Listen, if I tell you that ten year old interior design magazines are still more relevant than my current working knowledge, do you promise not to judge me? My skill set very much lies in other directions, so any help I can get is appreciated, at this point. The crib I got here is one of those convertible types, so in theory she’ll at least have a place to sleep for a couple more years, but filling the rest of the room is… tricky. I’ve got the crib, a dresser/changing table (oh hey, new learning curve acquired), and… that’s pretty much it.

Oh no judgement here, I promise. That's good thinking with the convertible style crib, I have to wonder how many of our parents wish they were around when we were all babies. I'm trying to think off the top of my head if I can recall and other necessities a baby/toddler's room may need, my own personal recommendation would have to be a bookshelf. I think some cute artwork and maybe shelves to put some fun decor on them, oh and they make those hanging nets that can hold a bunch of stuffed animals. That's not only cute for decoration, but also great for some space-saving storage. But feel free to stop in and check out any of the magazines we have and I can look around if we have any interior decorating books as well.

I know that feeling so well! If you’re looking for something new before you dive back in, I recently finished a book that gave me a similar “can’t put it down” feeling. Have you tried The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah? It’s historical fiction, but it has that same emotional pull and strong female leads. Or if you want something a little different but still addictive, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was so good I stayed up way too late reading it. Either way, I totally get the urge to just reread the whole series again. Sometimes that’s the right move too.

I actually haven’t read either of those yet, though I’ve definitely heard a lot of people rave about The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, so I might have to finally check it out. I think I saw a few of the books from the series at the store, but not the entire series, so I'll have to ask my boss if they may be hiding somewhere. And if not, there's always the local library to check them out! But I tend to gravitate more towards John Green, Sarah Dessen, that kind of YA/NA coming of age vibe with some romance tied in, so I’m usually looking for something that gives me that same feeling of getting completely invested in the characters. That’s probably why The Hunger Games is the only dystopian series I’ve really stuck with, because the characters just have so much heart and it really just sucks you into their world. Which is scary when you think about it, but not so much in a way that I can't bear to dive in.

Okay, so I'm definitely NOT an interior design expert, this much has become glaringly obvious, because I've hit a wall for the second bedroom. Getting something for Beth to sleep in was kind of the priority, so that's obviously been taken care of, but she's going to need a big girl bed eventually, so I'm thinking a daybed or something -- how do people even do this and make it look cohesive? What do you put on the walls? I've googled 'nursery daybeds' and already feel like a hack, court days are less stressful than this.

If it helps and no one else has suggested it yet, usually babies have their cribs of course, but nowadays they make those ones that can convert to a toddler bed and so on, right up until the child is about 4 or 5 I think? So depending on what you already got, you might be set for a good couple of years already! Though I've read that some parents prefer to do a completely different bed, which they make toddler beds and then you would go up to big girl beds once they hit a certain age. Otherwise, if you're looking for decoration inspo, we have some magazines at the used bookstore that have various interior design ideas! Granted, it's a used bookstore and so the magazines are also used and very much from at least ten years ago.