Once upon a time it was October and our little house had reduced its number of residents by one and Mommy jumped headlong into the massive undertaking of fixing up a bedroom for her older daughter.
And I'm not sorry! I know it took several months, and so much time and energy, especially from Troy, but the end result has been so fun and so worth it. Were there curse words uttered over the hellscape we call sheetrock installation? Did I develop black lung and tennis elbow from sanding joint compound? Are there a few imperfections here and there that we are studiously overlooking? Yes, yes and YES! But truly I am so thrilled, and that's only half as thrilled as both of the girls are to have their own spaces.
Here's a photo of the insulation, which I'm not sure why I'm including. That freaking stuff is awful to touch. But it was pretty exciting to get it installed after we finished adding of all the lumber in the beams to get a flat surface for the drywall.
Here's the sheetrock all up on the ceiling. We almost didn't make it through that. It's incredibly frustrating. We rented a sheetrock lift from a friendly neighbor on the local classifieds, and that helped, but freak we hated it. Troy got so grumpy on one day, understandably so, that he was ready to chuck a hammer through the window. Just at that moment, he accidentally dumped a tray of drywall dust all down his front. The tray was meant to help contain the mess of drilling holes into the drywall, and there it went, from eyebrows to belly button. He said it was actually super comical, especially the look of abject terror on my face when it happened. Luckily we made it through the trauma of sheetrocking and I would like Troy to never have to do it again. It sucks.
Next came mudding and sanding all of the seams and screw heads. I finally felt like I could be more helpful. I had a steep learning curve, and definitely did better on the screw heads than on the seams, and I am far from being adept at this skill. But I did feel like I could do work during the day. I will say that I did not enjoy the sanding part. We now refer to sanding drywall as the 5th circle of hell.
There is one good part about sanding joint compound, which is the fun art project you get to create when you make prints of your sweaty, dusty face on your husband's chest.
Then on this one Saturday, we declared that we were done with the mudding, taping and sanding. Despite being very tired and dirty, we couldn't wait to start putting some primer on those horribly red walls. (Curse you, Pottery Barn catalogue, for publishing photos of cozy little bedsides in rooms with dark red walls. I was seduced by you and spent 20 years regretting it!) What a divine treat to start to cover them up. It took a LOT of primer but we did it.
We took several trips to Home Depot over the course of the project to pick out paint colors. It was like a fun little field trip, looking ahead to the happiest part of the project. It ended up being quite a bit more challenging that I expected. We brought home, and I am not exaggerating, at least 35 little paint chip cards, all of them being in gray family. I thought it would be easy to find just the right color, a light and warm gray. That color is impossible! At one point we were sure we found it, and went and bought the paint (the nice, expensive stuff), and painted a big swatch of one wall. Well, the lights in that room are very warm, and the color just looked beige. How can I like warm gray so much and dislike beige just as much? I don't know but somehow I do. It was quite the bummer. Back to square one. Each paint chip I looked at still looked sandy brown in those lights! Finally I went with a cool gray, and I liked it. I got a small sample of the paint, put it on the wall, and I was super pleased. It looked like a warm light gray. Yay! Buy the paint!
Once it got up on the walls...it looked much cooler than I expected. Cool as in temperature. It almost looks blue. I have no idea what happened but guess what. We all really like it anyway. I think it's lovely.
And then....one night....it was DONE!!!! Getting the plastic and boards off of the floor was the best feeling ever. I vacuumed joyfully for a good hour. And I couldn't help it, I started moving furniture in that night. OCD much? Oh no, not me!
I'm so happy. I'm so relieved it's done. We have continued to add some things, like a desk and shelves and some sparkly lights. It's been so fun for Romney to move into her space. But you know, I was feeling bad for Emma, who wasn't getting anywhere near as much work and attention from us. So I didn't wait a single hour before going to work on her room.
I don't have any before photos, which is too bad! They were sharing such a small space - two dressers and a bunk bed in there. We got rid of one old crummy dresser. (We meant to set it out on the curb as a freebee but then I was dumb and tipped it the wrong way and the drawers crashed to the ground and basically exploded so then it joined me on a one-way trip to the dump. Sorry, Troy. Not my best moment.) We emptied the room, scrubbed the walls and Emma sorted through all of her stuff and really simplified. We chopped off the top of the bunkbed, which later became firewood for us on a cold day when the power company cut power for a day while they did work on our street. It was a fitting end to the old thing. Emma's space, though still in need of updating, is so much nicer. I was glad to give her my full attention and not make her wait another day for some parental elbow grease in her honor. She is also delighted with having her own space.
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