Remodeling

Since a the week before New Year's, we've been doing some remodeling of our house. I always enjoy the look of a freshly painted room and rearranged furniture. In fact, I am great at starting a project, it's just the "seeing it through to completion" that I have trouble with. This particular project was in our den. We were using it for a computer room, but it seemed to collect junk more often then not. Papers were stacked all over the roll-top computer desk, books and toys haphazard, excercise equipment, file cabinets, and the wood floor was getting torn up by the rolling desk chair. It's just not enjoyable to be in a room that looks like a small hurricane hit it. It was time to make this room into a usable space...

The boys and I took the roll-top desk apart and took it up to the master bedroom. It matches our furniture and we have the room for it. Then it was time to attack the wallpaper. Have I mentioned that I have come to thoroughly dislike wallpaper. The stuff is a pain to put up, but even more of a pain to take down. Only one of the walls had wallpaper covering it, but I think they put it on with gorilla glue. It took off parts of the drywall with it.

After doing a massive, two hour job of mudding to fill in the gouges, rough spots, and exposed drywall paper on the far wall, I painted the trim. Early the following morning, my two ambitious boys asked if they could start painting the walls. "Sure." It took me until I was half-way through with making breakfast to realize that I hadn't sanded the wall that was almost entirely covered with mud! I went into an utter panic. I was mumbling words that weren't really words, just jibberish. I'm sure the kids thought I was going nuts. The wall looked horrible with bumps all over it! It is impossible to sand after it's already been painted because the paint will gum up the sander. There was nothing to do but scrape off the big bumps and mud the wall over again...

We finally got the painting done. I wasn't sure how the dark color would look in such a small room, but it really gives it a warm, cozy feeling. The den/computer room now has a new name... The Study. Sounds formal. It is as it sounds. A quiet place to read or study. Toys, games, rough play and loud noises have been banned from the room. It has come to be one of my favorite rooms in the house to sit and read while enjoying a hot cup of tea, and I can rely on it to be a clean and orderly place to escape :)