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.
Spring hit Chicagoland this weekend so I have not gotten much done so far. We worked in the yard a bit. The garden looks pitiful but better than it did last year. Hopefully this trend will continue. I am just glad that the flowers have started to bloom - even if they do look a little sparse. I hope to make better progress on the bedroom today.
We are still weighing our stencil options for the frieze in each room and now we have another option: wallpaper. I hadn't really considered it before but it might not look too bad. If we crop the picture right it looks like our dining room is done. 
