Pragmatic Compendium

I knocked over a domino: the game room makeover.

All I wanted to do was donate a piece of furniture to our church’s annual rummage sale, the WHALE of a Sale. Here’s my facebook version of the last few days:

If you empty an entertainment center to donate it to the FUMCO Whale of a Sale, you’ll be able to see the wall behind it. If you see the wall behind it, you’ll be reminded that you were too lazy to move the entertainment center when you painted the wall eight years ago. When you see the half painted wall, you’ll be compelled to finally paint it. Of course, in order to paint the wall, you’ll have to empty the bookshelves flanking the entertainment center and move all the furniture into the middle of the room. While you wait for the primer on the wall to dry, and since you are already holding a roller filled with primer, you will go ahead and prime the ceiling in the kitchen. Still waiting for the primer on the wall to dry, you will look at the mess you made and ask yourself “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!”

Here’s the first domino. A partially emptied entertainment center
(that’s a DIY charging station in the place where the TV used to be).

After I started emptying the piece, I was reminded that when I painted the room eight years ago, I skipped this wall and covered it up with furniture.

(Hey, don’t judge me, my kids were much younger and my husband traveled a lot. Hiding an unpainted wall with furniture was a brilliant idea at the time.)

This time, however, I was compelled to paint the wall. I always have leftover primer in the garage and that dark green paint would need it if I was going to cover it up. And I happened to have an unopened can of “Lost Atlantis” blue paint by Behr. I dug right in. The room was torn apart, loaded boxes of stuff were carried into the attached living room, furniture was moved in the middle of the room, paint was opened, stirred and poured.

And then.

I realized that while I had half a dozen roller covers, there was not ONE roller in the house.

Tangent Confession: All the paint rollers in my house meet the same fate. I begin painting. When I am finished (or when I get bored) I put the roller and its cover in a plastic bag while I begin cleaning up, because I often find “holidays” on the wall and I need the roller to touch up. Then I forget the roller. Weeks (or months) later, after it is petrified and no longer turns, I throw it away.

So a trip to Home Depot later, I started painting. That was Saturday. Sunday after church was spent sorting, purging, organizing and boxing up donations. Ten years of accumulated toys and kid paraphernalia packed up for the WHALE of a Sale.

Monday, I painted the rest of the room. And let me say. I am good at painting trim. But I HATE IT.

Did I mention I HATE PAINTING TRIM? Takes for flippin EVER.

But. It’s done. I spent days with smurf marks all over my arms and legs and I was a little worried that the cheap laziness which led to me use the paint I already had in the garage would produce a dark cave, but with the white furniture, it’s actually VERY warm and comfortable. I’ll be framing family photos and cool quotes in black frames . . . soon. Theoretically. And I’ll be on the lookout at Whale of a Sale for chairs to replace these as soon as possible.

(click the photos to zoom in. and that’s a lazy black cat hanging out of the cubby.)

Still room for the downstairs printer and the charging station my husband made a few years ago. I also hooked up the stereo I purchased at LAST year’s Whale of a Sale and had still not set up.

The mail station has been slightly reorganized and the stack of paper that had been covering it is now on my kitchen counter waiting to be sorted. woo. hoo.

My husband’s favorite thing is the way I displayed these chess boards. He and his dad made them together when he was a kid. I love the way the brown and gold look against that blue.

And what do I do in this room? I get my GAME on.

So now, I’m on a painting roll (pun intended). PinkGirl has been begging me for a room makeover for months. She’s having a slumber party in November. The before and after photos I took the last time we remade her room are in this post: from pink to pinkalicous. But here’s one of six of those after photos to give you an idea of the project I’m entrenched in today. and tomorrow. And Thursday…

WHAT am I thinking?

September 18, 2012 - Posted by Julie Stiles Mills | fragments, freakishly organized, home sweet home, intentional living, laugh!, motivation, poor me some whine, status updates | blue, charging station, cleaning, decorating, game room, mail station, organization, organize, painting, pragmatic