Wanderlust

Owen's Room

This is the "Before" shot of Owen's room. When we first moved into our new house, top on the list was painting the baby's room (right after putting crazy glue on the neighbor's car door handles). Previously, it had been a non-descript white and the former owners seemed to prefer using as little paint as possible because the older color, which was blue, occasionally showed through in spots. Cheap Mormon bastards. They also had not sanded or washed the walls previous to painting and I often found short black hairs directly painted into the wall. Yes, this is thoroughly disgusting. But living with two dogs will kind of numb you to the gross out factor of human hair in your food, let alone on your wall. It's not like I regularly lick the wall. Not much anyway.

So about two weekends ago, we moved everything out of Owen's room into a pile in the middle of living room floor, where everything seems to reside indefinitely until we can get the ambition to actually put it away. I sanded the walls, washed them, plastered the various holes and then on my 30th birthday, George and I celebrated by applying the first coat of green. I know. Real party animals. Initially, I was a tad bit concerned because it looked kind of pastel and while I wouldn't mind if Owen was gay because I'm sure someday I'll hate his girlfriend, I wouldn't want to outright encourage it. But a second coat darkened the hue and I decided to do a brown trim around the doors and windows to match the 70's style brown carpet which we have no intention of replacing because we are poorer than we should be. The "After" shots may or may not be an accurate representation of the true color, but Miles looks cool and that's all that counts.

It took nearly two weeks of application, sanding, washing and rewashing and touch up. I still need to get a small bit of white and touch up some noticeably green spots on the ceiling and we decided not to paint the closet because it was just too much god damn work. But overall it's done and we're ready to put together the crib (thanks again Mom and Dad!) and set up Owen's room. (Hopefully we'lll get that done before he arrives but the way things are going lately I'm not holding my breath) Now I have to compile a list of "must haves" so we can take care of that before the chaos of the Christmas season, when I'd rather slit my throat than go within five miles of the mall.

I love redoing rooms... but I'd love it even more if I could just come up with the idea and then have someone else REDO it. Seems like so much less work that way. I know Martha Stewart would agree.