For a side, but not so much fun, note — the other night, our upstairs AC unit crapped out.  Fortunately, our downstairs unit remains cool.  It should be another day or two until the unit upstairs gets fixed.  We’re avoiding the upstairs like the plague.

And when it rains, it pours.  While Rebecca was breastfeeding the other night, we heard a huge BANG! and THUD!  come from our bedroom at 3am.  After running upstairs and nervously freaking out thinking someone broke in from the roof (for reals, I had 911 pre-dialed on my phone), I was able to realize that my side of the closet organizer collapsed.  Yes, collapsed.  I’m not sure how it happened or where the weakness began, but this thing took a tumble.  About half of the unit was evenly drilled into studs (more so than the recommendations in the manual, too) with the remaining as drywall anchors.  Not cool, every last screw was ripped from the wall.  So once the AC is repaired, I have a bit of cleaning up to do followed by reinstalling a new closet unit.  Fun.

Easton has been an absolute joy to be around, so we haven’t wasted much energy worrying about the above.  We’re only a week in with him and I can barely remember what life was like before him.  And it’s been incredibly awesome how great the cats have been.  They’re not stressed at all and are always trying to interact with him, too!

There is no back story to where we came up with the name Easton.  Rebecca mentioned it one day and it just made sense for us.  As for the middle name Max, well, Max was my first name choice before Rebecca mentioned Easton.  But after some trial runs saying Max out loud, Macky would always come running towards us with his ears back.  Poor guy kept thinking we were calling him, so we couldn’t confuse him by naming this kid Max.  After all, Macky is the only cat in the house that actually knows his name.

Rebecca and Easton are doing well.  We are all trying to get into routines and what not, so it might be some time before we really get back into posting.  We have some great nursery pictures and stories to share with you all, so stay tuned!

Oh and by the way, who thought boy all along?

Yes I know, I am an excellent Photoshopper. I’m working on it Anyway, the bookcase arrived and it took us a while to get to the back of it, so it sat in the baby’s room like this…

I didn’t put anything on it but a fan to keep me cool while working in there because I knew it would all eventually have to be removed anyway.

The problem was that the almost cardboard-like back was absorbing the paint. The first coat of green we put on literally disappeared. Mike ended up having to use 2 coats of the Valspar high performance, low-VOC primer that we used on the unfinished wood boards on the paneled wall. After those 2 coats of primer, we were able use the same Olympic zero VOC paint we used for the closet (Lettuce Alone B68-3)… but we still did about 2-3 coats of that to get to the level of green we wanted.

Needless to say, between on our other projects and whatnot going on, this whole multiple coat process took us a while. Finally on Friday, we were able to attach the back to the bookcase!

It turned out so adorable and I wasted no time filling her up!

The top shelf holds, well, books.

And the bottom shelf holds a basket full of toys.

If only I could keep the toy collection limited to what fits in this basket. It’s already exceeded the basket and takes up a drawer in the closet, as well as an additional storage bin of older aged toys in our spare bedroom. When we realized that we haven’t even bought our child a single toy, nor did we register for any, we realized we need to start working on that playroom ASAP! Mike literally started working on the new office again yesterday so that we can have the old office for baby gear storage. Clutter is my arch nemesis.

The top shelf of the bookcase holds our adult books and that fabulous fan.

I love this fan because it’s 100% metal, even the switch to turn it on and off. It’s the Hunter Classic Table Fan from Target.

Next up is to come up with a gallery wall design to hang over this little bookcase. Off to Michael’s now to search for one part of it so hopefully I can get an idea of an arrangement today!

ps- Yes, still pregnant. 41 weeks tomorrow.

pps- Sorry if you tried to visit on Friday or Saturday and the site was down. Apparently there was a server upgrade we weren’t aware of that took for.ev.er. to fix.

(via JCPenney)

We have what I thought was a similar one of these in our kitchen and we’ve been happy with it. But when we hung the shade in the nursery, it folded up like this…

We’re not newbies to roman shades since we have them throughout our entire downstairs. Something about this was not bunching right. All of the Allen + Roth shades we have downstairs fold completely flat.

Exhibit A: Living Room

Exhibit B: Family Room

Exhibit C: Nursery?

The only thing we could think of is that it needed to be steamed. It is a different shade than the others and has many more folds because the windows upstairs are shorter. We would have went with our trusted Allen + Roth roman shades from Lowe’s if this window was 72″, but it’s 64″ and Lowe’s doesn’t sell those particular shades in shorter sizes. So I decided to attack it with the iron.

I couldn’t get all of those wrinkles out (and I was worried about the plastic loops melting or something if I took it down and ironed it), but it does look better than the picture above.

Since I got completely sidetracked after I ironed it and immediately started to hang the chevron curtains, the after picture was taken with my iPhone and… has the curtains in it. The Photoshopped curtains that is. Don’t try to find any hint of color in this picture, I Photoshopped it at a million times the size and I can promise you there is not a hint of pink or blue in this picture. Any color variation left is because of shadows. Mike was my quality control checker

I’ll share more detailed shots of the curtains, rod and clips when I post about the entire curtain process, but for now, the roman shade is looking better. I’ve been keeping it up and just closing the curtains, so it’s more functional to block out additional light than anything else. The curtains make up for the ugly shade

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!

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?

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!

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:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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

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

Fast forward like, 5 months. We ended up taking much longer than expected on the nursery and after painting the ceiling a dreamy blue, I decided that I didn’t want to stencil it. I focused my stencil attention on the green closet instead.

It took us a while after we painted to get to the closet, but this week I was finally able to spend some time on stenciling. Cutting Edge Stencils sent me everything I could possibly need to tackle this…. the stencil, a foam roller, a brush and a level.

The stencil also came with detailed directions, which is how I realized that I was supposed to remove the stencil from the shipping tube immediately and store it flat. Whoops. But, like I said the other day, I flattened it with some books for a day or two and it was fine.

The directions stated that you could use spray adhesive to stick the stencil to the wall. Since I started this at night and didn’t really have an open space to spray it, I decided to just use Frog Tape to stick my stencil to the wall. Please excuse the mixture of night time, day time and iPhone pictures for these in-progress shots. I had to work on this over 3 days in small increments because you know, I’m kinda really pregnant at this point

Yeah I taped the heck out of that first stencil. Since I started in the bottom corner of the closet, I decided not to use the level. It snapped on easily and worked well, but I quickly learned that the closet is not at all level! The baseboards are uneven, the side of the wall gets more narrow at the top and the level showed that it was slightly off. So I just started by lining the stencil up with the baseboard, as close to the corner as I could get and then just aligned the rest of my stencils based off of this first one.

For my method, I first started with the brush. I just personally prefer holding a brush rather than a roller so I dabbed some paint on the first two rows of dots. It was looking a little sponge painted, so I decided to try the roller on the next rows. Here is the difference between the two finishes.

I decided to go with the rolling for a more consistent paint application. You can also see from the above picture that my stencil is not completely touching the wall. I was worried this would be a problem with bleed through and that I would need the spray adhesive but it did not cause any problems! Once I rolled over a dot, the pressure applied pushed the plastic stencil flush to the wall for a clean line.

The absolute key to this process? Don’t overload your roller. I did two very thin coats of paint on each dot– too much paint at once will cause bleed through.

Once it was time for the next stencil, I just overlapped the top row of the stencil I just did with the bottom row of the one I was about to start.

I also gave it about 5-10 minutes between moving the stencil so that the outside was not soaking wet with paint when I peeled it off the wall. Mostly to protect my shirt, since my belly protrudes and pulling the stencil off made it smack into my body. It also gave me a break in between rolling. I even had Mike do most of the repositioning and taping so that I got a good 15 mins between each rolling session. I had no issues whatsoever with paint being on the back of the stencil, so I didn’t have to worry about it being completely dry when I moved it.

The halfway point (6 sheets of stencil)…

I repeated sheets like this until I got to the point where I could no longer fit a whole sheet. Then, I just overlapped the amount of dots I needed to get as close to the corners as I could.

Once I got to the top, I only needed an extra row of dots to hit the ceiling.

So I aligned my stencil with the existing dots and only had to paint the top row.

Then, I was all done!

Before…

After!

The stencil was really pretty much fool proof to use. My dots came out clean with minimal effort. This particular stencil was extremely forgiving when it came to aligning and overlapping areas.

The dot color is the same paint as our trim in the room– Olympic’s Crumb Cookie in a semi-gloss finish.

I’m so happy that I decided to stencil the closet and I can’t wait to see it with the closet organization system all in. Hopefully that piece that we’re missing arrives soon so we can get this all settled and packed with clothes!

Special thanks to Cutting Edge Stencils for sending me the stencil, roller, brush, level and inspiration. I would definitely recommend their stencils to anyone interested, the options they have are seriously endless and droolworthy.

Repetitive disclosure: I received the supplies necessary for this project in exchange for a product review. All opinions expressed are 100% mine.