You know how sometimes things have to look worse before they look better? That seems to be the case with our nursery progress as of this weekend.

(Sorry pictures are a little blurry today, it’s rainy out and I took them this morning before putting my contacts in. Whoops.)

We set out to conquer a bunch of things on our to-do list. Mostly, we were all set to make the closet pretty. We originally talked about our plans for the baby’s closet here. I know I’ve mentioned that I plan to stencil the closet, but I don’t think I’ve exactly explained the plan. It will be white polka dots.

So the majority of the mess in the nursery? Pieces of the closet system.

We started to put pieces together only to discover that we’re missing a screw… literally. Mike called Allen + Roth and they will be sending us a new piece, but it can take anywhere from 1-7 days. Whaaamp whaaamp. Slight setback, but that’s okay because the closet has to be stenciled first! Which brings us to clutter cause #2…

I got all ready to stencil on Sunday with the supplies that Cutting Edge Stencils so kindly sent me way back in December. The problem was that it took me so long to actually stencil and I left the stencil rolled in the shipping tube it came in. So it was way too curly to use and I had to let it sit for a few days.

Holding down the stencil are some books and a fan we picked up for the room this weekend. It seems to be working and is pretty flat at this point. Hopefully I can tackle that in the next day or so. Until then, the ottoman is home to directions for both the stencil and the closet system.

The crib has become a catch all for the storage bins that will eventually find a home in the closet.

But the good news is that we did get a lot done overall. Those two little outfits are all washed for the hospital. The dark gray one is my first choice (complete with gender specific hat and blanky) and the chevron one is a larger size incase I have a big baby. I decided to go with a gender neutral outfit because the baby is usually all blanket and hat in the beginning anyway and the gray looks so nice with both baby pink and blue 🙂

We also assembled most of our gear this weekend and it has found a home in the corner of the nursery.

We tucked this stuff in here because the last time we left something in the family room this happened…

Don’t worry, the bassinet pad hadn’t been washed yet. The stroller will be in the garage so Macky won’t get used to free rides… not that I pushed him around the family room in there or anything. Okay I did. I considered it quality control.

Finally, you may have noticed the giant elephant frame in the room. We made a trip to Ikea this weekend and picked up a frame for our alphabet print over the dresser.

I started my maternity leave today, so I’m hoping to wrap most of this stuff up this week. I probably won’t stick to my usual posting times, since well, I can post whenever I want now!! Though I’ll probably stick to weekdays since that’s when Mike works. I decided to take last night off after work so I could celebrate by sitting on the couch with a giant bowl of ice cream. It was fabulous 🙂

It’s that time again, time for Young House Love and Bower Power‘s Pinterest challenge! For the last two Pinterest challenges, I made paintings… one was the landscapes I hung in our dining room and the other was a pencil eraser monogram. I really had no clue what to make this time since we’re still in the middle of painting the nursery and not quite ready for any other projects in there. I also did not want to tackle any other large projects on our to-do list, since the nursery is our primary focus these days (considering we only have 8 weeks, eek!) I was honestly thinking I’d sit this one out when Mike reminded me that we picked up some things from Ikea a while back to organize our gift wrap. He’s a keeper.

Cue the Pinspiration!

(from BHG via Pinterest)

Up until this point, I’ve stored gift wrap in one of those Rubbermaid gift wrap containers. Problem was it didn’t really accomodate my ribbon collection or taller wrapping paper. Our wrapping paper has been hanging out in our guest room and this year I decided to use the Rubbermaid container exclusively for Christmas wrapping stuff. Considering the guest room looks like this as of our baby shower this weekend, this challenge could not have come at a better time….

This is only the smaller gifts… the larger ones are downstairs. Once the baby’s closet is all painted and done, we can move this stuff out of here. All the way in the corner was my wrapping paper collection, I rescued it from the sea of baby.

I decided to use another organizing method I found on Pinterest, this one from A Brooklyn Limestone.

(from A Brooklyn Limestone via Pinterest)

We picked up supplies to tackle this back when we were on a new office kick. We literally dropped everything to work on the nursery once February rolled around, so this got put on the back burner. We pretty much bought exactly the same supplies as the inspiration picture, with a few modifications….

3 Bygel rails

1 Bygel wire basket

1 pack of Dignitet curtain clips

4 Gruntal cutlery caddies

I didn’t take any in progress pictures except for this one, please excuse the mess all over the place. This room was our clutter and sawing area while working on the nursery.

The process was pretty simple and self explanatory. Some important things to note though, the bars do not come with screws. Also, if you go with the Grundtal cups, they screws they give you (or at least they gave us) were too short. So keep some spare screws nearby 🙂

Here’s our finished product (with crappy night photos because I got home from work late)

I know, the quality of that picture makes me cringe too. I tried 8 million times to take a better one but the room just has poor lighting at night. Anyway! We decided to put our wrapping paper up top since our door is super narrow and we had to work around the door knob.

Next, we put 3 cups with some Sharpies, bows and paint brushes for now. Once we fully move the office upstairs I will have tons more crafty things to put in these.

On the bottom we put a flat wire rack with ribbon in it and another cup full of colored tissue paper.

All in all, it was a super easy and cheap way to be able to see all of my pretty stuff. Plus it holds way more wrapping paper than I thought it would.

And the best part? It hides away nicely behind a door 🙂

Be sure to check out Sherry’s (Young House Love) and Katie’s (Bower Power) projects tomorrow. Plus, this time around they’ve teamed up with Cassie from Hi Sugarplum and Erin from The Great Indoors, so check out their projects as well. I shall be in all 4 places tomorrow 🙂

ps- maybe i can update this with better daylight pictures tomorrow!

I haven’t slept well the past several days. Darwin had a urinary tract infection, on top of kidney failure, which led to many unpleasant accidents that may have occurred on my lap…while I was sleeping. I’ve been peed and puked on way too many times before this baby has arrived. I know, TMI, but I’m just being honest here 🙂 Throw in a super active baby lately and when I finally have the opportunity to sleep, someone is waking me up from the inside. Needless to say, I’m a zombie and I spent the weekend cleaning and organizing some baby stuff that we’re borrowing from my brother and sister-in-law. I felt very accomplished and feel much better about life (and Darwin started some antibiotics and has been accident free, whew!) But, it leaves you with a post full of randomness. Because that’s what’s going on in my head today!

On Friday, Mike and I returned to Babies R Us to test out the glider I wrote about last week. When I kicked my feet up onto the ottoman, I noticed something…

Yes I was wearing gray leggings and gray boots while sitting on a gray chair. At least now I have a good idea of the color and I might be carrying around my leggings as a swatch. Speaking of swatches, in the background are all of the other colors the chair comes in. I think we’re going to go for it, I’m just scoping out coupons and hoping for a Presidents’ Day sale.

Next to the picture of my gray boots on gray pants on gray chair on my phone is a picture of my gray cat…

Isn’t she pretty? She’s not often seen around here, as she normally resorts to a mean face when the camera comes out. Plus she’s often in the shadow of her two special needs brothers, though she gets plenty of loving. She’s my constant sidekick (sitting with me at the moment). I wonder if she knows how chic her gray coat is these days?

Something the complete opposite of gray (okay it’s rainbow), is my Valentine’s Day gift from Mike. I’m trying to organize my life (hence the mass decluttering I did this weekend), so Mike bought me this Erin Condren planner in the multi-colored chevron pattern…

(via Erin Condren)

Yes I know it’s early, but the box it came in was so obvious that I knew what it was when it arrived today. I wanted one last year, but this adorable video won me over.

(via Erin Condren)

I am already in love with it and it’s only been a couple of hours. I normally carry a small planner, a notebook for blog ideas and I end up sticking post-its all over my notebook/planner/wallet (yes I have a habit of sticking to-do lists to my wallet!) I figured this is only going to get worse as I juggle baby, work, blog and life, so it was time to upgrade my shabby little Target monthly planner I’ve been using for years. It comes with folders for stray papers and blank pages with each month, but possibly my favorite part of my new planner? The monthly and weekly goals and to-do lists…

The only way I managed to keep my head on straight through school, doctor’s appointments, work and blog posts in the fall was constant planning. I pretty much plan out my weekdays from 7am until 10pm in order to get everything done. I try to save Friday night for down time (but it usually turns into running errands) and weekends for doing projects. This planner has days broken into morning, day and night so I no longer have to cram things into one little box that I normally wrote on the top and bottom of. Michelle from Ten June also has one and she gave a nice little rundown of the features here.

Already filled in for this week’s goal? Install crown molding and baseboards in the baby’s room. Thanks to a 3 day weekend coming up, I’m feeling optimistic. Or maybe it’s the stickers with my name on them that came with my planner that made me feel a little brighter? 🙂

Since I finally put away our Christmas things, I feel as though I need to write out everything we want to get done around here while it’s fresh in my mind. If I could have tackled all of this tonight, I would have. I am so anxious to finally organize this house and make some progress on projects that were put on the back burner when I was busy with school.

Oh, and we have a baby coming in May so many of these items are marked urgent. Some are just marked as “they are bothering us and we’d like to do them ASAP”. Since we realize we have to prioritize (I’m approaching the third trimester here, eek), I’m putting them in the order we’d like to do them.

1. Finish built-in bench in new office

We scratched our heads and shopped for wood this weekend, but hit a standstill when we realized we need to buy a table saw or something. And we’re cheap a–es. Solution pending.

2. Move office furniture in

Mike needs this room to work in and be organized and our goal was to get him somewhat settled in the new office before the baby comes. We’re going to use the furniture we currently have with some potential hacks.

3. Remove wire rack from the baby’s closet, paint, stencil and add closet system

(from Roomzaar via Pinterest)

I put this as first in the baby’s room progress because the closet is the most needed to start to organize some of the stuff we already have. Hanging tiny little clothes in a huge closet is killllling me. Must. Make. Closet. Pretty.

4. Add board and batten to the baby’s room

(via Decorchick)

We plan to add molding high and all the way around the room, like Emily’s living room. Pattern to be determined 🙂

5. Add crown molding to the baby’s room, paint, add furniture, etc.

I know this category is huge and can probably be another to-do ist in itself, but we kinda have to wait until we get through other stages to work this part out. We have furniture in mind and a general idea of where we’re going, so we’ll share as much of it as we can as we go along (being sure not to spill any gender specific details :))

6. Replace playroom carpet

We originally planned to do this before Christmas but that didn’t happen. Since it’s not a space we’ll be using right away, we put the new office and the baby’s room first. But this carpet has got to go. If carpet wasn’t so expensive, we probably would have committed to this already.

7. Add bookcases to playroom

(via Centsational Girl)

We want to add some Ikea bookcases to the wall where the shelving is in the picture above and make them look built-in, like Kate did with hers.

8. Finish up the molding in our entryway

We need to add the box portion underneath our chair rail in the entryway and upstairs hallway. Mike is itching to finish this one but we reeeally need to do the baby’s room first. We’re just dying to get to number 8…

9. Start our gallery wall(s)

(via Sawdust and Paper Scraps)

I’ve shared this inspiration picture from Sandra before and we’ve been slowly accumulating frames to hang all the way throughout our entryway. We haven’t hung any yet because we figured we’d have to take them down to nail into the wall to finish the molding, so we wanted to do #7 first.

10. Build outdoor kitchen

Despite the fact that we’ll have a newborn, we’re hoping to make some progress in our backyard this year. We seeded back there in the fall and we hope to do something with the landscaping and start working on the built-in grill we’ve been dreaming of (and drawing in Paint :))

Um anyone else overwhelmed by this list? I’m about to have a Jessie Spano freak out moment and start screaming “there’s never enough time!!!”….

After we had hardwood floors installed in our spare bedrooms, we were pretty sure that the baby’s room was going to be this one bedroom (bedroom 1)….

Previously, we had teetered between the room we chose and the last remaining room (bedroom 2). In the beginning, bedroom 2 seemed like a nicer choice, with an extra window and a bigger closet. But the more we thought about it, we realized that there was a lot less wall space for furniture configuring. Then after we cleared the room out to have the floors installed, I naturally started putting the baby’s stuff in the room that didn’t have the guest bed in it, which was now bedroom 1. It was beginning to feel natural that the baby’s room would be the one with the one window. The only thing that kept us on the fence for so long was the closet, which isn’t small, but is just your traditional sliding door closet.

Then I spotted this picture on Pinterest a few weeks ago…

(from Roomzaar via Pinterest)

I’ve been scheming to take the closet doors off, since with sliding doors you are limited to what you can reach on either side. Mike wasn’t convinced and thought I was weird and crazy. Okay, he thought I was weird and crazier than he thought before. But Mike is a very visual person… 90% of the time when I bring up an idea, he thinks it sounds awful. Over the years he’s gotten to the point where he just tells me to do things and knows he’ll probably like it. Or I sketch it out… or I go on Pinterest for a visual. This was one of those instances.

We love the closet system in our walk-in closet and it’s a solid wood Allen + Roth organizer from Lowe’s. It was another one of those things that I pushed hard for when we first moved in because I like to have all of my clothes in front of me. Like, I get fully dressed in the closet in the morning, so having drawers for socks and a shelf for accessories was key. Mike wasn’t sold on it until we actually installed it and then he was like you know what? This thing is awesome. I wanted that same sense of organization and mixed storage options for the baby’s room.

We’re planning on only getting a single dresser to use as a changing table, so we wanted the closet to provide a lot of different storage options. While we were in Lowe’s last weekend looking at cabinets for the new office built-ins, I stumbled upon some new Allen + Roth storage systems.

(via Lowe’s, sorry for the small pic)

These systems were quite similar to what we have in our walk-in… but they were customizable! Ours came in one packaged system and luckily fit our closet and needs perfectly. These new ones give options based around a single tower…

We’d probably do a white system, but the tower picture on the website was dark. In the tower you can add a bunch of inserts, such as drawers…

And metal storage baskets that slide in and out and would be great for toys….

The best part of this system, like the one we already have, is that it’s solid wood and can be cut down to fit your closet. We’ll probably do a configuration similar to our walk-in and the stock picture, with two hanging areas on either side of the tower. We’ll probably do 2 levels on both sides like the inspiration picture, since kids’ clothes are so tiny and even pants won’t need the entire height of the closet. Heck I only have a couple of dresses in my closet that require the “long” side!

Whether we’ll can the doors completely, do a curtain, do french doors or do solid double doors remains a mystery. But! I am planning on painting the closet a fun, bright color before we install the system and stenciling behind it. Plus the baby is acquiring quite a wardrobe thanks to momma shopping some after Christmas sales (next year’s Christmas onesies for $2? Don’t mind if I do!), so the storage is needed ASAP!

Once we finish framing out the office built-ins (which we started this weekend), the baby’s closet is next. We have so many huge projects on our plates it’s insane. Fun, but insane 🙂