Progress

There's still a lot to do.  Build a desk, hang a mural, find or create some artwork for the walls.  Find a comfy chair.

But it's getting there!  Finished the window treatments today.  Here are a few photos for the curious.

Yes, those are actual deer hides on the windows.  It was Ray's touch to have their little white tails flicked up like they are fleeing from danger.  The antlers on the ledge are all real and courtesy of a departed relative.

It's turning into a genuine little Man Cave and Aidan is so happy with it so far.  And I must say, spending the day making and installing window treatments is way more gratifying than the two weeks spent painting.

Silver linings

People keep pinging me....  "How's Aidan's room?  Are you done yet?"

Gawd no.

I don't know why I ever think I can get stuff like this done quickly.  It seems something goes wrong at every step, things take longer that I estimate, I don't have as many hours in a day as I think I do.

Paint.  Simple, right?  Sigh.  Two weeks later, I'm done.  It's a big room.  With a very high ceiling.  Trim, paint ceiling, hand paint 1 coat of primer over all the bold colors, roll on primer, roll on color.  With all the wonky angles, 5 windows, 3 doors, ledge, drop ceiling over door, bay window, angled ceiling, etc. It took a lot of cutting by hand.

Silver lining?  I had 2+ gallons left over from doing Ray's office and also used the same color for the common areas of the house.  Turns out it was perfect for Aidan's room too.

New blinds.  No more crappy white plastic, replace with dark wood.  Problems.  Lots of problems.  Fit problems, quality problems, hardware problems, missing parts, jury-rig stuff.  Take stuff back.  Get new parts.  Do the fussy, fiddly work of shortening them.  Curse the mounting system for the valence strips.  Curse it some more.  Loudly.  Daily.

Silver lining?  I want to say the satisfaction of a job well done, but I'm still not done.  Having trouble mounting the valence strips, and even though these will eventually be covered by the top treatments, I want to to be a job well done, dammit.  I hate short cuts.  I guess for now, the silver lining will be that Aidan's room gets much darker than it did before and he will like that a lot.

Oh, I know!  The old blinds will go on "freecycle" instead of into the landfill.  That could count as a silver lining, right?  Something "green" to make up for my questionable paint brush cleaning technique?

Bedding.  Easy, right?  Not so much.  None of the stores I have hit have the "European" size sham stuffer.  Bed skirt.......  Aidan's bed doesn't have a box spring, the mattress is on a board on wood rails.  How to utilize the bed skirt?  Clear out enough space in the room to flip the bed over (me strong like ox!).  Use velcro to painstakingly attach the bedskirt to the bottom of the bed.  Much more time-consuming than the usual bed-skirt installation.  And it is made especially hard as I seem to have broken both thumbnails down to the quick during this project and I have a lot of trouble peeling the backing off.

Silver lining?  Being a "crafty HoMo" (that's HomeMaker, get yer mind outta the gutter), I already had a spool of velcro and did NOT have to venture out on yet another trek for project supplies.

And that's it.  That is all I've gotten done.  Besides replacing all the switch plate covers.

I still have a lot to do.  Somehow turn 2 deerhides and 8 drawer knobs (as yet to be received, check on that), into top treatments for the windows.  Build a desk, but that is Ray's job.  In his "spare" time.  Find seating, find or create artwork, and other wall stuff such as a bulletin board system.

Oh.  And the mural.  Yeah, there's that.  Wall-sized, gorgeous, and supposedly pretty hard to hang.  I'm trying not to let it intimidate me.

Oh.  And the bathroom.  Um, yeah.  Strip wallpaper, texture the walls.  Ugh.

Think I'll be done by 2011?  Thanks for listening.

First Project of the New Year....

..... Aidan's room!

He's DONE with the fish theme.  It was here when we bought the house, and I'm glad he liked it.

So....  first on the agenda is PAINT.  It's gonna be a project.  The doors and trim are pretty banged up and full of stickers, etc.  You know I'll never be able to match the trim paint exactly, so I can't just spot paint, sigh....  The prior inhabitant of the room put a LOT of screw and nail holes into the walls, and of course the whole thing will have to be primed before I can put the new color (boring beige) on the wall.

Why, oh why, oh why does the prep work take DAYS and the actual painting only take a few hours?

Prepping a room for paint is always a humbling experience and an unpleasant reminder of my less-than-adequate housekeeping skills....

His new room will be a "rustic" theme....  think distressed leather, deer antlers, animal skins and lots of wood.  Ray is building him a new desk and I'm still noodling ideas for window treatments, shelves, etc.

Stay tuned!