Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Delay Their Move to Frogmore Cottage

In just a matter of weeks, Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan will welcome their first child together. Unfortunately, the royal couple likely won’t be bringing their son or daughter immediately home to their new residence, Frogmore Cottage. Vanity Fair reports that while Harry and Meghan have the keys to their new home in hand already, a palace aide says the extensive renovations to the property won’t be complete for “a couple of weeks”—creating a race between their move-in date and their due date.

The historic home in Windsor, England, was a gift to the couple from Harry’s grandmother Queen Elizabeth II. It is where Harry and Meghan posed for their official engagement portraits in December 2017. After their May 2018 wedding and luncheon at nearby Windsor Castle, they held an intimate evening party at Frogmore House, the main building on the same grounds as their new home. The Sun reports that the cottage was previously divided into five units, and that turning it into a single-family home fit for a growing family of royalty will cost roughly £3 million (nearly $4 million).

The features Harry and Meghan are reportedly adding to their new home include a yoga studio (Meghan is an avid yogi, and her mother, Doria Ragland, teaches yoga in Los Angeles), a modern kitchen designed by the duchess, a guest wing, soundproof walls to block out the noise of planes flying in and out of nearby Heathrow Airport, and, of course, a state-of-the-art nursery where the seventh heir in line to the British throne will eventually sleep.

During a visit to the British town of Birkenhead in January, Meghan told well-wishers that she and Harry had elected to keep the baby’s sex “a surprise,” and it has been reported that the child’s nursery will be decorated in a gender-neutral white-and-gray color scheme using vegan paint. Former Soho House designer Vicky Charles is rumored to be decorating the home.

As they wait for the project to be finished, Harry and Meghan remain in their rented farmhouse in the Cotswolds—and they’re not too worried about the holdup. “Given the scale of the project, a three- or four-week delay isn't too bad,” a source tells The Sun. “The couple are pleased with how it's all going.”