Start of House Project #1: B's Bedroom

It's been a long road to starting projects in the new house, purchased in May. When we moved in, I attempted to set a very simple timeline, planning to spend approximately one month on each room. Then, VOILA, we would have a completely redone home just the way we wanted in just about a year's time. Talk about unrealistic goals...

Little did I know that "projects" include getting things organized and up to standard before starting on "actual projects" (okay, I knew but gritted my teeth about it). The garage had to be organized first so that all tools and handyman types of things could be easily found and not searched for, causing multitudes of frustration on my part. Then, because it is summer and all, the sprinkler system was a bit faulty. We can't be "those neighbors" whose grass turns brown and plants die. That was fixed next. We additionally took advantage of our home warranty on other items like a dishwasher drainage problem and some hokey pipe backup that we just didn't want to deal with ourselves. Finally, the previous owner decided to take their outside gazebo (and, again, it's summer!), so we added some outdoor ambiance with a new pergola and dining set for our deck (pics on that one to come later, too, at some point). There's also a little thing called life - plans, playdates, errands, cleaning - all take up time, too.

Finally, it was time to get down to business. We already knew what the first project was going to be. The room that we put my daughter B in had a mystery going on in one wall area. It was peeled paint of some sort, but was it water damage or did the previous owner decide to paint over wallpaper? It definitely was not water damage, but anytime you can actually peel paint off of a wall in a huge chunk can't be good. Given this hurdle, it ended up being time consuming:

Peeling away the paint: Approximately 1 week
Patching the wall: 1 day
Priming the wall: 1 day
And patching the wall again (the next weekend): 1 day
And priming the wall again: 1 day

All in all, three weeks time for this portion.

Here is the before image of the room. Note that this was a shared room by two tween boys and did smell of such upon move in. It was hard to get someone to agree to take the "boy" room, and only then did B take it because I secretly told her it was bigger than the other option.

It's very boyish, and my girl wasn't having any part of it. In any case, lesson be learned, we should have primed the whole room since the color that was picked was a rosy pink and much lighter than the boy blues and greens in this room. Next came the prep work with the blue tape, which is a total yawn task. And removing outlet covers and nails, and then some patching.

The best part about painting is getting those first few strokes of paint on the wall and getting excited about how the room is going to be transformed. Every stroke after that is painful. And because we didn't prime the whole thing, this room had to have two coats. There is nothing like having to paint a room twice after the joy is gone, making it feel like just work (actually a workout - I was sore the next day!).

Painting: 10 days (over two weekends)

The "after" shots are yet to come, since I still don't have everything anything up on the walls yet. And, as you'll see, I am being somewhat picky (understatement) about this house and having everything the way we want it because I have a feeling we are going to be here for a long time to come...