During the past week or so, Mike and I have been busy chipping away at nursery projects. So busy, in fact, that we have way more to blog about than we have left to do. It’s so amazing and exciting to see the room come together and I am itching to share everything. Right now, we’ve been focusing on getting everything done before the little one is here. With each extra day we get comes a new opportunity to tackle some projects.

Right around the time Mike finished installing the giraffe sconces, the missing closet piece arrived. They sent us an entire new panel for the screw/bolt part we needed. In case you need a refresher, we bought an Allen + Roth premium wood closet system from Lowe’s.

(via Lowe’s)

We have a similar version in our master closet and love it. In our old place, we used some inexpensive Closetmaid organizers that ended up falling apart on us. Like, I literally pulled open a drawer one day and the entire front came unglued. Since then we stick to the solid wood products from Lowe’s. We can cut the shelves down to whatever size we need and customize all of the configurations.

Mike got to putting together the center tower right away. Then, being the rocket scientists we are, we had to figure out how to get the tall tower into the actual closet.

It took a few tilts and laughs, but we got it in.

By we, I mean Mike. I pretty much sat in the glider through the whole process, snapping pictures with my iPhone.

Please note the white paint all over my pajama pants. They were the victim of the spilled tray of paint while I stenciled the closet.

After we got the tower in, we went back to Lowe’s to pick up some shelves. We needed 25 inch wide shelves on each side. The shelves came in 21″, 48″ or 72″. None of those options were ideal. We literally scratched our heads in Lowe’s forever trying to figure out how we can pull this all off. Another problem was that the clothing rods Lowe’s sold were too large. We checked some of their other brands and saw some expandable rods that were 24″-36″, but they were in white. To save some money, we decided to only get one of the 72″ shelves and just do shelves over the top rod of the closet. We went to Home Depot to see if they had any chrome rods that would fit the 25″ we needed. Thankfully they did!

We got home and Mike cut 2 shelves to 25″. He installed them with some brackets, anchoring them to two walls and the tower. Just below each shelf, we put a clothing rod.

To gauge where we wanted to put the next level of rods, we grabbed one of Mike’s shirts for some scale (since baby clothes are so tiny).

Then we decided something. Since baby clothes are so small, we decided we DID want to do that second level of shelves. We knew it would look better and give us a place to put little shoes and stuff. We know for an adult a shelf might not be practical, but it can always be removed.

Back to Lowe’s Mike went for another 72″ shelf! He repeated the shelf and rod process on the lower level and we were almost done!

Next, the drawers went in… we decided to get 3. The bottom of the tower can be left as shelves, drawers, metal baskets or a shoe rack. We were going to do just 2 drawers but then decided that the closed storage is more versatile.

We went with the flat front panel, but Lowe’s also sells a more traditional, beveled drawer front. Oh and for the tower? They give you both a straight top piece and a curved one. This baffled both of us for a while because we wanted the straight piece but all of the boxes had the curved piece on the picture. We didn’t realize it came with both options, pretty clever.

We also decided to stick with the hardware that came with the drawers. Why not? We like it. Maybe down the road we’ll go for something more custom, but it’s perfectly fine with me right now.

I couldn’t back up to take better pictures because there was a lot of furniture in the way behind me (we were working on hanging curtains on the same day, so things were shifted).

I almost forgot to include a picture with the shelves in the tower! I didn’t realize that the zoomed out pictures were taken before we put them in, so here they are!

Of course, it took me about 2 minutes to run to the spare bedroom and grab all of the baby’s clothes that have been living in there since we started this. The closet was stocked about 5 minutes later I put newborn clothes on one rod, 0-3 months on another, 3-6 months on the next rod and 6-12 months on the last rod. It’s pretty amazing to be nice and organized. In the drawers right now are smaller odds and ends, though the drawers are amazingly deep and have a nice little self closing feature. I fit an entire breast pump (still in the box) along with a bunch of accessories and a nursing cover in one of the drawers. The top shelves are home to some baskets and the tower is currently holding Boppys, a basket and some little decorative items.

The bookcase has arrived and I painted the back of it green, only to have the paint not stick at all, so Mike had to coat it with a layer of primer for me (since it wasn’t no-VOC). He finished that tonight so hopefully the next layer of green I put on actually works! I also made some chevron curtains, a bed skirt, made the crib, decorated the changing area and designed some ABC art in Photoshop. Once this baby actually comes, I can share some real after pictures!

Tomorrow is my due date.

Crazy.

I honestly had no desire to take a 40 week picture . I haven’t worn jeans in 2 weeks and I’m trying to grow out my hair, so it’s in an awkward flipping stage. Therefore looking decent these days = extremely time consuming. I took this picture right after a nap and said eff it, I’m not straightening that weird flip in my hair that just never goes away.

Another funny story, we usually a take a bunch of these pictures but this time, we only took like 5. That’s why my arms are in a different position because I completely forgot how I normally pose. The important part is that my head is included in the picture, right?

Consider this series complete!

In my last picture post I said that I couldn’t imagine what a 40 week picture would look like. Holy protruding belly! Mike and I were laughing that I thought I was huge at 25 weeks, clearly I didn’t know what huge was.

We’re so close to being done with the nursery and I have so much I haven’t yet blogged about. I think I just need another day to organize then I can sit down and write some posts about everything we’ve done in the past week or so!

I think it’s safe to say, we’re feeling pretty ready at this point. Thank you for not coming early baby, these past 2 weeks have been so very necessary for my sanity. But come soon, okay?

Remember way back when we started planning this nursery, when my very first nursery purchase was a pair of Jonathan Adler giraffe sconces? Well, yesterday they finally went on the wall!

I can tell you nothing about the install process– Mike and his dad did everything, but Mike did snap some in-progress photos for you with his iPhone. I will try my best to narrate.

Step 1: Holes went in wall.

Step 2: Wires somehow came out of wall (I know it involved crawling around the attic)

Step 3: New light switch went in, with more wires.

Step 4: I took a nap (not documented through photos)

Step 5: More wires and blue boxes. Please note that the electricity is off in this picture, safety first kids!

Then Mike did the usual taping and capping of wires while I neglected to take pictures of the fixtures actually going up. The sconces came in 4 pieces: the actual light fixture (which was just a round circle sconce with a light bulb pointing upwards), a shade, a giraffe head and a giraffe body (which were just mounted to the wall without any electrical business). You can see here how the actual giraffe is separate from the light…

Then, we had sconces!!!

We based the height and width of the sconces off of the giant frame we bought to put in between them. The frame will come slightly above and slightly below the length of the giraffes. Each giraffe extends slightly beyond the width of the dresser.

We also have a new fancy light switch in the room.

The big switch is for the ceiling fixture, then one little switch is for the sconces and one is for an outlet in the room.

Sconces on!

Trying to get a head on shot in this room is nearly impossible, especially with all of the closet pieces still hanging around. Hopefully they will be gone tomorrow since we finally got our replacement piece!

Thankfully, the sconce shades match almost perfectly with the ceiling fixture. The whole vibe in the room is totally different now.

We love them.

We’re finally wrapping things up in the nursery, which is good considering I’m due on Tuesday. The bookcase we ordered arrived and has been assembled. We have a shade on the window that is just waiting for some chevron curtains. The final closet piece arrived and will hopefully be assembled tomorrow. We have a frame for our ABC art print that we just need to design. The only thing I’m unsure of at this point is if I want to hang anything over the crib. After I decide that, this room will be  d-o-n-e

ps- the winner of the Cutting Edge Stencil giveaway has been announced! Check the post to see if it was you!

**THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNER, SARAH G.!**

A few days ago, I showed you how I stenciled the nursery closet using Cutting Edge Stencil’s Polka Dot Allover Stencil…

Now is your chance to give stenciling a shot! Cutting Edge Stencils is offering one lucky Lil House reader a stencil of their choice, up to a $50 value!

Here are some of my personal favorite stencils, in case you need some inspiration before entering:

Nagoya Allover Stencil (cat not included in giveaway)

Zinnia Grande Stencil

Outside of the Box Allover Stencil

Intimidated? Check out this step by step instructional video to see what the stenciling process is like:

Now for the deets….

• One reader will win any one Cutting Edge Stencil of their choice (up to a $50 value)
• To enter, simply follow the directions in the entry window below
• You have 4 ways to win: simply telling me what stencil you’d like from the website (mandatory entry), liking Cutting Edge Stencils on Facebook, following Cutting Edge Stencils on Twitter and following Cutting Edge Stencils on Pinterest!
• Don’t worry, your responses will not be posted for all to see, just me

And the rules…

• A winner will be chosen using Random.org
• This giveaway closes on Thursday, May 10th at midnight. Any entries made after that time will not be counted.
• A winner will be announced on Friday, May 11th so check back. Even if I go into labor, I will find a way to post a winner!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A few weeks ago, Mike and I had some professional maternity pictures done. Way back when I used to think of being pregnant, I always wanted to have some photos of the two of us done to remember what it was like to have a giant belly. Then I got pregnant and felt less than glamorous, so I figured we could skip the maternity photos and just stick with our own monthly montage…

But then we met some friends of friends, Katie and Fred. Mike spent some time with Fred at our friend’s bachelor party this fall and found out he and his wife were just starting their photography business. After looking at their website, we decided to give this whole maternity photo session thing a shot. So we headed to a park the Saturday before Easter around sunset, where I froze my arse off and the wind was out of control, but they still managed to get some awesome shots.

We’re definitely planning on adding one or some of these to a gallery wall in the baby’s room. It’s crazy to think that these pictures were taken a month ago already (yeah I’m late with posting them). That shirt doesn’t even fit me comfortably now, since my stomach is defying gravity with how much it protrudes. Hopefully I can snap one last bump picture this week, if I ever make myself look decent enough to take one.

All images courtesy of S18 Photography. Go check out their blog, they do real estate photos too, which are always fun to look at. And they will be taking pictures of the baby when he/she comes, which will be more fun to look at than our awkward mugs