When you take a 2 and a 1/2 year old to Lowe's

I had to pick up some more supplies for my ongoing work on the bedroom. I decided to get my daughter, Sophie, out of my wife’s hair for a little while so I brought her with me to Lowe’s. We browsed through the aisles, looking at picture rail, stains; I had to pick up some more rags and gloves. While rounding the corner of the paint aisle, something caught my daughter’s eye: the children’s room decorating section. She screamed, “Dora, Dora”.

Against my better judgment, I decided to guide the cart over to that area of the store and figured it wouldn’t hurt to take a look at some of the things they had. My daughter went absolutely crazy, as if she had found some magical world where all of her favorite cartoon characters existed at once, together. I gave in to her please and we picked out some stickers of Dora for her to put up in her room she also wanted wallpaper, border, a nightlight, and a million other things that I did not want to be party to.

The stickers supposedly come off the wall without leaving any marks. We had a fun time putting them up (though I think if Sophie had her way, she would have put them in one tight cluster above the door).

In addition to this small excursion, I took down the crown molding/picture rail. Instead of trying to salvage it, I bought new and my friend, Pete helped me stain it to be put up in its proper location. Taking down the molding did not cause too much damage though I will have a little work to do in the plaster repair department. The wood is coming along nicely but the process is very slow.

Growing tired of the bedroom, I decided to re-visit the basement and to try and actually finish that room. I replaced the curved soffit with a straight one and finished up the trim work in that room. All I have left is to finish the lattice on the soffit and the basement is officially done. Kind of scary – since this was the first project I started when we moved in. The lanterns in the basement are additions by Sophie; celebrating Chinese New Year a month and a half too late.

Second Bedroom Completed

I am not sure how we let our daughter stay in that room for so long. Now that the second bedroom has been cleaned, re-painted, and had some of the plaster fixed, it looks like an entirely different place. All we have left to do is to re-paint the closet door, strip and re-finish the main door and then hang some artwork then we are finished with one room in the house.

It took quite a bit of work to get it to this point. Ileana even pitched in for the final painting of the lower walls. We realized a couple of things while working on the room. First, the paint job that used to be in this room was terrible. Perhaps the previous painters were blind? If you want to see the previous room, you can see "before" pics on the blog from May 28th and check out the two images with the yellow walls (yes, this room used to be carpeted and there were shutters on the windows!). Second, I believe that the light fixture from the back hall used to be the original fixture for this room. It would look nice but the wiring would have to be re-worked to put it back. I am not sure we'll be taking on that project. Finally, I hate blue masking tape - it is just not compatable with old houses. A lot of the upper trim is not "cut-in" properly because I used that crap. I can do a better job cutting in a straight line by hand than I can with the tape. By far, the most disturbing thig we learned is that 93.9fm in Chicago is now playing Christmas music 24-7. We haven't even taken down our Haloween decorations!

I am not sure if the colors look "right" on the computer. The previous post, with the color chart looks a little more like the real thing. I think, all in all, the colors look pretty good. Ileana still does not know what to think of the ceiling being darker than the trim. Personally, I hate "ceiling white" so I am very happy with it.