chest of drawers. On the other side, we installed two mini hanging rods for her clothes.

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Nine months later, and a few things have definitely changed. We’ve added some decor on top of baby girl’s bookshelf, switched out some of her books, added some decor to her corner table, switched out the speaker and supplies on her dresser, and added more items to her closet shelf. Overall, the aesthetic is the same - we’ve just filled it in a bit more. We still need to install her name on the wall — if you’re planning a nursery and think, “We’ll get to that later…” just keep in mind that life is about to be crazy busy, so it might be nine more months before you actually get to that thing…

Linking all items below and sharing comments on ones that can’t be linked —

ART

CLOSET

CUSHIONS + LINENS + PILLOWS

DECOR

FURNITURE

RUG + PLAY PAD

STORAGE

TOYS + ANIMALS

If you didn’t see the link you’re hoping for, drop a comment below and I’ll do my best to add it!

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Cheers,

K

Managing Task and Project Anxiety Pt. II

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So you have all of your tasks listed out by project (if you don't, head back over to part one), and it seems rather daunting.

Where do you begin?

In this section, I’m covering how to choose your tasks and knock them out. Hopefully, you’ll gain some insight into prioritizing your projects and tasks, creating timelines, and what to do when you hit a snag along the way.

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For the steps ahead, let's use the project/task example that I gave during Part I:

Project: Yard Maintenance

  • Clear the Yard

    • Mow the Lawn

      • Pick up sticks

      • Fix the Lawn Mower

        • Change the Oil

        • Replace the Battery

THE ASK | It's usually best to start by looking at the main projects instead of the tasks within them. It's hard to tell if replacing the lawn mower battery is important among your entire list of a bazillion tasks. It's a little easier to tell if mowing the lawn is important, but it's very obvious whether or not clearing the yard is an important project amount your list of projects (remember that your projects list will be a considerably shorter list than your task list).

So looking at your projects, ask yourself a few questions:

  1. Is one of these urgent? (fixing a leak, prepping a nursery, etc.)

  2. Which of these is most likely to put my soul at ease?

  3. Which of these would make another project move along?

  4. Has one of these waited long enough?

  5. Has one of these been weighing on you?

If you’ve asked these questions and no one project stands out to you, then close your eyes, point to a project, and go with that one! You’ve gotta start somewhere!

SET A GOAL | You’ve picked a project, and you have a whole list of tasks and sub-tasks to help you complete it. You may be the type that just wants to plunge into all of those tasks, knock ’em out, and move on to the next project. If that works for you, then great — do that! But for those of you who get stuck in that “Oh gosh, I only have 30 minutes of free time, how can I fill it?!” rut (like me), then it may be best to set a goal and build a timeline. To build a solid timeline, always start with your smallest subtask and climb the ladder from there.

Pretending my entire project task list is above, determine how long it will take to replace the battery and change the oil (now you now how long it will take to fix the lawn mower). Then determine how long it will take to pick up sticks, then to mow the lawn. Now, you’ll know approximately how long it will take to complete the project of clearing the yard.

If you don't know how long a task will take you to complete, do a little Google search or ask someone who does. If you still can't find an estimate, take your best guess and don't be discouraged if you underestimate and have to push your timeline back — you've learned for next time!

Now, my list looks like this:

Project: Clear the Yard [3 days]

  • Mow the Lawn [60 minutes]

    • Pick up sticks [60 minutes]

    • Fix the Lawn Mower

      • Change the Oil [30 minutes]

      • Replace the Battery [10 minutes]

According to my breakdown, this project will take a total of 160 minutes. I may not have 160 free minutes today, but I may have 30 minutes today to change the oil, 70 tomorrow to replace the battery and pick up sticks, and 60 the next day to mow the lawn. So then my goal for this project is to complete it in three days. The more tasks added to this project, the longer it may take. Any hiccups along the way can also add to your estimated time.

If you want to assign timelines to all of your projects before you actually pick one, that’s your prerogative and it may even help you decide which one to jump on next!

MAKE MOVES | You’ve got your timeline and you know your availability so start knocking out tasks — you’ve got this!

THE ROAD BUMP | In many cases, Mr. Heid and I will start a project and hit a point where we can’t move forward within the project for some reason or another (we need a tool, the weather’s not right, we need assistance from a friend, etc). If the snag is something like needing a tool or a friend, we’ll just add those to the list of subtasks and continue to plug along.

If it’s something that we can’t control at all (like a week of thunderstorms or the tool we need is out of stock), we make a note of where we left off and why, and we move on to another task on the list or another project. If you do this and get easily distracted, it may be wise to put a tickler in your calendar that says, “Revisit Project XYZ.”

It’s easy to get discouraged when something doesn’t happen along the timeline we expect, but it makes a difference when we know we can jump to another project and still keep things moving forward around here.

Again, I’m no pro and I often have to revisit my steps from Part I, but this process has helped me and Mr. Heid, and I hope it helps you.

xo,

K

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Managing Task and Project Anxiety Pt. I

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There are silver linings to this whole quarantine thing, like the fact that Mr. Heid and I are knocking out some projects at the house. Before the quarantine, we felt like there were so many things on our plate. There still are so many little tasks and plenty of big projects and we’ve found ourselves overwhelmed by the decision of which task we should take on.

I’m no expert when it comes to getting things done — I procrastinate on some projects just like the next gal. But I do have a few practices that help me feel less overwhelmed and more accomplished, and I hope they’ll help you, too!

In this section, I’m covering the list aspect of managing your tasks. Hopefully, you’ll gain some insight into the importance of a task list, how to define and categorize your tasks, being mindful of yourself when making your task lists, and shedding the notion of “wasting” time.

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LIST YOUR TASKS | I know… you saw that coming, BUT keeping an organized list of the things you need/want to get done is the best start. I keep running lists in Google Sheets. I share one with Mr. Heid that includes separate tabs for house maintenance, yard maintenance, gathering, vacationing, cleaning/organizing, house decorating, etc. and one for just me that includes blogging, crafting, things I want to try, studio organizing, and more. Last year, I had a whole sheet dedicated to wedding planning.

When you make your lists, it's okay (and smart!) To have sub lists. For example, my main tab could say “Yard Maintenance” with a project titled “Clear the yard.” Well perhaps before we clear the yard we have to mow the lawn and fix the lawn mower, and fixing the lawn mower may have even more subtasks such as changing the oil or replacing the battery. In this example, the project list may look like this:

Project: Yard Maintenance

  • Clear the Yard

    • Mow the Lawn

      • Pick up sticks

      • Fix the Lawn Mower

        • Change the Oil

        • Replace the Battery

    • Research landscape companies

When you start listing out your items, you may feel your anxiety increase a little at the number of tasks and want to start one immediately, or you may stumble across a smaller task and think, “Oh, I can knock that out right now!” I’m here to say, DON’T. It’ll be so tempting, but I promise you’ll feel so much better if you finish the list first.

NO ITEM IS TOO SMALL | Imagine this — you have 30 minutes of free time. You can get a good amount done in 30 minutes, but how do you choose? You sit and think about which task is the right thing, the most important thing, the most productive thing to do in that time. Fifteen minutes later, you’ve done nothing and feel like you’ve wasted time, begin to panic that you only have 15 minutes left, and keep going like this until your free time is gone.

If this hasn’t happened to you — that’s so great! It has definitely happened to me, and I’ve been working to change those thoughts and to keep that free-time anxiety at bay. How?

In my spreadsheet, I have a tab that contains only small tasks. This includes journaling, self-care activities, yoga, meal planning, meditation, etc. On my good days when I have free time, I do one of the things on this small task list or my big task list without consulting my spreadsheet — no second thoughts about it.

BUT keeping this small items list helps me when I’m not thinking clearly and instead am on the verge of being in the scenario above. When I have free time and can’t think of something to get done, but want to get something done, then I choose something from my small-tasks list because doing so will help me feel accomplished.

IT’S OKAY TO DO NOTHING | Note that I said, “when I want to get something done.”

I feel like this one heavily ties into the next one, but I’m separating them to make sure it’s stated clearly — DOING. NOTHING. IS. OKAY. You are not wasting time by doing nothing if doing nothing makes you feel good. There are times when we need to be still because we’ve been doing everything or going a mile-a-minute — and that’s okay. Watching a movie? Taking a nap? Chilling by the pool? Don’t think of these things as wasting time, think of them as taking time for you — to help you recharge, breath, decompress, and find balance.

YOU ARE WORTHY | The biggest thing that I’ve struggled with is whether or not some of the tasks on my list are worth my time. I love organizing, but what impact does organizing my doodles into one notebook have on the world? Our lives on earth can be short, and the thought of wasting time on something seemingly trivial has made me feel my fair share of anxiety.

However, just because something is seemingly trivial doesn’t mean that it actually is. Lately, I’ve taken to asking myself if the tasks will bring me joy, ease my mind, help me relax and de-stress, or put me in a better position for another task. If the answer is yes when you ask yourself these things, then do it!

So, sure my doodles could sit around on scrap pages or in other notebooks forever and be fine, but organizing them helped me declutter (always a plus in my book), reminded me of my raw creativity that I’ve put aside for assigned creative projects, sparked inspiration for how I could use old doodles in new designs, and gave me a book that I’m proud of. I shared the book with my husband so that he could see another side of me.

Tasks on your list may be trivial and pointless in someone else’s eyes, but they’re important to you and you’re worth pleasing.

PLAN FOR THE FUTURE | There have been some circumstances where people say you shouldn’t start planning for something if you aren’t 100% sure it’s going to happen. That may be true for them, but it’s not true for all of us.

Mr. Heid and I had been talking about marriage for a few years and I knew the proposal should be coming around our 5th year of dating. So at the beginning of that 5th year, I started a list of people we might want to invite to our future wedding. Shortly after he popped the question, we knew we’d have to book our major vendors pretty quickly and that we’d need an estimated headcount. I told him about my list, and he was relieved that I’d already started it! We added and removed people, counted them up, and were ready to explore vendor options. Because I started this list early on, we had a nice amount of time to research, interview, and book our top choices.

I also have a whole spreadsheet dedicated to gifting for the holidays. There’s a column for each family member and friend that we regularly give gifts to and a column for gift ideas we think of throughout the year. I even add notes the moment I learn something new that could help in the gifting department, like the fact that my father-in-law doesn’t like pimento cheese (and I make him a food basket every year)!

SAY NO | When friends and family ask us for assistance with their tasks, we do our best to help out. But occasionally, someone will reach out to us for something that requires a good bit more time and we have to say no. Mr. Heid and I have a pretty busy social life (and we love that), but when we do finally have downtime, we don’t want to fill it with something that our hearts aren’t into — like a sportsball design project haha!

REVISIT YOUR PROCESS | I titled this post “Managing Task and Project Anxiety” because in some cases you can’t beat the stress entirely. You may get so good at following this process (or a process of your own design) that you start to auto-pilot. But there may be a time when some of that anxiety drifts back in. Just remember that you aren’t letting yourself down — you’re human. Just go back to your steps with mindfulness and deliberation.

Who else out there keeps an extensive running task list? I’m no expert but I hope this helped some of you!

In Part II, I’ll cover how to analyze your tasks, choose where to start, and what you can do when you hit a road bump!

xo,

K

Hello

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Hello and welcome to Gather Savor Dwell. I’m Keira, a South Carolinian enjoying life with my fiancé Mr. Heid and our pup Keiko in the Upstate. By day, I plan arts and cultural events for a small city. By night, I relish in gathering people together, dining on new foods and beverages, and making our house a home. Which brings me to Gather Savor Dwell.

Gather + Savor + Dwell — Each of these invokes a sense of space in which we can honor and create memories. A place where we can cultivate and curate experiences with intention. I’ve created GSD to share how I practice those notions — of course there will be plenty more goodies along the way. Take a deeper look at what Gather Savor Dwell means to me here.

So I guess a bit more about me —

I could consume sour beers, tacos, and chai tea every day. I love the act of handwriting and have been known to embrace snail mail. I love stories — I’ve just finished re-reading the Harry Potter series and am in the process of reading three other books. I have a hashtag for my dog (#keikokitch) and for my From Where I Stand posts (#fromwhereistandkk) that are mostly populated by my private Instagram, but will definitely be used on @gathersavordwell when I start posting more.

That’s it for now! I hope to learn who you are as we go along!

xoxo,
K

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