Chapter 22 - The Nursery Design
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Preparing the farmhouse for the new baby became a joint project that bordered on an obsession for Nathan.
He had taken the small guest room at the end of the hall and completely gutted it. Every evening after work, he was in there with a tape measure, a level, and a notebook.
Grace walked in one night with a mug of decaf tea to find him staring intensely at a blank wall.
“You know babies don’t care about perfect symmetry, right?” Grace teased, sipping her tea.
Nathan turned, a pencil tucked behind his ear. “I want to build a custom crib. And a changing table integrated into the wainscoting. I want the wood to be solid oak. Nothing particle board. Nothing cheap.”
Grace sat on a drop cloth in the corner of the room. “Nathan, a standard crib is fine. You don’t have to hand-carve the entire room.”
“I do,” he said quietly, sitting down on the floor next to her. “Grace… I missed Lily’s nursery. I missed buying her first bed. I missed painting her walls. I missed it all because I was a coward who didn’t ask the right questions.”
Grace set her mug down. She reached out and touched his cheek.
“You are not that man anymore,” she said firmly.
“I know. But building this room… it feels like I’m finally getting to do the things I was supposed to do.”
Grace leaned her head on his shoulder, looking around the bare, framing-exposed room.
“Then we build it together,” she said. “But I get to pick the paint color.”
“Agreed. What color?”
“Sage green. And I want to leave that one exposed brick column in the corner exactly as it is. Unpainted. Chipped.”
Nathan looked at the rough, imperfect brick column that was part of the original farmhouse chimney.
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“Leave the scar visible,” he smiled, recognizing her signature philosophy.
“Exactly. So the baby knows this house has history, but it’s still standing.”
