I've got a white chest of drawers this one which doubles as change unit, just put a mat on top and plenty of room for a tub of wipes. The dado, skirting board and coving and door / window are white, but I put natural pine louvre doors on his cupboard (its built in) and natural pine shelves to warm it up a bit. The mix of white and natural wood is quite 'new england' and I think it would be lovely with a pale sage green
I had an inkling that it was a boy, but kind of really wanted one too as four cousins are girls and he would be only grandson so don't know if it was a 'feeling' or a 'desire', IYSWIM.
Also, was walking in the park the Sunday before he was born with friends when we saw some magpies, my friend counted them and recited the rhyme...and announced I was having a boy...
Then, I was at the funeral of a friends' dad and the wake was being held at their best friends home, there were three of us there, all very heavily pregnant and it turned out, all due one week apart!!! Anyway, the wife asked if she could have a go at predicting, I said yes, so she went and got a gold ring on a gold chain, sat me on a chair in the middle of the room...then...and I hadn't heard this before...told me I had to decide what the result would mean, the ring would either swing up and down or side to side and I had to decide which was for boy and which was girl...I decided up and down was for a boy, and that's what the ring did, swung up and down.
She was over the moon when she found out she was right, her DIL had also been correctly predicted as a girl
As for routines, I didn't - mostly because I spent most of pregnancy reading about pregnancy and birth, and it didn't occur to me to read about what to do with the baby once it arrived . As a consequence, I applied the 'feeding on demand' rule very strictly - if he cried, he got boob (he was on quite a lot ) and he slept when he was tired. I didn't know what kind of routine I was supposed to put him in, so we just did what was right for DS...we still work like that, if he's tired he sleeps, if he's hungry, he eats and most of the time, its to some kind of routine, but its set and controlled by DS to a great extent.
Since he went to nursery, he's more predictable as they have put him into their routine, and that's fine with me and seems good for DS too.
In an ideal world, and IMO, I don't think you can plan too much before you have them, because you just don't know what kind of baby you will have - i.e. saying you will or won't have a structured routine but you can read about them, and know what they would look like (the bit I missed out!) so that if you decide you want to implement one, you've kind of got a backup plan, IYSWIM? Reading about different people's approaches helps you to compile one of your own, that suits you and your DC.
I've found out over time that I lean towards the 'attachment parenting' side of life naturally, and I really like it. It perhaps fulfils the needy part in me too and I have a happy, affectionate and non-tantrumming toddler so I have no plans to change.
What I have learnt from MN is that this may well not work for the second one, and the fact that it suits DS doesn't mean its the 'right' way, just that it works for him - if I have another it may not work for them and if that's the case, I'll look at routines etc for them (I hope not though coz I'm really disorganised and have no perception of time!!!)
God, sorry for the waffle...