Ohhhh this’ll be a long one.  Grab a beverage and let me tire you out!

I’ll back waaaaaay up…..

The girls’ room was originally Trevor’s room, and it hasn’t been painted since before he was born.  I had painted rolling green hills and baby blue sky.  I’ve been wanting to repaint it, but the girls have bunkbeds (very heavy) and tons of things in their room, stuff on their walls, etc……so I’ve never had much desire to start the project.

This is a picture from a loooong time ago.  Probably 2003.

Just before Christmas, I had bought a new comforter for our bedroom. I really liked it, but it would require painting our bedroom walls a different color.  And it had to be  just the right shade of taupe.  To add to this, back when our remodeling was done in 2007,  there was some wall damage in our bedroom that was going to require mudding and sanding and retexturing, etc.  I’ve never had much desire to start that project either.

But I really liked the comforter and knowing that I had a four-day weekend coming up, I figured I would tackle both rooms.  I found the desire and I was ready to get busy!  I also thought it would be a good time to shampoo the carpets in the bedrooms.  (crazy, I know)

MONDAY:

I love Miller paint.  I swear there’s nothing better.  I stopped in there to check out some paint colors.  I had picked up a color swatch from Fred Meyer over the weekend and I was hoping I could find something that matched at Miller.  Unfortunately, the gal who was working there was not very helpful and I left empty-handed.

TUESDAY:

I had a light week for daycare (between Christmas and New Years) with  only 2 kids Mon-Wed and I was closed Thu and Fri.   I decided I would get a head start and start doing what I could on Wednesday.  I wanted to start painting tomorrow after work.

It snowed…about 3-4″ total I guess.  I had planned to go pick up paint that night, but since the news was showing accidents all over the place- and it took Jim over an hour to get home….I didn’t dare go brave the roads.

I had promised the kids that I would take them all to McDonalds on Wednesday- so I figured we could go pick up paint then.

Jim was kind enough to run to Bi-Mart and pick up 2 cans of orange-peel wall texture spray for me, so I spent the evening spackling and patching our bedroom, and also spackled several spots in the girls’ room as well.

WEDNESDAY:

It’s the 30th.  It’s funny how when you have a house full of 6-8 kids all the time, that a house full of 3-5 seems like nothing??  Sure, I can take 5 kids to McDonalds…no problem!

The snow was mostly melted, so all five of us headed out the door.  First to Goodwill to drop off some stuff.  Then we went to Fred Meyer so I could pick up some paint (I didn’t dare take six kids to Miller!).  They were all so patient as I picked out the perfect pink for the girls room….and the perfect taupe color for our bedroom.  I picked Dutch Boy Paint.  He mixed the pink, but told me he could not mix the taupe as they were out of the yellow additive.  UGH!

The kids were all so well behaved.  Next we went to McDonalds- and given the time, decided to go through the drive-thru and eat it at home.

While they napped I went back and sanded the wall damage in the master bedroom, spray textured the repair areas, then I painted the window sill and trim (it was still raw wood from the remodel).  I had leftover paint, so I taped off the sills in the family room and started painting those, too!  When I cleaned up from that project I grabbed the new pink paint and started handpainting the edges of the ceiling and around the window, door, floor, etc of the girls room.   I quickly realized that I was going to need to apply at least 4 coats.  Not happy. I could not cover the grass green and sky blue to my satisfaction with just 2 coats….and I only had the one gallon of paint.  (I will NEVER buy Dutch Boy paint again!)

After work, I decided to go back to Miller paint.  They sold me some pink tinted primer to cover the girls colorful walls so that I could get by with just the one gallon of DB that I had.  While there, I also picked up the Acro Lite paint in the taupe color (they matched the Dutch Boy color for me!)

So Wednesday evening was spent painting one coat of primer in the girls room.  That was all I had time for!

THURSDAY (NEW YEAR’S EVE):

Thursday morning I painted one coat in our bedroom and it was glorious!  So smooth, good coverage, I love Miller paint.  I probably could have gotten away with just one coat, but I decided I’d do two.   But I had to wait for the first one to dry.

So I decided to run to Stark’s vacuum to pick up one of their commercial carpet shampooers.  Figuring since most of the furniture was out of the room, and I had an extra long weekend, it would be a good time to shampoo, too.  They were closed on New Years Day, so I would get a free bonus day.

After we came home, I painted the window sills in the playroom, and a second coat on the window sills in the family room.  Had leftover paint again, so I painted two walls of floor trim. I painted a second coat of primer on the girls’ room (why not?).  Painted a 2nd coat of taupe in our room.  Jim came home about 4:30.  We had dinner and watched a movie with the girls.  I wasn’t ready to sit still for a 2nd movie, so I got up and painted the first coat of Dutch Boy pink in the girls’ room while they all watched G-Force.  After that, I was done for the evening.

We went to bed around 1:00am.  Happy New Year!

FRIDAY:

This morning I was up at 8am!  Checked the girls room- 1 coat looks great!  But decided I’d do a second on the most ‘exposed’ areas.  Finished that up, pulled up the paper trim from our room, put outlet covers back on and got our room ready to shampoo.  Shampooed that, then repeated the process (pulling paper, etc) in the girls’ room.  Including the shampooing part.  This was all before the Rose Bowl.

I should add that all the furniture and stuff from the girls room had been piled up in our front living room.  So was everything from our room.   We had friends over to watch the game with us….our house was a disaster and highly fumed.

While the game was on, I mostly got our bedroom back together- moving furniture back in and connecting the TV, etc.  After our guests left, I decided it was time to shampoo Trevor’s room- so EVERYTHING came out of there….and into the living room along with all the stuff from the girls’ room!

I finished shampooing his room, had a half tank of water and solution left, so went down the hallway.  Still had some left, so I did the entry way.  Then the area outside the kitchen, to the back door.  Carpets are now clean.  Just damp.

SATURDAY:

Up early today?  Hmmm…..I think it was 6:30 when I got out of bed.  Started moving things out of the living room and back into the appropriate bedrooms.

BUT……

I wanted to duplicate a wall organizer that I had seen in the IKEA 2009 catalog.  I thought it would be perfect for the girls room.  It has always been in the back of my mind.

While eating breakfast, Jim asked me what I wanted to do today….and I broke the news.  I wanted to go to IKEA and I was planning on spending big bucks there.

He had to sit on that idea for a while, so in the meantime (just in case!) I used IKEA’s  online software to create the girls room with the appropriate dimensions to make sure everything I wanted to pick-up would fit right.

And a couple hours later- we were on the road!

And a few hours later- we were back home with a truck full of furniture waiting to be assembled.

Saturday was spent assembling 2 Expedit bookcases.  1 Jonas desk with drawer set.  1 Mikael desk with drawer set.  The wall shelves will have to wait!  It basically took Jim and I EACH three hours to assemble everything.  We worked independently, figuring it would go faster that way with less arguments

SUNDAY:

The girls room is back together.  It is PINK.  Bubblegum pink.  It is so pink, that we had to repaint the wall visible from our bedroom white…. so I did three coats of white paint on their ‘entry’ wall.

The desk  unit was a huge hit.  Even Trevor was hanging out in there Saturday afternoon and spent the night in there, too!  It easily seats 2 kids with the one side pulled out.  The girls each have their own storage unit to keep their toys and books and belongings in.  I plan to hang the shelves next weekend.

[Update: here’s a link to the finished room]

I’m really happy with how our master bedroom turned out…it’s so luxurious.

I can’t wait to hang up the artwork and photographs we had framed recently.  We finally have a modern and “grown-up” feeling room.  LOVE IT.