labor of love...

My wonderful husband has been "living" in the workshop recently, working tirelessly on our son's dresser.  It has been hard work and he's put in a lot of hours but I think he really enjoyed himself and is pleased with the finished result.  I know I am.  I couldn't be any more proud with out my heart just bursting right out of my chest (I think I may have said that a time or two about my husband and his talents. :)

I tried to document, in photos, the process of building this big, beautiful dresser -- I thought that would be kinda fun to look at, see how it evolved...

Is it not gorgeous??  Aside from our coffee table (my Christmas present 4 years ago), this is the biggest thing that Jeff has built for us so far.  He did an incredible job on this thing -- I mean, it looks like we picked it up from the store and put it together, it's so professional looking.

But no.  I take that back.  It looks WAY BETTER than the one in the store.  I know because I saw it the other night when we were at Babies R Us.  See, I found a crib & dresser set that I liked there and then Jeff took off with it, tweaking it and customizing it to make it into what I really wanted.  That's his specialty.  :)  The original had 3 drawers on the left and a cabinet with a shelf on the right.  We thought we might use the drawers more so we went with that.

Now, if you ask me, he started on this WAY too late.  But I think Jeff must work better under pressure.  To get ready, he took some photos, wrote down some dimensions, made some notes and then got to work.  A month and a half later, THIS is what we have:

This is just perfect.  It's exactly the color I wanted it to be and we have plenty of space in each drawer for Deacon's sweet, tiny little things.  :)  Jeff even built in 2 secret drawers above the top 2 drawers with pulls -- for a fun 5 year old to keep his baseball cards or GI Joes in.  Or whatever.  :)  Whatever boys like to keep in secret drawers.  As long as it's not frogs, snakes or bugs.  Nothing living.  Absolutely not.  :)

This photo of it was taken in the nursery.  On the left side is a sweet, soft, cuddly giraffe with a blanket that Jeff's youngest brother and his wife gave us at a shower.  Just love it.  The right side is the framed ultrasound that Jeff's sister-in-law made for us for the shower she threw us -- you can see that a little bit better here.

I don't think those will stay there once we figure out where "all this stuff" is going to go but for now, I like to look at them.  :)

**If you'd like to see more photos and a more detailed description of the dresser, you can check it out here, where Jeff has a profile and has uploaded a lot of the stuff he's built recently.  This is a place where his fellow wood-working peers can make comments and boy, have they been raving about his dresser.  And rightfully so.  :)**