Checkah out, Daddy make packpack a me!

In further evidence that Oren is an uber-talented superdad, he handcrafted this custom-fitted backpack for Liyam in about an hour. Awe. Some.

San Francisco Skyline Shelf, Edition 2

We were thrilled (thrilled!) when a fellow East Bayer saw our second little feature on Apartment Therapy and asked us to make a skyline shelf of her own. With a few updates to size and scale, Skyline Shelf II is complete!

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Apartment Therapy! One of our favorite home-design websites ran our submission about Liyam’s nook. The changing table in the dining room was quite a contentious issue among commenters, and it looks like we may have to start producing and selling skyline shelves for the masses. Click here to see for yourself.

Nesting, Take 3: The Dining Room Nursery

Is it still nesting if you’ve already had the baby? Here are the long-awaited photos of Liyam’s little corner of the dining room.

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Rocking the Wardrobe

For Sarah’s birthday, Bubbie-to-be bought her a kit to design a custom baby romper and and hat through Imagine This Couture. The kit comes with a few simple instructions and templates for each piece of clothing, plus a logo. You hand draw a design right onto the template and indicate the colors you want to use, send it off to their team, and then they turn your scribbles into a one-of-a-kind outfit! How cool is that? Our romper arrived today and we think it’s pretty hard core:

What you can’t see is the fantastic record label-style logo on the tushie. It reads: A Persing Production, Vol. 1.

Nesting, Take 2: Custom Furniture

Welcome to seven months! Baby-to-be continues his rollicking shenanigans as parents-to-be continue our apartment makeover. One of the (many) cool things about living with Oren is that we often spend the same amount of time doing our hair. Another cool thing is that custom-made furniture becomes the default at our place. Hence, when we need a window perch/bookshelf in the living room, the man turns this out in two hours:

He leaves the decorations to me, so I take full credit for the books organized by color.

Our general baby-welcoming plan is to turn our dining room into an eating + baby room. This means 1.) putting our huge dining table into storage and selling the rug and the Billy bookcases (all done!) and 2.) splitting the room into two distinct yet complementary spaces. Neither one of us is into traditional baby stuff, so we’re trying to create a sort of urban/modern feeling with a healthy dose of playfulness. We’ll post some before and after photos of the entire room once it’s finished, but in the meantime, at the bottom you’ll find a gallery of some of the rad pieces we’ve built so far. Including:

1. Custom storage benches/banquette. One of them holds arts & crafts supplies and the other hides all of our games and toys. We built these babies from scratch and even upholstered them ourselves with waterproof laminated cotton that you can wipe down with a sponge. So for $100 or so, we have these entirely customized storage benches. Not too shabby. Our “new” dining table is an Ikea table that we’ve had for years. We lacquered it in white and will do the same with the matching chairs. Next up for this area: back pillows.

2. Refurbished dresser. We found an old bureau for $30 at a thrift store and turned it into the coolest dresser in the world for Little Man Persing. The piece had good bones, but it needed some hard core cleaning, sanding and drawer un-sticking before we could prime and paint and paint and paint and polyurethane it. The red paint is called “California Poppy,” which is awesome, and the drawer pulls are matchbox cars that we spray-painted silver and attached to screws—even more awesome. As soon as we have one, we’ll plop a changing pad on top. And as soon as we have one, we’ll plop a baby on top of that.

3. Chalkboard fridge. Not part of the dining room, but a while back I outfitted the fridge in chalkboard paint. Now it’s the perfect place to keep track of our home improvement projects!